What I’m Watching: The Leftovers

The Leftovers: Season 3, Episode 5 “It's a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World” (B)

This is what counts as a typical episode of this show lately, focused on one character and the way that they interact with the universe in this imagined future. I really don’t know what’s going to come of finding Kevin in Australia and bringing him home in time for the anniversary, and it seems that Matt has, to a degree, lost his faith in the process. It was jarring to hear Matt tell a dirty joke about a priest in order to get onto the ferry from Tasmania when the plane got diverted, and everything aboard the ship was just plain strange if not excessively disturbing. I guess that’s the kind of thing that’s normal in this show’s world, but it still seems like an unnecessary diversion, one point on which Matt and I agree. I knew I recognized David Burton from somewhere, but the accent threw me off, and I now see that I know Bill Camp from his performance on “The Night Of.” Contending that he was God somehow managed to win Matt over in the end, yet he still got trampled by a lion as he tried to run from the police when he was called to account for his actions. The most unexpected part of this episode for me was the Hebrew liturgical music that played, including “Avinu Malkeinu” from the High Holidays and “Ashrei” from each daily service, meant to deepen the deeply religious nature of Matt’s quest in this episode. It was intriguing but I’d like to get back to what’s most focused about this show in the next episode.