What I’m Watching: The Leftovers

The Leftovers: Season 1, Episode 8 “Cairo” (B+)

This show really has a hypnotic take on the loss of time. Matt missed a few days when he was trying to get together the money necessary to keep the church, and now for the second or third time Kevin has woken up without any memory of what happened the night before. It turns out that this time was especially bad, and this show has a mesmerizing way of showing how Kevin deals with that, particularly the moment in which he saw all of his shirts hanging up on the trees. It’s a shame that his humanity in preventing Dean from murdering Patti ended up resulting in such a disturbing conversation and then Patti’s suicide made to look Kevin fully guilty of killing her. It seems that in her absence Laurie has taken the reins of the Guilty Remnant full force, smacking and silencing bad devotee Meg and ensuring that the next disturbing step of their plan goes through even with Patti out of the picture. Jill shares her father’s ability to be self-destructive, acting in an overly hostile manner towards Nora and then breaking into her house, at the same time pushing away her good friend and going to see her mother of all people. To her credit, Nora performed admirably opposite such aggressive behavior, and she also managed to get in a few verbal blows when Laurie and Meg stopped by to see Matt. As if it was possible, I presume that things are only going to get worse in the final two episodes of the season.