I was truly surprised by The Leftovers this week because, for the first time this season, I genuinely didn’t want the episode to end. After five weeks of misery and ambiguity, “Guest†was finally a glimpse at what this show could be, what it looked to be in all of the previews. Beyond that, it was legitimately one of the best episodes of television I’ve seen this year.
Similar to “Two Boats and a Helicopter,†this episode focused entirely on a single character. Given that I would rank that episode as my second favorite so far, I’m beginning to wonder if the show wouldn’t have simply worked better as an anthology series, focusing on characters all around the world and how they’ve been affected. Frankly, both of these episodes are fairly standalone anyway, as both Matt and Nora, the focus of this week’s episode, have barely appeared in the rest of the series up to this point.
However, the show is what it is, and I’ll instead just say how Nora is by far one of the easiest characters to connect with and want to empathize with, both because of Carrie Coon’s portrayal of the character and how the show presents her in this episode. As was established in the pilot, Nora is someone who suffered the worst possible outcome from the Sudden Departure, losing her husband and two children. Honestly, if anyone has a license to be as apathetic and miserable as most of the characters on this show, it’s her. Instead, “Guest†shows Nora dealing with her pain in a myriad number of ways, something that makes her struggle all the more believable.
A big part of this is that she literally seeks any escape from the pain without ever actually wanting to let go. She throws herself into her work to try and help people, but she also continues to buy the same groceries and keep her home in the exact condition as when her family left. Similarly, she somehow has everyone she talks to telling her they believe their loved ones have gone to a better place, but doesn’t seem to believe it herself. She’s a complex character, one that is just as likely to hire a prostitute to shoot her as she is to let loose at a hotel room party while popping pills; anything that will allow her to feel something.
Both of those scenes are worth talking about in more detail, as they were among the episode’s highlights. The opening was in a lot of ways what I’ve come to expect from The Leftovers up to this point, but the tension of the scene built wonderfully, as she gladly gave Angel more money to shoot her and turned on the thrash metal to drown out the music. It was dark scene, but one that was far more palatable than last week’s brutal stoning.
The party scene, meanwhile, brought a balance the show has never had before by finally giving us some levity. It’s true that the whole time Nora’s clearly trying to escape from her life, and there’s an undeniable sadness to her willingness to pop pills and make out with a replacement corpse, but this was a scene that had funny moments and just offered a ray of light in the darkness this show usually suffocates in.
Lastly, it’s also important to note how great this episode was at giving us a look at the bigger picture. Learning more details about Nora’s job, seeing the protesters lined up outside the conference and getting a better understanding of how the loved one bodies are created were all great bits of world building and easily concepts we could get whole episodes dedicated to if we weren’t destined for more Garvey malaise next week.
Which ultimately brings me to the fact that, from the look of the preview, it’ll be back to business as usual next week, with the focus back on the sheriff, his father and their shared mental issues. Still, given that we finally had some light shed on what Holy Wayne is and does this week, perhaps next week will offer even more reveals and continue to build on the idea of where things are going. Of course, this episode had a whole screaming jag from Nora about how the answer to the question “What next?†is nothing, so I’m not holding my breath.
What did you think of this week’s episode? Let me know in the comments!