With the show in it’s third and final season, along with it being the most criminally overlooked show on television at the moment, it needs all the love it can get. Which is why this thread exists. Get on in here if you watch this masterpiece! PS. Please be sure to cover up any spoilers
I am IN LOVE with this show. I was already hooked during season 1. But when it shifted ever so slightly in season 2 into a more balanced, less aggressively melancholy show, it became one of my favorite TV shows ever. During ‘International Assassin’ my mouth was agape.
I too want to spread the love, but I’m not caught up on last night’s ep so I’m gonna bow out until later.
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The back half of season 2 included some of the best television I have ever seen, hands down. Cant wait to hear some opinions on last nights episode!
Last week I was delighted by the joke theme song choice but then this week I hated the joke theme song choice, so I am very conflicted about the joke theme songs right now.
I will always regret the year my dad asked for the Richard Cheese Christmas album and I made the mistake of buying it for him.
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The perfect strangers theme for the episode 2 opening was insanely perfect. I really hope they go the route of a different song for each episode though, because like you I was not enthralled with last nights choice (but I love the original and even the Marilyn Manson cover) although i did feel it was a good fit for the episode in particular
i think the creators of the show thought it was going to be much bigger than it actually is and they have stuck with that idea. sometimes im watching it and im like who ever wrote this really wants someone on tumblr to make a gifset of this dialogue or something like that.
I heard someone else say the same thing about unbreakable kimmy schmidt, that its being written to eventually be made into 6 second social media clips or something.
My biggest problem with it is how it acts like all the retconing it does is intentional or on the nose or its subverting the definition of “bottle episode” by making each episode have some bottle episode-y elements.
I really am enjoying the show tho and if i said it hasnt made me stare at the ceiling listening to where is my mind like a total douchebag id be lying.
also i think the show is very annoying about the way it treats race
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Yeah it does get very self indulgent at points, but thats to be expected when the creator of lost is running the show.
And sometimes it does feel like its flying by the seat of its pants in terms of some of the bigger plot points, especially regarding season 2. But there is enough set up/ pay off for me to ignore that.
What about the way the show treats race annoys you? I understand that season 1 was particularly white, but this isnt a complaint I can say I have ever heard about the show?
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i dont know like i feel like the show is inviting viewers to interpret the relationship between resistance and repression. i just dont think in a semi apocalyptic event the biggest challenge to the status quo will be the depression cult and not what ever made twenty-first century nationalism happen.
i think shows like breaking bad although not overtly about race but is about crime and cops and all that have a good fallback in that the show exists outside of reality. theres a real lack of realism like no one in the show’s universe celebrates christmas and other cultural touchstones or landmarks are very ambiguous
although the leftovers is very i dont know fantastical? like sometimes i feel like im watching rick and morty…the show is asking a very specific question that is “what if…this happened to us” and i think the answer will be a whole lot of racism and the showrunners ignore that like the GR has solved racism in the cult you literally see a very diverse representation of the american population and for some reason these people who have serious problems with the society they belong to (as shown in season 2) are cured of racism? i just dont think that possible
anyways i hate rooting for cops but here i am maybe the aspects of the main characters career and family business if you can call it that are a deconstruction of cop shows but idk
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Terrific show, just finished the latest episode. I’m the weirdo who slightly preferred season 1 over 2 probably, although International Assassin is one of the best episodes of TV I’ve ever seen. I always thought the GR was the show’s weakest aspect, it distracted from what was truly compelling. I thought Liv Tyler’s character was supremely annoying and almost cartoony in her villainy. The whole wide-eyed breathy whisper thing just annoyed me. Glad the GR isn’t really a factor in the show anymore.
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Whew. Lots to unpack here. Not to sound condescending or dismissive but I think the main thing is that The Leftovers takes place in a VERY different world than ours. Not to say that the great departure would neccesarily cure racism, but when a couple million people up and vanish from earth I would struggle to see how people could find it in their hearts to devote effort to discriminating others when they all now share such a common issue. Also I think just because we havent SEEN it does not mean it doesnt take place. There are still 5 episodes left as well so who knows. It would be interesting to see a post apocalyptic show adress how race relations would ease or worsen under such odd circumstances.
About people not celebrating christmas or cultural touchstones I think its very in line with the shows reality, where peoples faith and beliefs are put in question in such a way that it drives you to either side of the spectrum. You either give up or go all in.
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Yeah the GR popping up in season 2 felt so forced and was probably the weakest aspect of that season and I cant say I miss Liv Tylers character(I even forgot her name)
ive always thought about how it will definitely mutate the systems of oppression but the show doesnt recognize that. i think it absolutely takes place in a world different than us but the show doesnt act like it does. i think the ultimate problem with the show, that goes in line with the deftness towards race, is how it assumes a normality about pre-departure life. this is because the show wants to display something everyone can understand (the normal nuclear family, the police chief, the preacher, the overworked mom, etc) and depict how life mutates from there. as time goes on in the show you find out the people arent that normal but perhaps are normal to television. those elements normal to television include adultery and murder and such.
what im coming back to here is that the show is very smart in predicting what will happen if this happens. like the gary bucey thing, the national park thing, and the cult thing all seem very realistic and thought out. there hasnt been the same level of thought towards a lot of real world issues that these characters would of 100 percent dealt with prior to the departure especially in the police, academic, and medical environments that the main characters have occupied.
i think the show tackles a lot so i really do understand why they arent tackling all the ugly things in the world. its a lot to ask for i know so i will just wait it out to the finale i can see how i might be preemptively judging the show here. its still really great imo
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So far the 3rd season has good, however the 3rd episode i kind did not like and even though i like when the show diverges from the main plot and focuses on one single character this felt just…i don’t know. Old grandpa appropriating Aboriginals culture because he thinks he is jesus did not do it for me 
But im sure that this season probably will get better later on.
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People have been very lukewarm on episode 3 and thats fair, but it was good to get a full on Kevin Sr. episode. And that monologue at the end made whatever bumps along the way feel worth it in my opinion.
