What I’m Watching: The Leftovers

The Leftovers: Season 2, Episode 4 “Orange Sticker” (B+)

Now that time has caught up to where we were at the end of the first episode, we’re back to following the show’s number one family in the face of the disappearance of John’s daughter and her friends. Nora panicking because she thinks that it’s happening again was a worrisome introduction since she has been so much happier recently. Telling Jill about her former assignment tracking down people who were pretending to have disappeared so that their families could collect death benefits helped to explain a lot of what she’s been through and how that was a perfect job for her since she had actually lost her whole family and they were just trying to pull a scam at the expense of others. Matt’s experience was a deeply disconcerting one, having a normal conversation with his wife and then waking up the next morning to find that she was back the way she had been before that. While it seemed that John was picking Kevin up in order to lead him to his interrogation and execution, having him come alone to beat up someone else was almost as bad. Erika’s cool reaction to John getting shot spoke volumes, but what Kevin saw wasn’t as impactful as what he hallucinated in his conversation with Patti. Realizing that he tried to kill himself in a way that wasn’t attention-seeking is deeply disturbing and worrisome, especially since he doesn’t remember doing it. Returning home to be literally connected to Nora by handcuffs provided some comfort, but that tranquility won’t last long.