The Leftovers still keeps me coming back each week

Okay, like I've said before, I wont recap every episode and review it.  But last weeks (10/25/2015) episode really grabbed me.  I'm a week late watching it because the mother of all storms came through last week and wouldn't allow me to watch it without power surges and emergency update interruptions from my parish.  Being Halloween week, the week got away from me and now its 11/1 and I FINALLY finished watching it.

The episode itself was interesting.  Kevin goes back to where the girls disappeared and crazy dad finds him there.  But instead of freaking out he just cons him into going with him for a drive.  A drive where we end up at the "friends" temp home...you know the friend that cray cray dad burned his house down.  Well dad gets shot and Kevin is like f**k!  Kevin takes care of him, calling cray cray's wife (Doctor) and getting him help.  Once cray cray is all good he leaves, only to be attacked relentlessly by the hallucination of Patti.  He finally loses it and talks to her (thank God it is the middle of the night).  After finding out he did in fact try to kill himself, that he supposedly doesn't love his family...its just a band-aid because of all the BS that happened before, AND that those girls DID depart (well $hit!).   After the hallucination is satisfied she f**ked Kevin up enough, she walks away.  Then crazy guy in the tower says "whose your friend?".  What?!!?!?  He can see her too!?!?!?  Who is this guy?  Why is he in the tower?  Why does the town seem okay with that?  He is clearly significant!  Kevin finally makes his way back to a still freaked out Nora who isn't mad that he left...just that she woke up alone and thought he departed.  So what does she do...she handcuffs them together to sleep. Weird but a meaningful sentiment.  I don't care what not real Patti said...I think they do love each other!

Jill is going to get bored eventually.  She clearly loves her adoptive sister but a 17 year old needs more than babysitting and hanging out with the crazy adults all the time.  I do like that she seems really close with Nora.  I'm glad they didn't go the resentful "step daughter" route.  She seems to want to befriend boy twin from next door.  And honestly he seems to connect with her too.  I don't care if it isn't romantic, I like their chemistry.  I think they would be great friends at the very least. Poor boy twin is REALLY distraught about his missing sister.  He KNOWS they departed but no one wants to hear that but Jill doesn't seem to mind.  See they have a connection. 

That was basically the gist of the show.  What REALLY got me though was the final piece of music.  As Kevin is undressing and Nora is sadly watching him you hear "I've got chills they're multiplying....".  Holy $hit, I know that song!  I know it so well!  It's "You're the ones that I want"  from Grease.  But it isn't the version I know.  It is dark and haunting.  It is PERFECT.  The same lyrics sung a different way.  It gave me chills and fit absolutely perfectly with the ending of this episode.  Hear the whole song below.  I love it!

The Leftovers - Season 2, Episode 2 - A Matter of Geography

Oh don't mind me, my brain is just leaking out of my ear.  Seriously...again?  At least I got one kind of answer, sort of...Again, its good...I'll still watch it but good GOD what is happening!?!?  I'm not going to review every episode but I had to do this one.

SPOILERS

So we flash back to our favorite f**ked up family and how they ended up in Miracle.  YAY!  I like explanations.  And while I knew Kevin was off his rocker, I didn't realize how off his rocker he was.  He went and dug up crazy lady and PURPOSEFULLY got pulled over with her rotting corpse in the back of his truck.  He of course is the luckiest mofo on the planet because not only did he not go to jail because they hated her anyways but when he told Nora about his semi-criminal act and she said okay no biggie, I love you.  What?!? 

Then she is offered a stupid amount of money to sell her home, over 3 mil, because multiple people "departed" there...morbid much.  They get to miracle where people are on waiting lists to get in and they just so happen to rent a house...ONLINE.  Alas, the house they rented burned to the ground...hmmm I wonder if it was by the crazy firefighter dude???  Nora goes all crazy white girl and buys a house for auction....for basically what she got for her house.  Kevin is acting like a nutter which shouldn't surprise me but geesh.

He's seeing "ghosts"...ya know Patti.  But she seems so real and she wants to be acknowledged.  He thinks he's going the route of his dad and just ignores it.  When she slams his head into their new stove, its concerning.  Is he hurting himself or is she real?!!?!?

