The Leftovers season finale aired tonight on HBO. Read our full recap of “The Prodigal Son Returns” and see if your questions were answered.
Answers? Not so much. More questions? You bet. The Leftovers closed the curtain on season 1 with the admittance that everyone may not be alright, but they are doing the best they can. There is no perfect binary that exists in the post-Departure Leftovers world where the extreme bad people were left and the 2% of the world’s good people were taken. However, that is not the point of the show. Instead, the entire season has been pumping air into a balloon that needs to pop eventually. And boy, did it pop.
Confession:
Kevin calls Reverend Jamison to Cairo where an unexpected act of kindness turns a crime scene into a burial service deep in the woods. Reverend Jamison’s contribution extends beyond closing Patti’s eyes and providing the shovels. Before committing Patti to her shallow grave, Kevin is asked to read a highlighted passage from Job that depicts a powerful being torturing the mortal man who is unaware of the greater good that will result from the pain.
Back at the car, we get treated to one more shirtless Kevin scene for the season (we’ll miss you) as he washes the blood and dirt from his hands and changes into some donated clothes. As he gazes out the window, Kevin’s mind and consciousness wander.
Tommy and Christine are running low on money and patience with Holy Wayne. Practically giving up on feeling special. Christine goes off to change the baby and leaves Tommy to realize they need to make a new plan, together. As he strolls back to his car, Tommy is asked if he needs help by a man in a church van. When Tommy hears a baby crying, he discovers that Christine has abandoned the child in the bathroom and ran away.
An Eeriness in Silence:
Jill’s arrival at the GR headquarters is unwelcome in Laurie’s eyes as she prepares to oversee the execution of M.D. When Jill’s demand for Laurie to speak fails, she changes into all white and makes her resilience known. Laurie is out of time to compose an argument and M.D. goes into action.
The sun rises on Memorial Day and Nora goes about her morning routine. As she comes down the stairs she rounds the corner to see her family, or rather eerie replicas of her family, sitting around her kitchen table. The sight crumbles the wall that Holy Wayne helped her build around her loss, and the silence drowning her screams.
Across town another person experiences an unexpected wake up call. Kevin opens his eyes to guards dragging him from Matt’s car and into the same facility where his father resides. Thrown into a cell, Kevin tries to calm himself down, but the muttering is not going to get him on the guards good side. A copy of National Geographic, yes, that copy, slides under the door with a note tucked into a page with a map of Cairo that reads, “Stop fucking talking to yourself and they’ll let you watch TV.”
Kevin leaves the room and meets his dad in the sitting room where he tries to get a grip on reality. However, that is hard when you believe you are staring at the maddening future that awaits you in the face. Kevin Sr. tells Kevin not to turn around, but he does and Patti is waiting there to take him on a journey. What that journey is, we may never know because Kevin wakes up still in Matt’s car at a roadside diner.
Make a Wish:
Kevin’s confessional time with Matt works best outside of a church. Matt’s steadfast mission to save the members of the GR drives him to get Kevin to explore his final conversation with Patti. The confession works for Kevin, and Matt, as he finally says out loud his experience the day of the Departure. He does not need a dummy to remind him of the looks of joy he saw on Jill and Tommy’s face when he found them at the school. But nothing will be able to wash away the memories of his inability to help those who asked him for it and his thoughts of leaving his family. Everything began to fall apart and he lost them one by one.
As Kevin washes up in the bathroom, he stumbles upon Holy Wayne, dying in the stall. Instead of getting help, Kevin grants him one last request., stay with him as he dies and make a wish. Holy Wayne, whose story we have not explored much, approaches death unsure if he lived his life as a fraud. With Kevin’s silent wish transmitted, Holy Wayne utters his final word, “Granted.” The FBI arrives and takes Wayne away in a body bag, urging Kevin to get back to Mapleton.
Pop:
Chaos. It is hard to determine which bodies are dummies and which belong to murdered members of the GR. Beaten, bound, and burned, the GR headquarters is taken over by the people who were “made to remember.” As the elderly couple drags the replica of their son into the fire, Kevin spots Laurie running from the burning house. Her silence is broken as she screams one word that sends Kevin into the flames, “Jill.”
Right Where I Left Them:
As the smoke clears, Nora writes a letter to Kevin and prepares to leave Mapleton for good. Her voiceover hauntingly reminds the unsettled town of the message that the Guilty Remnant was trying to deliver. No matter how long of break she took, when she woke up her family was right where she left them. She cannot go back and fix the morning they left, but she also cannot live in the ruins. She can be a coward, she can run.
As she leaves and Kevin and Jill make their way home, watching Laurie walk away one more time. The wild dog appears, tame and willing to be taken by Kevin. Meanwhile, Nora finds Christine’s baby on the Garvey’s doorstep. Tommy, after taking the baby to a place he knew she would be safe, finds his mother and walks away with her into the unknown.
The Leftovers returns next summer to HBO.
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