The Leftovers

Has there ever been a tv show in your life or maybe even a movie, in which you feel like you are the only person on the planet who knows about it, watches it, and enjoys it? With the immense connectivity we experience now through the internet, I don't think this is something that happens too much anymore. You can usually tell who your people are and you feel a sense of community surrounding Your show.

"The Leftovers," is a show that I always feel like I am consuming in a void. I know three other people who watch this show. That's it. Three. And none of them live near me. One of those people is my cousin and she works at HBO so I think she HAS to watch! I think that's part of her contract. I think she may have been in danger by not being totally into "Game of Thrones." So yeah, as far as I can tell, there are exactly four people in the world who watch, "The Leftovers," but somehow this seclusion makes me feel closer to this show. I identify more with the characters because I have no one to talk to about this show!

For the entire rest of the world who has NOT seen the amazing force of nature that is, "The Leftovers," it is a show on HBO about a global phenomena in which in an instant, 140 million people world-wide vanish into thin air. Wherever they were, whatever they were doing, they are just gone. If they were driving a car, the car probably crashes into something, if they were holding groceries, you've got broken eggs all over the sidewalk, if they were having sex, their partner is now traumatized for life. No one knows where they went or why those people are suddenly gone. Those who vanished become known as "the departed," and the rest of the world tries desperately to try to understand what this all means for those still on earth and how exactly they aren't meant to continue their lives.

Some turn to religious cults. A new fanatic group known as The Guilty Remnant emerge with the view that it didn't mean anything and everyone is just wasting their breath trying to make sense of it all. They dress all in white and continuously chain-smoke for reasons that were never really fully explained. Possibly to show devotion, possibly to show the fragility of life to begin with.

The show focuses on a couple families in one particular town. Kevin Garvy is the chief of police, his wife has joined the Guilty Remnant, his son has followed a messiah figure named Wayne into the desert, and his daughter is a confused and angry teenager. Nora Durst's husband and two kids were departed mid-conversation from her breakfast table. She hires prostitutes to shoot her in the chest while she's wearing a bullet proof vest so she can feel something.

The show is twisted and sometimes confusing. It plays on the fine line between clear, rational thinking and utterly insane hallucinations. It shows how incredibly fragile the human psyche is and how utterly incapable humans are of dealing with tragic circumstances they have no way of rationalizing. The characters are unable to accept that the departure is just something that happened without any rhyme or reason. As humans, we must always tell ourselves a story to make sense of things we do not understand.

I find this show to be both incredibly unsettling on a weekly basis and also very intriguing and comforting. None of these characters are perfect. They are all extremely screwed up individuals and that makes them more lovable. They are just doing the best that they can to survive.

The fact that no one is watching this show is the most disturbing thing to me. Didn't Andy Sandberg give everyone access to an HBO Go account during the Emmy's this year? You could be watching this show for free and you aren't! What a loss for you. Please watch this show so they will continue making it for me and the three other people who love it.