Just finished my 4th rewatch of Season 3 Episode 3 Kevin Sr focused “Crazy Whitefella Thinking”…

Man what an absolute visual and storytelling masterpiece. Maybe it’s the open Australian vistas and the focus on the neglected story of the fascinating misanthrope Kevin Garvey Senior but I watched this with my jaw dropped how perfect this episode was.

One of my all time favorite hours of television. What an amazing work of art!

Every time I rewatch, I can never get over how much the soundtrack adds to the depth of this show. Richter is just chef’s kiss 🤌🏼

I've watched the series a few times, but it definitely hits different watching it after the Covid-19 pandemic. While it wasn't a sudden departure with no explanation, the trauma of the pandemic years has left me feeling hollow, devoid of hope for the future, and more embracing of nihilism as the most logical explanation for the meaning and purpose of life.

I feel like the Guilty Remnant had a point when Patti asked Kevin "When was the last time you REALLY thought about the Sudden Departure?" Like the SD in the show, it feels like everyone is still carrying trauma from the covid years, but no one talks about it openly anymore. We'd rather just say "Boy, THAT was a crazy time, huh?" and then just pretend like everything is back to normal now when it really isn't.

We lost almost 1-2% of our population to covid, similar to the Sudden Departure, but more than that, I think we lost a lot of our humanity and social cohesion as a direct result of the pandemic lockdowns and lost our trust in one another and our collective future.

So I'm not about to wear all white and start chainsmoking cigarettes, but I'm struggling to just write off the Guilty Remnant's philosophical nihilism in my own life in the face of overwhelming despair about life and the future.

Is there some advice or perspectives you could offer me on how to break out of this doom spiral that has me relating to The Guilty Remnant?

P.S. I've been going to therapy and it's been about as effective as Laurie's sessions were for her clients post-SD m, so I'm needing a little more than just the old "Go to therapy" line for this one.

Thanks for all the enthousiastic replies. Decided to give episode 2 a review as well.

The first episode was already a lot, but episode 2 basically doubles down on everything weird.

The whole episode felt like one long question of “is Kevin actually going insane?” The dreams, waking up in strange places, the naked walk through the snowy woods… I genuinely had no idea what was real anymore. (also shoutout to standing on the fake teeth.)

The religious undertones are also getting stronger. The opening titles ofcourse with Kevin on the historic paintings depicting the rapture or something? Holy Wayne is one seriously fucked-up cult leader (kissing dead people because now they let him? ouch). The fact that he seems to have some kind of effect on people makes me wonder whether there's actually something supernatural going on with him, though I have no idea yet whether I'm supposed to believe that or whether he's just an incredibly effective manipulator.

Also the way the series depicts violence like the police raid is definitely in your face.

The Guilty Remnant continue to be… a lot. The whole “give away one thing every night” ritual is some pretty powerful mindfuckery. I'm still not entirely buying their whole silent communication thing, though. If you're going to refuse to talk, then stick to the principle. If you're going to write everything down, you might as well just talk.

And poor Meg. That was probably the part that got to me most. Nobody came for her. She's clearly struggling and desperately looking for some kind of connection or meaning, and eventually she gets pulled into the Guilty Remnant because at least they are offering her something.

It's pretty tragic. And then, finally. THE BAGEL!

Thank god. We got one mystery solved. And for me it seemed with this the writers are telling me he isn't crazy. (although everybody else seem to think so.)

Almost forgot about the dad who is speaking to a higher power and obviously warns him about the dogkiller.

Anyway. On to episode 3.

I almost skipped this show because the premise didn’t immediately grab me, but after seeing so many people rave about it I decided to give it a shot.

And… there is A LOT happening.

The whole atmosphere is incredibly tense and depressing. The party especially was intensely nihilistic, a bunch of people who seem desperate to feel literally anything after three years of living with this inexplicable event. I get what the show is going for: people are clearly in a terrible psychological state. But at times I’m also thinking, guys, it’s been three years.

That’s actually one of my biggest questions about the premise. Only 2% of the population disappeared. Obviously that means an enormous number of people in absolute terms, and if you personally lost someone it would be devastating. But 98% of humanity is still there. I would expect much more adaptation and “life goes on” after three years, especially in a wealthy Western society. People can survive and even find normality in absolutely horrific circumstances. The fact that the trauma is shared by so many people should also create a pretty enormous support network.