So it looked like we weren't going to see what they did during the quake because it was fading to back as Kevin fell asleep.  And then BAM he is at at the reservoir.  How the f**k did he get there without Nora noticing?!?!  Why is he tied to a f**king cinder-block??? Did he try to kill himself???  So he just happens to appear at the reservoir when the teenagers disappeared during the earth quake.  And then crazy Patti just happens to appear to him at that point with an "uh oh".  Really?!?!  What is happening???

The preview for next week (or the rest of the season) looks intense.  Did I see preacher man in a stocks?!?!?!  Are they gonna kill him?  How did creepy dad get shot?  Did they find Kevin at the reservoir?  Why are the looney toons from New York showing up in Texas? 

This show is crazy but I have a feeling Kevin is important to whatever it is.  Possibly an epicenter or something.  He is a key, we just have to figure out to what. 

I only have more questions...that's so not fair!!!

So for some stupid reason I decided to keep watching The Leftovers.  It isn't a bad show but it is very dark.  By the end of last season I was still very WTF.  I had no idea what was going on but things got real weird, real fast.  So I figured Season 2 would still be weird but would answer some of the questions we all had.

The season opener gave me a migraine.  If you haven't watched it and still plan on watching it,
DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!  You have been warned.  It came on Sunday...but I am being nice...
SPOILERS below.


So it started in 10,000BC or something (what?!?).  There was a cave woman.  I honest to God thought I started watching the wrong show.  So she's prego and has to tinkle, why do I need to know this?!!?!  Anyways she leaves her tribe in the cave and there is a flipping earthquake and they are all buried alive...well that sucks!  So b**ch goes into labor all alone and manages to birth the baby and not die, kudos cave chick.  Again, I am still like what am I watching?!!?!?  So she is starving and has to find food and gets bit by a snake (uh oh).  Her arm goes all gangrene and basically falls off and she dies with the infant clutched to her chest while laying near a water reserve, creek thing...jfc that's terrible!  Some other tribe lady finds the baby, gives dead mom a sad look and moves on.  Then we flash to present day Miracle, TX.  Ummmmm WTF?

Why am I in Miracle, TX?  Who are these new characters?!?!  What happened to the old characters?!?!?  What was with the flipping cave woman?!?!  What is happening?!?!  So apparently Miracle was the only place where people didn't "depart".  No one was "taken" so now its like a holy land.  Honestly, when they show the buses coming in with peeps and residents of the town selling "holy items" all I could think of was Fatima or Medjugorje.  Ya know, places where Mary appeared and then *BAM* its now a place where people pilgrimage from all over the world to be close to God or "healed" or whatever.  Don't get me wrong, I'd visit too out of sheer curiosity even if I wasn't a little religious. 

It all centers around this really sketch family.  The husband is a Fireman that burns down peoples houses (WTF?!?) and his daughter is rebelling a bit and almost a typical teen.  Mom seems normal, as is the brother and the whole fam goes to Baptist services.  Finally more than half way in, we get our preacher man (Christopher Eccleston) showing up in Miracle.  But he only has a small scene and he is shooshed by the current preacher from talking about the departure and his wife's "miracle" ...odd.  The sketch dad questions him like some interrogator...what is going on!?!?

So we are back at the house and sketch dad gets a pie left on the front porch and he's all suspicious that its poisoned or something (well if you didn't go around burning down people's houses maybe you wouldn't be so paranoid!).  He sees his new Neighbors (yay, its our "favorite" f**ked up family from Season 1).  So we have preacher man, along with Kevin, Nora, Jill & recently acquired baby randomly showing up in the same town in TX...can't be a coincidence...right?!?  (yes I know him and Nora are related but they aren't exactly BFFs) So sketch dad brings the possible POISONED pie to the new neighbors...(what a d**k!) and invites them for his B-day BBQ, odd.

BBQ is weird to say the least.  Kevin is awkward anyway and sketch dad is just not right so that's fun.  Apparently sketch dad was in prison for attempted murder and that's not an uncomfortable conversation, nope not at all.  So the kids in that home (boy and girl) are apparently twins.  Weird things always happen with twins.  I should know I am married to one and my BFFs are twins.

