Leftovers finale review

The music, oh heaven, the music!

Starting us up with Nina Simon’s extraordinary interpretation of Jaque Brel’s sorrowful “Ne me Quitte pas”, then whisking us out on the show’s hypnotizing piano theme, passing through Apocalyptica’s interpretation of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”, to end with the theme again.

What magic is this! Unbelievable!

The final of “the Leftovers” did not disappoint. It kept on emotionally hammering us, until the last few minutes, to end with a faint glimmer of hope, normality, that I believe is going to be short lived.

The show ambiguity, cradling us between what reality and dreams, between prophets and con men, between white and black, between grey and greyer still. It is this post modernism malaise once again, the moral ambiguity that we all feel in this crazy world, where heroes are nowhere to be found, and where villains hide in plain sight…

I ll just leave you with this: part of a characters monologue, just savor it sheer poetry, while listening to Nina Simmons:

“I was pretending

Pretending as if I haven’t lost everything

I want to believe It can all go back to the way it was

I want to believe that I am not surrounded by the abandoned ruin of a dead civilization

I want to believe that it is still possible to get close to someone

But it is easier not to

It is easier because I am coward

And I couldn't take the pain, not again…”

Do yourself a favor, go watch this excellent show, a study in human nature that is seldom so thoroughly interpreted, and just listen to the music, the heavenly music…

The leftovers, a review

The music. The music is faeric, it works as a feedback loop, feeding off the images, and the images grow, feeding off the music, both transcending their immediate meaning. Just for the play of music and images, I would watch this series. That haunting piano melody, it transforms you, I am becoming a perfect Pavlov dog, every time I hear those few piano strokes I cringe, my heart constricts, and I hear…

The series follows a few tortured souls, adrift in a world devoid of meaning, of anchors, of purpose, except for a few fanatics full of raging, deadly purpose. This opposition reminds me of “the second coming” poem by W.B. Yeats:

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

…

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

Dreams intrudes on reality, nightmares takes shape, and the haunting music swirls around. Symbolism abound, images, relations, and links can be made, yet I don’t feel the urge. That is the genius of the show’s creator, I care more, much more, about these tortured souls and their struggle, than about what caused the departure, and what powers are hiding behind the curtain, pulling the strings.

The characters struggles, their emotional turmoil awaken feelings in me, new old feelings that are forgotten, yet vaguely remembered, like the memory of a bittersweet dream fading away. I hate it, yet I’m slowly falling in love with it, with these new feelings...

Thankfully, you might think, we live in this world, not in theirs. Until you open the TV and watch all the horrors happening a few miles away, perpetrated by people who also had a purpose, a purpose to live for and a purpose to die for. And you fervently wish to stay lost, without a purpose, adrift …