A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

And now for another controversial rec! This one is so hard to rec that I almost didn't as it's completely likely that not a single person reading this post will want to try it. Like Punisher, I found it an intensely emotional experience that had a lot to say about trauma, hope, and connection, and I really loved a lot of the characters. And I'm requesting it for Yuletide.

One day, 2% of the world's population vanishes, apparently at random. They don't come back, and while many people have theories, no one actually knows why it happened. While a number of the characters really want to know what happened, the show isn't about solving a mystery but about exploring a situation; if you go into it expecting a mystery that will be solved, you will be disappointed. The show picks up several years later, and explores the effects of the trauma and the upending of people's beliefs.

The Departure is different from death, as no one has any idea if the vanished people are dead or not, and so leaves everyone in a state of uncertainty. It defies logical explanation, but it doesn't fit neatly into any religious explanation either. (A priest is particularly furious at the idea that it's the Rapture, as some objectively terrible people were taken and objectively innocent or good people were left.) A cult which springs up in its wake isn't religious at all, but rather nihilistic.

But though the Departure isn't death, it works as a way of making a show about grief and loss that completely defamiliarizes death. None of us really know what happens after we die, but we all have fixed ideas about it. But since the Departure is an unfamiliar fictional scenario that mimics death (people vanish forever, and we have no idea why or if they live on in any sense or if some day we'll join them), it makes us look at death and loss and God as if we were encountering them for the first time, with uncertainty and an open mind.

I've never seen anything quite like The Leftovers. I'd categorize it as magic realism if I had to categorize it at all, as the magical/miraculous elements are often reflections of a character's emotional state or personality or beliefs. The second two seasons capture a sense of wonder and uncertainty and liminal states of being in a way I've never before seen on TV, or anywhere else for that matter. The world has become a place of miracles and wonders, sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrifying, sometimes darkly or absurdly funny, always strange. The acting, writing, cinematography, and design of the second two seasons is wonderful.

As fits a show which is largely about belief, faith, and how we cope with the unknowable, it is often unclear whether a moment is a miracle, magic, a hallucination, a delusion, a reasonable but incorrect belief, a dream, something with a perfectly logical explanation that we're just not privy to yet, or some combination of those. But everything always makes sense on multiple levels - any of those possibilities work in terms of the characters, the world, or the situation. The ultimate truth is uncertain, but the characters and their world, though strange, feel very real.

There are some episodes that are some of the best TV I've ever seen - gorgeous to look at, hilarious, surreal, and deeply moving. The whole show is beautiful and intense, and both invites and defies definitive interpretation. If you're willing to get on the ride, it will take you somewhere unpredictable and wonderful.

It's almost impossible to provide specific examples of things I liked without being hugely spoilery, so I'll put a few under a cut with some details redacted. ( Read more... )

The season two finale and the series finale were absolutely wonderful, and left me very satisfied.

But. Almost everything I've been praising above is in the second two seasons. Season one is mostly a relentlessly grim exploration of how the Departure screwed people up. Several of my favorite characters aren't in it at all, and some characters who later became favorites are incredibly unlikable or annoying in season one. It's so different from the second two seasons that it almost feels like a different show. But you can't really skip season one because it sets up so much that pays off later.

Unlike Punisher, which I think has an unfairly bad reputation and would be enjoyed by many people who can cope with the level of violence, I can only rec The Leftovers with some serious caveats, which unfortunately function as a kind of one-two punch.

1. I really disliked most of season one and only managed to plow through it because I'd been tipped off that seasons two and three were completely different. More on that in a moment.

2. The entire show prominently features every trigger and squick known to man, including (mostly in season one) repeated, graphic, violent dog death. You can miss almost all the dead dogs if you avoid them in S1 (fast-forward every time you see a dog, anyone with a gun, or anyone opening the trunk of a car), but there's also some animal death in the rest of the show. Goat sacrifices, bird sacrifices, killing for meat, wild animals hit by cars - if any animal harm is a hard no, avoid the show.

Other things that might be hard nos: multiple, intense suicide attempts. Vanished, dead, and/or endangered children. One rape (of a male character.) Christianity. Religion, faith, and disbelief in general. Some violence/bloodiness. Comas. Terminal illness. Vomiting. Mental illness. There's probably more that I've just forgotten.

If you'd like to try the show, I suggest starting the pilot. If you like it, great! Keep watching.

If you hate the pilot, here are your options:

A. Do what I did, and plow through season one, fast-forwarding any bits that you particularly dislike. (I fast-forwarded most of the scenes with the teenagers, Holy Wayne and his crew, dogs, and the Guilty Remnants.)

B. Stop the pilot at whatever point you start hating it. Go straight to episode 9, "The Garveys at their Best." It's a flashback episode that will catch you up on a lot of what you need to know about the characters before the Departure. It's also the only time anyone ever smiles in season one, so enjoy it. Then read summaries of episodes 1 and 2, watch episode 3 (the one focusing on Christopher Eccleston as a Job-like priest having a very tough day), read summaries of the next set of episodes, watch episode 6 (the one focusing on Nora, a woman who lost her entire family in the Departure - this is closest in tone and themes to seasons 2 and 3), read more summaries, optionally watch episode 8 (it's gloomy but some important stuff happens in it), watch episode 10 (the season finale). You can now move on to seasons 1 and 2.

If anyone's actually seen this and wants to talk about it, I'll make a spoiler post to discuss some stuff. Please don't put major spoilers (like, more spoilery than in my cut) in comments here.

The Leftovers is on Hulu.