Anyway, twin girl has a seizure at the table and messes up the bday cake (yikes!)...poor baby.  So we end up with them eating the pie (pahahahaha, karma).  No one dies but shockingly enough even after the seizure they let girlfriend go off with her friends after dinner, hmmmm.  Sometime in the middle of the night we have an Earthquake (ahhh tying into the weirdo beginning).  Mom & dad realize baby girl never came home.  Dad and twin bro go to the reservoir, creek thing and find the friend's car....running...with the radio on...locked from the inside and EMPTY.  No trace of the three girls.  OMG the girls departed didn't they!?!?!?  The creek thing is dry and the fish are flopping...where the hell did all the water go?!?!  And roll credits.

I have more questions!  I have no answers!  I have a headache!  And I will keep watching because I apparently like to torture my brain. 

What is happening?!? A Leftovers Review

So I am hooked on this damn show and I don't really know why.  So kudos to you HBO for not telling me what I am watching but still getting me to tune in every week to see if maybe I'll get a bread crumb for my efforts. 

Last night was no different.  I sat down anxiously waiting, hoping for some answers.  I mean it's the season finale, right?!?  It was ever so slightly a bit of a mind f**k.  And by ever so slightly I mean my head went *boom*. All I can say is THANK GOD it was renewed for Season 2. 

As depressing as this show is (I mean 2% of the population went *poof* for no reason) I really like it.  I've liked it even more since they did that back story episode to show us just how happy or unhappy our main characters were before the departure.  I mean when they showed her having the ultrasound and then no more baby.  I got a little emotional.  That scene slapped me in the face and I suddenly understood WHY she is doing what she is doing.  Okay back to the finale.  WTF did I watch?!?

Seriously, the whole show I was like OMG...NOOOOO....WHAT...WTF JUST HAPPENED...HOW.... OOOOOOOHHHH...THAT'S HOW ITS ENDING.  I am really good usually at picking up on things in a show or book but this one had my head reeling.  Connecting the dots was not an option, I felt so slow to keep up.  So more kudos for blowing my mind HBO.  And they totally tricked me!  I was ready to hang the pastor!  I was like dammit Matt, what were you thinking!?!!?!?  By the way I love Christopher Eccleston in this show.  Or maybe I just really like him as an actor...whatever, I like his character.  Then crazy bitch showed up and I was all "yep, he's lost his GD mind".  And I was so flipping uncomfortable with the intimacy being shown, I seriously looked away because she was forcing herself on him.  I almost lost it when he called for his "daddy"...he seemed so defeated and scared.  Then HBO went "hahahaaha made ya look".  And I shook my fist at the TV and said "dammit HBO".  Well maybe not but I probably should have.  The rest of the episode was up and down and how in the world...and oh god, oh god what did these crazy MF-er's in white do now!  After he saved Jill and Laurie and the thing with the dog, I began thinking maybe crazy Wayne dude can actually grant wishes because it looks like he is getting his family back!  Which if a season two is coming how in the world with uh...Nora...adopted son...random baby. 

And then it happened...I started tearing up when Nora was saying goodbye.  Her narration over the images being shown, it was beautiful and sad.  That was the final straw.  She was giving up but thanking Kevin and telling him how wonderful he is because even with his flaws, he is pretty damn amazing.  And a tad bit sexy.  Any way he needs to hear that but she can't give up, she just can't. So I was upset, "no no no, don't take her, I like her, she is a little badass and kind of relatable".  She just seemed real.  I was so terrified they were going to end it with her suicide I had crawled up the back of my couch with my hand over my mouth trying to get away from that ending.  But when she found the baby, I did a hiccup/gasp thing because you could see the moment she realized she couldn't or shouldn't give up.  "look what I found" *watery smile* flash to a confused Kevin & Jill, fade to black.

It took me a minute to realize it was over!  No, they can't end it like that!!! I still don't know what the eff is going on.  What happened?!?!?!  I need answers!!!  Instead I have a million more questions and now have to wait for Season 2.  I think I should read the book...I've heard its amazing but I don't know how closely the show follows the book.  Probably not that close if I had to guess. 

So brain went *boom*.  I still have no idea what is happening but I like some characters so much more and just loathe others.  Maybe I should re-watch and see if I missed anything when things went *boom*.