The Leftovers

[johnnyyukon]

Ooh, thanks for the reminder- I need to re-watch Twin Peaks too! I really hope it holds up- I LOVED that shit back in the day.

So Justin Theroux was like, one of the main characters in Twin Peaks creator's film, Mulholland Drive, and both the show and the movie have that same dream quality as The Leftovers.

 

[EJCC]

So Justin Theroux was like, one of the main characters in Twin Peaks creator's film, Mulholland Drive, and both the show and the movie have that same dream quality as The Leftovers.

That's part of why I thought of it. They're also both moody character studies and both deal with the loss of a child at the beginning (or at least that's what Wikipedia tells me about The Leftovers). And I LOVED the Twin Peaks soundtrack.

The difference, of course, is that Twin Peaks is more wacky and ridiculous.

 

[Ivy]

OMG I had forgotten Justin Theroux was in Mulholland Drive! I loved that movie. But what in the hell is going on in David Lynch's head?

 

[johnnyyukon]

OMG I had forgotten Justin Theroux was in Mulholland Drive! I loved that movie. But what in the hell is going on in David Lynch's head?

He's rreeallllly into Transcendental Meditation, and does it (used to do it) for hours upon hours at a time. And I think I read he accesses a lot of his stories while in deep states. Which is kinda rad. And definitely explains a lot.

 

[johnnyyukon]

The difference, of course, is that Twin Peaks is more wacky and ridiculous.

Tis wacky. You ever get around to watching Leftovers? I'd be curious.

My husband and I were hooked after the first episode. There was just something really compelling about it. Part of what hooked me was that one song they played in the trailers that really kind of nailed the mood for the whole series.

This song, (oops meant this): The Twins
[SOUNDCLOUD]https://soundcloud.com/max-richter/4-the-twins-prague[/SOUNDCLOUD]

Then of course the EPIC Season Intro


[SOUNDCLOUD]https://soundcloud.com/johnny-yukon/the-leftovers-opening-credits[/SOUNDCLOUD]

 

[EJCC]

[MENTION=20955]johnnyyukon[/MENTION] omg thank you for reminding me. I've been needing something to watch while my roommate's out of town. This (with the new season of Elementary and/or Twin Peaks) will be perfect!

 

[johnnyyukon]

[MENTION=20955]johnnyyukon[/MENTION] omg thank you for reminding me. I've been needing something to watch while my roommate's out of town. This (with the new season of Elementary and/or Twin Peaks) will be perfect!

Ooohh, Elementary, what's that? I'm in the market for a new show

 

[EJCC]

Ooohh, Elementary, what's that? I'm in the market for a new show

Sherlock Holmes retelling with Jonny Lee Miller (the "Take it!" guy from Dexter) as Holmes, and Lucy Liu as Watson. Things I really like about it:

1) The bromance between Holmes and Watson is awesome and never has sexual tension
2) It is so unlike the BBC Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch that you could probably love one and hate the other, or vice versa, and therefore neither feels like it's in the other's shadow
3) The acting is EXCELLENT
4) IMO it's very true to the tone of the Conan Doyle mysteries (e.g. Watson is actually helpful, and contributes a lot, as opposed to being dead weight like in the BBC show)
5) They've taken a lot of interesting liberties with particular characters, that I shouldn't give away, but that add a lot to the show's quality.

 

[93JC]

4) IMO it's very true to the tone of the Conan Doyle mysteries (e.g. Watson is actually helpful, and contributes a lot, as opposed to being dead weight like in the BBC show)

IMOYOIW

(In My Opinion Your Opinion Is WRONG!)

