I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the rec.

The end made it good for me. After the first season I was worried it would be a mess of a show, but the ending tied everything up nicely. Interesting show and storyline.

Warning, spoilers here, so don't read this post if you don't want to know how it ended!!! It was a great show all three seasons, but I hate that they sewed up what caused the departures which had been an intense 3 season mystery, with a mere two minute explanation from Nora. Instead of wasting the fantasy world episode with Kevin as President I wish they would have used that episode to show Nora going to the parallel Earth that apparently split apart from our Earth or vice versa. She found the missing two percent including her family, but because her husband was with another woman, she never contacted them. Instead, she tracked down the guy who invented the machine and talked him into building another so that she could go back. And then what does she do? She goes into self imposed exile as a bird lady and doesn't tell her story to the world. She was a very stron woman and now she's hiding from Kevin? Just crazy. There were so many other awesome things in the series though that I'm still happy I watched it.

^^^^^ This, I thought that the show was great though!

But was that what really happened? Her story about her journey to the other world could have been just that; a story. The scene where she supposedly goes through the process to send her wherever "they" went cuts off right as she's about to yell something. Perhaps she chickened out, perhaps the whole thing was a hoax, and perhaps she actually went on the journey she described. She was obviously a deeply troubled woman. She was torn between loving and missing her Departed family, and loving and wanting to be with her new family. Maybe she made up that story about gaining closure on her Departed family (either consciously or subconsciously) in order to come to finally reconcile the loss of her children and husband.

Throughout the series, we learned never to take anything at face value. Wayne's power of "hugging the pain away" seems very mystical but believable in a world where 2% of the world's population just vanishes. But when Tom and Laurie start using it in season two, he says that it was always just bullshit. Same with John Murphy's ability to talk to people's dead relatives, when that ends up just being Laurie Facebook stalking people and talking to him through an earpiece. Same with what ended up being a dud apocalypse in season 3. So I don't truly trust Nora's story, but I'm also not dismissing it as a fabrication of a troubled mind.

I don't think anything was ever truly explained fully, and I think that's a beautiful storytelling technique. This show left me with so many questions in a delightful way!

Definitely an incredible show. My feeling is that while I loved Nora's story at the end and how it seemed to make sense of the whole Departure thing, it really was just a story. She didn't travel to the other side and meet her family. She chickened out at the last second and then hid from Kevin in Australia until he finally found her.

The theme of the last episode seemed to be about pretty lies, that if you thought about them long enough or learned enough facts, would start to unravel themselves and you find their ugly truths. The wedding guests are told the doves released with their wedding wishes will fly all over the world, but they can't actually fly more than 50 miles. Nora's in on that scam. The nun that she works with has taken a vow of celibacy for her faith, but she's secretly sleeping with the priest. Kevin claims he happened to run into Nora on vacation in Australia and only now has a chance to ask her to a dance that he tormented himself over not doing for twenty years, but he was really just too afraid to confront with the baggage of their past.

Nora claimed she went to the other side, the Departed were there, found her family were living happily back in her old house, then found the scientist to make another machine and send her back. If the scientist had made his way over in the first place, don't you think there would have been some sort of worldwide effort on that side to build a new machine to send everyone that wanted to go back? How would Nora have been able to convince him to build that machine when the rest of the world couldn't? How would she afford for him to build that machine? I don't think these were oversights on the story writers' parts, but intentionally designed flaws to make us as the audience eventually doubt her tale when we processed it for ourselves.

This show was amazing. There is room for sequels.

It made me like some of the characters I initially disliked. As the seasons progressed.

My favorite character is the girl who lost her family. My opinion of her changed after my stroke and three brain surgeries.

I had to watch the 8th episode twice. It was worth it. A nice wrap up with openings for more, IMO.

Too fucking weird. I only made it thru about the first 3 episodes.

I have high standards for shows these days, and very little time for them, so it's gotta be damn good.

I just felt like this show was about, "let's see how fucking weird we can make this show and roll with it!".

Yes....or another way of putting it is "Damon Lindelof." He's the reason I just skipped this one altogether

I think the show was about how we as humans try to find meaning in things even if there isn't any. There are a lot of unexplained supernatural events in the show that never get a good explanation, but there are also a lot of things that just seem to be supernatural that really aren't. Like in the first season, Kevin spots a deer with a shining light between its antlers, like the Jaegermeister logo, but later on discovers that it's just a deer that has a balloon tangled in its antlers. I think Kevin's whole messiah substory is just an example of mysterious phenomena that has no meaning, especially since we learn that later in life Kevin suffers from a major heart attack, but Matt deified him and began writing a new religious text about him like he was witnessing the next Jesus. Similarly, when Matt starts accepting the man on the boat's pretense for being God, he begs God to tell him the meaning of the Departure only to be mocked with laughter and told "because I can" and then watch him get mauled by a lion when the boat docks.

I think the dud apocalypse was just an assumption on the world's part that the first Departure was a religious event and there would be a second Departure in seven years, based on Revelation in the Bible. Kevin dying and coming back over and over may not have been supernatural either. Perhaps his body is just much better suited than most to survive multiple drownings, gunshots, poison, etc. and his trips to that weird dead world are just his brain misfiring from being in near death states. In other words, he and his father didn't save the world, because there was no second event that they stopped.