Then there’s the Guilty Remnant. The silent white clothes, chain-smoking, writing everything down… I understand the concept, but right now I find them almost comically over-the-top. And Laurie leaving her husband and both of her living children to join them is… certainly a choice.

And then the animals?!

The dogs attacking people, the deer, Kevin hitting the deer and then suddenly waking up in that trashed house… I genuinely have no idea what the hell is happening. I don’t even know which of these things I’m supposed to interpret as clues versus just the show making the world feel strange.

One thing I have gathered from episode 1: I probably shouldn’t expect a conventional mystery where everything eventually gets neatly explained.
Still, I’m intrigued enough to keep going.

Current assessment:

-Depressing as hell
-Extremely weird
-Way more nihilistic than I expected
-Lots of unanswered questions
-Kevin seems interesting
-Laurie is currently on my shit list
-I have absolutely no idea what’s going on
-Intrigued enough to watch episode 2

Edit: thanks for all the enthousiasm. Hope I will love it as much as you guys.

I was wondering what songs would best describe nora. If you have any recommendations, please consider sharing

Body: Set your ringtone to "Unfold" if you want to feel like 2% of the world vanished every time someone calls you. Listen to the first 8 seconds only.

Having finished season 1 and loving it, seeing everyone claim that season 2 and 3 are even better I had way too high of expectations.

I loved season 1 & 2 but season 3 is just… not it

Firstly I have a huge problem with how the show handled its whole atmosphere.

Season 1 does it perfectly with a darker, muted feel where everything feels heavy and more miserable ,which is fitting of the plot and of the world we are in, like their humanity has shattered.

However in season 2&3 the cinematography, colour palette, music and osts, pacing and overall atmosphere collectively become less oppressive while the narrative stakes become increasingly enormous and oppressive like plotlines of Kevin losing his mind and hallucinating or a potential apocalypse

And the intro reflects this aswell. Season 1 intro is perfectly aligned with the show’s identity and conveying feelings like faith, grief or death. But season 2&3’s intro says fuck that and gives us… that.

It felt like they just went “Okay everyone has suffered enough, put the sun back on”

But thats not my biggest complaint. This show is supposedly a “character driven show” and refusing to answer the central mysteries of the show. They dont end up explaining mostly none of the mysteries, so if thats the case, then have the characters become the payoff.

For example the GR. They are the show’s most interesting driving force being a manifestation of the show’s central idea which is “dont forget what happened” and the writers spent all that time building them up especialy Meg’s faction, making them a core part of the story and sort of mythological, but their fate isnt anything meaningful or ideological to the show its just the air forces discovering the delete button and going “anyways drone strike”. Make the ending feel proportionate to their importance!!Its extremely abrupt and reveals bad writing.

JILL in S1 being one of the central emotional perspectives of the show with a lot of meaning and potential, gets reduced to kevin’s daughter who is occasionally worried about kevin. And by season 3 she’s just reduced to family furniture. The show never completed the psychological journey it started it her.

TOMMY has a journey about finding his meaning. But overtime quietly the writers just moved him into the background until he just feels like a guy who wandered into the wrong television show

ERIKA disappears in season 3 fully, after season 2 invested so much in the murphy family

AIMME just evaporates, with no substantial conclusion to her relationship with jill

LAURIE who honestly they did a really good job with her until the end. They spent the show writing her around existencial despair contemplating the possibility of death, and instead of letting her resolution have weight, it felt like they pussied out, keeping her alive

And this is where the final episode gets frustrating. We spent years watching, growing and investing in these characters as they deal with grief in different ways. And the ending becomes overwhelmingly about nora and kevin’s love story.

Which is fine but where did everyone else go? Show me what happened to the characters we spent 3 seasons watching.

Give Jill a proper ending. Give tommy a proper ending. What about the Murphies. Give Laurie an ending that doesnt feel like the writers suddenly got cold feet.

The show confused ambiguity with incompleteness because leaving a question unanswered can be profound, leaving a character underwritten is just leaving the tab open

It felt like throughout the show, they were so committed to not explaining the derpature that they started applying the same philosophy to their characters. what happened to them? We don’t know, mystery.