 

[johnnyyukon]

Sherlock Holmes retelling with Jonny Lee Miller (the "Take it!" guy from Dexter) as Holmes, and Lucy Liu as Watson. Things I really like about it:

1) The bromance between Holmes and Watson is awesome and never has sexual tension
2) It is so unlike the BBC Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch that you could probably love one and hate the other, or vice versa, and therefore neither feels like it's in the other's shadow
3) The acting is EXCELLENT
4) IMO it's very true to the tone of the Conan Doyle mysteries (e.g. Watson is actually helpful, and contributes a lot, as opposed to being dead weight like in the BBC show)
5) They've taken a lot of interesting liberties with particular characters, that I shouldn't give away, but that add a lot to the show's quality.

I love both those actors.

Already downloaded the first episode. You sell a good show

 

[johnnyyukon]

[MENTION=4945]EJCC[/MENTION]

Am I projecting, or is Holmes an ENTP in this version?

 

[EJCC]

[MENTION=4945]EJCC[/MENTION]

Am I projecting, or is Holmes an ENTP in this version?

Holmes definitely seems ENTP in that version. Can't decide if Watson is ISTJ or ISFJ though.

 

[johnnyyukon]

Holmes definitely seems ENTP in that version. Can't decide if Watson is ISTJ or ISFJ though.

Wow, I really like this show. Holmes reminds me of me, haha. Yikes. I'm not a detective savant, but a lot of the similarities are there. Good rec.

Wonder if I should start a thread, though I'm a little behind, haha.


Holmes is all over the place, but a definite method in his madness. Love his ability to read people almost instantly, like their very soul. The moment when Watson gives him a dose with the "why don't you have any mirrors in here, cuz you know a lost cause when you see one." Bravo.

I think she's definitely ISFJ. More feeler, but she tries to hide it. It's clear as day to Holmes though. And even though he's a dick, he's not a sociopath and does seem to have a kernel of compassion.

A consultant Detective. What a badass job.

 

[Totenkindly]

The final season (third) of The Leftovers ended this past Sunday.

I did not watch any of it until the finale was about to air, so I could blitz-watch these eight episodes versus having to stretch it over two months. But it is also breaking my heart.

All three seasons of this show have been excellent, it has not had any missteps IMO. Each season finale is unexpected, yet afterwards totally makes sense so that you wonder why you didn't actually see things coming. Directing, writing, and acting is top-notch, great production quality as well. It is a show that deserved much more attention, but I know the fan base is very devoted. Each season was arguably better than the last, even though before the season would air, you had no idea where it would be going.

I just watched s3e6 (which means two episodes to go after this), and I am having trouble not rushing ahead to finish it, while at the same time dreading it because it will be over. The hour of TV I just watched (as episode 6) is perhaps one of the finest I have ever seen in my entire life, and (on a more low-key scale) on par with "Ozymandias" from Breaking Bad or the end of Six Feet Under -- which actually is a fitting comparison, as it is kind of the ending of a lot of different threads, the culmination of a lot of character arcs. I cried pretty much non-stop through the last quarter of the episode. Devastatingly good, without having to be "emotionally ugly" in the process, since the arcs are a bit different from BB. These were not characters in a story -- these were "real people" to me.

Lindleof was the showrunner for all three episodes; basically a staff writer on the committee would write the episode, then he'd do some rework to make it all mesh perfectly and give it final vision -- and so he has a paired writing credit on every episode. After seeing the totality of this series, I completely forgive him for the missteps of LOST as well as the debacle of Prometheus (which wasn't all his fault anyway). If people doubted his ability, they need to watch this series... it might be the finest thing he will ever work on.

It looks like Vulture has the final two episode rated at 4/5 and 5/5. I'm happy with that since BB's last two episodes went the same way.

It's just really interesting to me what makes a good show (and what makes a sporadic one). I mean, what I am seeing, based on "Great" series, is that (1) it needs to have a long-term consistent showrunner that steers the vision through to completion, and (2) a talented cast who lives/breathes their characters, and (3) solid writing and production quality. There are shows like GoT and TWD that are still "popular" but their quality tends to be sporadic not even just from episode to episode but even within an episode. I suspect the vision is not entirely clear all the time, or that maybe more control is given to the individual writers and directors rather than really having a consistency throughout the series. That was Gilligan for BB, Ball for Six Feet Under, and Lindelof here -- they all stayed for the entire run.

