I'm not sure I agree with all the 10s. Thought I'd find something far more compelling than what I got. It's not bad by any means and I enjoyed the show all the way through. Does it answer all the questions you have? Not really. But some of the answers don't really matter anyway and I didn't really care about them anyhow
But it's still not something I would really care to watch or recommend particularly. It's a love story at its core. Almost everything else is merely set dressing even if it's quite compelling. The mystery pulls you through but ultimately, I don't think I liked some of the characters enough to care about what they wanted or went through. Especially in the first season, almost every character is decidedly unlikeable and even by the final season, some of them remain quite selfish and arrogant. I don't mind the ending but the off-screen resolutions to most of the characters felt throwaway. I wish we'd got more at the end with everyone involved rather than just two of the characters cause even if they're unlikeable, I was still compelled to see their journeys
Not sure I liked this show as much as everyone else did but you don't have to believe me
Fantastic storytelling, gripping performances, fascinating concept. When I first read this show's description, I thought it was just going to be a generic show similar to the likes of 'The Returned' and other shows that deal with people disappearing/returning unexpectedly. These presumptions put me off watching this show for far too long. Now that I've finished it, I only wish I had watched it immediately after hearing about it.
I'll admit, I was a bit iffy about season 1. I spent most of the season tuning in and out, as I found Laurie's story to be annoying and I didn't like what was going on with Tom either. I was also trying to make up my mind if I liked what the show was trying to do or not. The stuff with Patty following Kevin around was weird at first and I wasn't a fan, but eventually, I started to really enjoy it. But once we got to the end of the season and then on to season 2... I just couldn't stop watching. Season 2 is easily one of the best seasons of television I've ever seen, it's fantastic. Season 3 I felt was a bit of a letdown at times, but overall was still very good, and the finale was as good as we were ever gonna get for this show, answering just the right amount of questions while leaving us pondering over others.
The performances in this show really cannot be applauded enough, especially the performance from Carrie Coon as Nora Durst. The characters in this show are all flawed and deeply complex, and their stories are almost all beautifully told. The direction in this show is also fantastic, and the use of music as an emotive tool is some of the best I've ever experienced. There were times where music would play and it would get me hyped up, and others where the music on its own almost brought tears to my eyes.
This show definitely has its issues. There are some low points with certain characters getting more screentime than I'd have liked (mainly during the first season), but overall, I cannot recommend this show enough. It's not the usual crap, and it does what it does very well. Episode 8 of season 2 is such a bizarre, bold episode, and it might be one of my favourite hours of TV ever. This show takes lots of risks, and I believe that those risks pay off well for the most part. The show's length is also perfect. There are so many shows that go on and on, season after season, and they diminish in quality as they go on. Networks enjoy milking the popular series to get all they can out of them. The Leftovers does not have this issue, and it ends at a perfect point. It's neither too long nor too short. It's not daunting for a new viewer to approach, because the seasons aren't overly long, and there's only 3 to get through. Yet at the same time, you don't have to worry about getting attached to the show only for it to end/be cancelled after it just gets going.
Season 1: 7.5/10
Season 2: 9.5/10
Season 3: 8.5/10
Overall: 9/10
WORTH WATCHING! STRONGLY RECOMMENDED!
This is possibly the best show I’ve ever seen in terms of cinematography, soundtrack, narrative, writing and character development. Not a light show at all, The Leftovers explores human fragility and the overcoming of grief. The plot of the show is the mystery surrounding the great disappearance - the vanishing of 2% of the worlds population. However, this is not the focus of the story. Very Hegelian in its ending, the show explores the various ways through which humans try and often fail to overcome trauma through the use of a small town of characters.
Season 1 is a bit of a rough start. Clearly the show-writers were trying to find their feet and an interesting premise is undermined by a mismatched thread of plot lines that leave you wanting more. Stick with it though. Season 2 is a remarkable improvement and Season 3 is the only season of a show to-date that I have given a 10/10. Ending a tv show is difficult - just look at Game of Thrones - but it is even more difficult when that show centres around a mystery. As Lindelof found out with Lost, a show needs to have a satisfying enough ending that the viewer is doesn’t want more answers but also is not left with an anti-climax. The Leftovers deals with the ending impeccably and this alone places it among the greatest of TV shows ever made.
Re-watching this series and knowing how it ends, it’s more appropriate, perhaps, to describe how I recall feeling after first watching this episode air...or even how I imagine first-time-viewers may feel heading towards the series finale. So I’ll leave this Weldon Keys poem:
—
No butler, no second maid, no blood upon the stair.
No eccentric aunt, no gardener, no family friend
Smiling among the bric-a-brac and murder.
Only a suburban house with the front door open
And a dog barking at a squirrel, and the cars Passing.
The corpse quite dead. The wife in Florida.
Consider the clues: the potato masher in a vase,
The torn photograph of a Wesleyan basketball team,
Scattered with check stubs in the hall;
The unsent fan letter to Shirley Temple,
The Hoover button on the lapel of the deceased,
The note: “To be killed this way is quite all right with me.”
Small wonder that the case remains unsolved,
Or that the sleuth, Le Roux, is now incurably insane,
And sits alone in a white room in a white gown,
Screaming that all the world is mad, that clues
Lead nowhere, or to walls so high their tops
cannot be seen;
Screaming all day of war, screaming that
nothing can be solved.” –– Weldon Keys
S02E08 – “International Assassin” -- When it first aired on HBO just a few years ago, this episode was immediately praised by its modest — yet fervent — fans & critics alike. Touted as the best hour of The Leftovers, which is no small achievement given the tightrope walk the narrative’s format had to perfectly navigate. Of course with the gift of hindsight, it’s easy to look back at this episode as “just par for the course,” since every episode of the final (3rd) season doubled down on this one’s morally nuanced & fearlessly unconventional approach to storytelling. But “International Assassin” shouldn’t be retroactively re-graded just because the final season of this criminally-underrated TV series served up nothing but curvebusters. In fact, The Leftovers was always special, and I have no doubt that future audiences find this stellar series and share my sentiment; while Season 01 proved to be a worthy meditation on how our society faces — or in some cases aggressively avoids facing — grief, trauma, loss, and isolation, Season 02 takes off with such a drastically advanced setting & tone that it almost leaves viewers whiplashed (in the best way), where it breaks through the ceiling and into lower earth orbit with S02E08...and everything that follows in the remaining Season 02 and all of Season 03 is nothing short of auteur television. While the world was so caught up in Breaking Bad’s ending, or Game of Thrones best seasons — a little series called The Leftovers left an indelible mark on television history, one that deserves to be mentioned among the likes of The Wire, The Americans, and Deadwood.
Review by JSalariBlockedParent2018-09-10T01:48:49Z
Put simply, one of the finest TV shows ever made, up there with The Wire and Breaking Bad. The Leftovers is far more than its mystery, it's about its characters and how they react to this new world and the changes brought before them. It's not about delving into ideas of why the event happened, it's about people that were already broken before it, and how disaster brought that into the light. I don't want to get too much into what makes the show great, because that would be spoiling it. You just need to know that if you want to go into The Leftovers hoping to have a Lost style mystery, in the hopes that everything will be revealed in time, then you should probably alter your expectations or watch Lost again. This is about the people, and that's what makes it truly great.
The Leftovers will make you laugh, it will make you cry (oh boy, will it make you cry) and it will make you happy that someone even attempted to make a show so bold, ambitious and complete, that you will never forget. It was criminally underwatched when it was airing, but now you can watch the whole thing. Do yourself a favour and watch every minute of this masterpiece.