The Leftovers - Season 1, Episode 02: Penguin One, Us Zero
Trailer
Tragedy struck when a global disaster caused 140 million of the population to vanish in an inexpiable manner. Now, a group of people living in Mapleton, New York deal with the tragic event and wonder what happened three years ago.
One of the most fascinating things to me about The Leftovers is the way that the story is focused on the Garvey family, who lost no one we know about in the Departure, but who have all lost themselves and each other in the aftermath.
The Leftovers takes place in a well-trod genre, in a form, the postmillennial prestige drama, that's been analyzed like few before it. The more it stops doing the things it has to do and starts doing the things it wants to do, the better.
It's too early to push away The Leftovers, but the second episode did closely echo the premiere in particular ways, with the payoff being a surprising link between characters.
Member, dismember, remember, commemorate: The consonance that The Leftovers begins to unearth here is potent, suggesting a society torn limb from limb and haltingly pieced back together.
It's a shame that more viewers aren't able to focus on the weirdness of The Leftovers instead of its melancholy. If they could, the show - which, by the way, is pretty fantastic - might not already be known as the biggest bummer on television.
Part of this show's challenge is to place us in the heads of characters coping with an utterly preposterous scenario, which is why the Case of the Disappearing Bagel was such a shrewd device.
This show carries with it an addictive angst that's difficult for those like me who are drawn to stories about broken people to resist. Everyone's cracked and creased, but in different ways and for different reasons.
Sunday night's episode of Damon Lindelof's new drama continued the relentless pacing of the first hour -- as long as the dour tone -- but with similarly fascinating results.