Anyway, I just had to say something. If you are into this "tone" of a show -- realistic with a touch of fantastical elements, in-depth character studies and relationships ,and something that is not entirely predictable / by rote -- then you might want to check this show out.

Justin Theroux
Ann Dowd
Amy Brenneman
Scott Glenn
Christopher Eccleston
Liv Tyler
Carrie Coon
... and others.




EDIT: Done. The penultimate episode, not sure how I feel, although it stuck the landing and led directly into the finale. The finale was... quieter than expected, and more personal. Kind of a microcosm of the larger themes of the series. There's even an explanation of what happened, but the narrative doesn't get hung up on it -- it is focused on the important things that need to be resolved.

Maybe in part, having answers is less important than learning how to live without them. It's a really big thing, a life lesson I have found. That after all the drama and pain and highs and lows are said and done, and things happen that we do or don't understand... the next day is still a day we have to live. So do we know how to do that? Or can we figure out how?

 

[Totenkindly]

The Leftovers Finale: An Exclusive, Behind the Scenes Look

...One of the premises of The Leftovers was that the disappearance of the 2 percent, known as the “Sudden Departure,” gave spiritual seekers a do-over, a chance to write new testaments. So it was for Lindelof; Perrotta’s humanism and HBO’s focus on quality over quantity allowed him to channel his obsessions into a show that was more pedant-resistant (because the mystery was secondary) and easier to control. The Leftovers played out over three short, distinct seasons, the last one comprising eight episodes developed over twice as many months. Lindelof spent much of that time worrying about the last episode, No. 28, along with the inevitable comparisons to Lost. “It’s all that pressure of saying, ‘Forget about your other 27 dives — we’ve thrown out the scores,’ ” says Lindelof. “The only dive that matters is the 28th.”

What follows is the complete story of that dive, or rather three separate dives: “You make a show three times,” episode director Mimi Leder told me on that stormy night. “You script it, film it, and then you make it a third time in the editing room.” For this story, I spoke with everyone who was in the writers’ room about the construction of the script; flew to Australia for a tense and emotional final week of shooting; and sat in with Lindelof as he built his final cut, reshaping his creation virtually frame by frame. Throughout, Lindelof was precise and obsessive. But the only thing he couldn’t control was what the audience would make of it...

Pretty in-depth look at the finale and the series as well... long long article.




Also, interview of lindelof by the chief editor of RogerEbert.com:
''Leftovers'': Sunday's Episode Was Inspired by Matt Zoller Seitz

here's an interesting clip from the interview that kind of summarizes the Leftovers:

No, not until this very moment.

Lindelof: First off, I want to say my deepest condolences. As someone who has been incredibly happily married with the woman that I’m going to spend the rest of my life with, I can’t even put into words how devastating that loss would be. And the fact that you write about her and particularly that piece — which I think may be the first time that I learned that you had suffered that loss, but again I’m not entirely sure. And there are things that jump out, that I remember very specifically from that piece. One was you kind of went on a bender and you regained consciousness in a hotel with no memory of how you got there. And that connected to the way we use hotels on the show with a great degree of specificity, as these places that don’t have character but feel like intermediary, purgatorial spaces. The other thing, also relating to hotels, that I remember about that piece is that you were reflecting on some memory you had with Jen where you guys had gotten in a massive fight and you were walking back to your hotel room and there was a fork sitting in the middle of the hallway?

Seitz: That was actually an ex-girlfriend. But that was in the section of it about how I always get my back up when I hear a complaint about a movie or a television show or a novel that dialogue was too on-the-nose, that symbolism was too on-the-nose, and so forth. Dreams are on-the-nose and life is on-the-nose. And that was just one example of that. Like, here we were about to break up, it was pretty clear to us that we were going to break up that night –

Lindelof: Put a fork in it.