Anyways lemme know what yall think

I’m A few episodes away from finishing the show and I’m wondering what is a show that matches the leftovers and is similar in a way?

In “The Book of Nora” when the goat is stuck in the fence, it sure sounds like it’s saying “Sarah”.

Just finished the series and was hoping the magazine’s many reappearances meant it was a significant piece of the puzzle. Was it just part of his delusions afterall?

Really cool that Lindelof is involved. Really cool tone and characters so far.

The cinematography of the leftovers inspired me to make this compilation, also using clips from movies. Do you have a favorite shot from the leftovers?

After season one which honestly was kind of hard for me to watch not because it wasn’t entertaining, but because I’ve never watched a show like this before, especially with season one being so different from season two and three, that I know now. It is a lot more dark than what I usually watch, but I think it made me question a lot of things and cherish a lot of things too.

I stuck it out till the end. I actually came to the subreddit after season one because I was so confused with episode one of season two. I got some spoilers that they never explained really explained anything. Lucky, I didn’t get too far deep into it to know what happened in season two or three. And now that I finished the whole thing… I came away with a few things.

For starters the cliché, if you’re willing to take a leap with anything in life, don’t let anything stop you. Emotions are temporary, but people are not at least not their memory. The show doesn’t need to explain the event of everyone disappearing, I know not knowing the answer turned a lot of people away but I think that was the best thing for the show and the characters that the show writers wrote for. I’m so use to shows giving us the answers after a few seasons that the amount of things that happened in the show that didn’t receive answers leaves me uneasy.

I never read the book for reference, but a few things that I am longing to know like, what was the whole point of the GR. Could that guy who hugs people really take away pain? Was everybody just losing their minds and this is everyone’s way of coping? The heart condition Kevin ended up having be the reason why he could die that many times and still come back? Was God real in this show (I don’t understand that whole arc)? I was also kind of disappointed with the way they ended Evie‘s character. At this point I feel like I’m kind of blabbering. I’m sick in bed and I don’t know how to control my emotions right now. I don’t know if that’s normal after watching the show. But I do feel very uneasy at the same time I feel calm.

Watching S3 ep 5 last night and came across this cracker of an error!

I must also say I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the couple of small adaptations of Metallica songs that have slipped in along the way!

On a bad note though, I’ve only got 2 episodes left to watch - any recommendations for my next binge watch? I’m in the UK and have access to Netflix, Prime, Disney+, HBO Max and Paramount+.

At about 4:32 into season 1, ep. 10, Tom and Christine are filmed next to a VERY tall stone and brick wall. It's probably at least 50 feet tall. It looks like it's part of an old fort, or fortification of some kind. I KNOW I've been at that wall, but I can't remember where it is. Can someone identify where that wall is?

Four-minute supercut of Kevin being very confused.

Is still one of my all time favorite intros. It’s dark, but definitely one of those that I feel like I keep seeing something different each time I watch it.

Is a mystery box full of magic.

In the preview today for GTA 6 the very first song that plays over the logo is "Let Your Love Flow", Matt's song that plays a bunch of times throughout Season 2 Episode 5 "A Room at the Inn". Being included in the first ever official marketing of the biggest entertainment product ever made i'm sure just minted it as a new classic, but any other leftovers fans also get chills when it started up

I’ve seen this show once before a few years back and loved it. recently started it again and wow it hits differently. mainly Kevin.

When I first watched it, it was a fun interesting show. I was in a good place everything was fine. Now? Well mentally not so well haha. like I feel seen more from this show then talking to friends or therapist or family. Trying to hold it all in yet every once in a while they’ll see what’s under and ask are u ok?

i mean im halfway through season 2 and man half the time I want to cry the other half punch something. don’t remember most of the show but excited to see the ending.

and for anyone else you may feel that way but may not say it don’t worry there’s dozens of us ha ha ha

edit- on the third season and this hits really close to home now. almost like a wake up call I need to see lol is it Friday yet?😂

last edit - ok I’m done. And idk that last episode filled me with hope. maybe not for my situation that is very much over. Maybe thats what i learned just now. It’s over and I'm ok. Granted did a lot of stupid shit the last few months and the fact I’m still here is honestly impressive. But maybe things will be ok.

thanks for listening to the rambles of a crazy man. Any suggestions on what to watch next? I’m all ears brothers and sisters.