It's been a long time since I watched Lost, but I had a different impression by the explanation at the end. I don't think Jack's father said that everyone was dead the whole time, just that they were dead in the side-flash timeline. Everything else from all previous seasons DID happen in the real world, including the non-side-flash stuff like the epic final battle between Jack and Locke. The side-flash timeline was a purgatory of sorts outside of linear time, so even though all the Lost passengers died at different times in the real world, they all arrived in purgatory together and would move on to what's next together because they weren't bound by time. I think Jack's father said that the reason they were all together in the purgatory was because they all experienced the most profound moments of their lives together. Something like that at least. Maybe I completely misunderstood.

All in all very thought provoking. I liked the first season and the third season. In hindsight season two was nessesary but I did not enjoy it. I liked the season three episode about the guy in the tower. The lie.

Amazing show. Emotionally draining but simply stunning performances and a great plot.

Regarding the 'lack' of answers: The show wasn't about the Departure - it was about the Leftovers; the broken shattered people trying to make sense of life. There was never going to be an explanation for everything, and ironically that's what the characters grapple with for 3 seasons. Love, loss, anger, cults, addiction, religion etc. are all born and killed by life happenings, even in our own world - the Departure was yet another bump in the road of human history where no answers were available to make sense of life.

The Leftovers has been one of the highest rated and acclaimed shows for three seasons. It is easily one of the best human dramas I have ever watched, although it is wildly depressing. I would highly recommend you give it a fair shot - it is a very short series in the grand scheme.

They weren't dead the whole time. Not even maybe.

Nailed it

This is a perfect summary for the show.

I barely watch any TV. I cancelled cable about ten years ago and didn't look back. I refuse to waste my time with anything but the best television has to offer and I'd definitely put The Leftovers in my top 10 series list. When I first started watching, I was intrigued but I didn't know why because I didn't know what to make of it, but eventually it hooked me, and it was well worth the ride.

I heard people saying The Leftovers was excellent, but I'm only a few episodes in and I'm struggling to get into the show. Is it really worth hanging in there? (Note: I have not read any comments above in case of spoilers).

Kevin could see the people who had died there, so that's how he knew that Nora was not incinerated. That's why he kept looking for her on earth all those years.

Kevin nuked the place, so he could never return and in effect, became mortal again.

The thoughts of our posts in this thread shows the genius of the show. Three people could watch it and come away with different results. I think the half answers and very slight supernatural air about the show was clever. Enough was left to our imaginations to keep numerous possible plot angles open.

The best parts to me were the crazy little side twists, like: Kevin's dad falling on and killing the guy in Australia that he desperately needed info from, the odd girl that was Kevin's daughter's friend in season 1 unless she was she an angel or just pure imagination, Nora paying hookers to shoot her in the chest for thrills, the Preacher finding a way to get the money to save his Church but getting hit in the head on the way there and missing the deadline because he tried to do a good deed, the National Geographic magazine episode with Kevin's crazy Dad, Gary Busey being a departed at the same time as the Pope, the Preacher helping Kevin bury Pattie in a shallow grave without blinking an eye or asking a single question, the Alcohol Tobacco Firearms adding Cults to its name, the wax dummies caper by the Guilty Remnant, etc.

Oh, and I almost forgot Kevin's Dad limping along in the desert after getting thrown out of the ambulance, almost getting a ride but the guy burned himself up, followed by Dad planning to eat a poisonous snake to keep from starving, but getting bitten instead, just to wake up in someone's house as the ladies were drowning the Sheriff cause they had the 'wrong' Kevin. I could go on and on. Those plot points and so many others are why the series was so awesome.

Show was really messed up. I watched it, but not sure exactly how much I enjoyed it. It kept me coming back, but it was so damn unsettling, especially with the creepy ass music choices!

My favorite show ever. This one grabbed me by the heartstrings and never let go.

I heard an old Regina Spektor song in Season 2 and fell in love with her all over again.

This show was reminded me of John from Cincinnati. Just ridiculously bad.

great show. The guys on Reddit have really dissected the show as a whole and specifically the finale. Worth checking out for those that have already watched them all. My first watch of the finale had me thinking one thing until I saw it broken down. The next time I watched it I changed my opinion on whether or not I thought her story was true...

Agree though that the music and acting were the best parts of the show.

Damon Lindelof of Leftovers is rumored to be involved in a future Watchman series for HBO.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/78061

Sounds like fun. I tried to research the original novels online and it appears there was only one. I wonder if it covered the whole series or only the first season? The weird stuff in the first season, of which there was a lot, seemed more exciting to me than the later seasons, other than Kevin's Dad in the desert in season 3. The folks behind Leftovers clearly have a winning show dynamic for future series. I hope the Watchmen rumor is true.

I read somewhere that her bike in Australia was the same one she rode in season 2. I wonder how she got it moved?

By the way, does anyone have a good explanation or guess for why Nora threw the rock through the neighbors' window in season 2? They seemed to be getting along just fine.

Have to check the serial number on the frame to be sure.