Seitz: Exactly. Well, that, too — but also the idea of a fork in the road. There was literally a fork in the road on the way to the hotel room! It was a symbolically resonant image, so much so that my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, who also was a writer, took a picture of it.

Lindelof: Of the fork?

Seitz: She just started laughing and said, “I have to get a picture of this.”

Lindelof: Here’s what’s amazing to me about the story, or at least what occurred to me when I read it was, like, somebody put their room-service tray out in the hallway, and room service came and picked it up and the fork fell off. That’s the story. And all of a sudden this fork now has meaning. Isn’t that just religion writ large? Like, isn’t that the whole ball of wax right there, something completely and totally devoid of meaning can suddenly have meaning if you put it in the proper context. That jumped out at me, too...

Ironically, here's a bit of Lindelof talking about another Lindelof topic that came up today, out of all days:

...because of what happened with Lost, and because there’s so much negativity and uncertainty about my storytelling attached to the “making it up as he goes along” idea, let’s just unpack that for just one sec.

I worship Vince Gilligan; I’ve met Vince Gilligan. He’s an incredible writer and an incredible human being and is completely and totally transparent about the idea that when Walter White has his birthday bacon [at the start of season five of Breaking Bad], opens up the trunk, and there’s a rifle in there, that at the time they wrote that — and in fact at the time that it aired — they had no idea how they were going to pay it off. And in fact, that rifle was used in the final five minutes of the finale of the series.

And nobody cares. Because he was transparent and authentic and open and honest about the fact that they do it by feel. And it’s not just because Breaking Bad isn’t a mystery show and Lost was. He literally set up the ending of the series and openly stated that they were finding it by feel, and nobody took issue with that. With me, I’ve got something to make up for. Something to be redeemed for. That’s the narrative that exists around me. That’s not the narrative that I accept, but I have to be aware of that narrative. So, what I would say is, I’m not insulted at all [by what you just said], because it’s the truth. Of course we’re making it up as we go along.

But both things are true. And both things are true of David Burton/God, which is: There is an argument to be made for the fact that he has a plan and that he’s a mythic character because we’ve set that up in the show. He’s the guy on the bridge. He’s the guy in the karaoke bar. How is it that Kevin Garvey has experienced this man with an Australian accent that now Matt Jamison meets on a ferry from Tasmania to Melbourne? Like, Matt Jamison doesn’t know that he’s the same guy that Kevin Garvey hung out with, but the audience does. So there’s a case to be made about the fact that he is God. But then, he’s a troll and he’s full of shit and he’s an asshole and he gets eaten by a lion. So, I would argue that both things are true.

It’s possible to both be making things up as you go along and have a plan at the same time. And that may baffle people, but it’s just true, because I just say, “Look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m making things up as I go along and I have a plan.’ And guess what, you just told the truth.”

Anybody who has a plan for their life and everything is going according to that plan? Please, please, let’s have a chat. I want to know your secret. Because that’s just not life. I mean, that’s not the way I see life. It’s absurd to me. And I want my storytelling to reflect that absurdity.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I don't watch this show religiously, but I did catch the one with the lion-themed sex cult aboard the boat. That was good stuff.

 

[Totenkindly]

PRetty much stiffed in the Emmys -- the only nom was for Ann Dowd for a bit of a part in s3e9; Dowd is good, but she had much more meat in the first two seasons to play, and it's a shame about Coon or Theroux... kind of awful, since it's some of the best acting each has done, and Coon got a callout from Vulture and won their best actress last year....

After I wrote that line, I googled (Leftovers Justin) and found the exact same sentiment (well, they seem more taken by Dowd, I just didn't think she was given much to do) in the first link:

The Leftovers: Thanks to the Emmys, It’s Officially an Elite HBO Drama | IndieWire