What I’m Watching: The Leftovers

The Leftovers: Season 3, Episode 3 “Crazy Whitefella Thinking” (B-)

I’m not all that fond of isolationist episodes like this that follow just one character on a long search for something, interacting only infrequently with other series regulars. I’ve already preferred the deeply devastating moments that this show offers rather than the episodic journeys that the characters take to get to them. What I did like was that we didn’t waste any time offering some clarification from the end of last episode after we saw Kevin Sr. when the women who had just killed Chief of Police Kevin. Getting to that moment took a very long time, and the obvious problem in this universe is that everyone believes something but it’s hard to find more than one person who believes exactly the same thing. Matt was understandably furious with Kevin for throwing out the photocopy of his book, and Kevin was so busy being obsessed with learning the aboriginal songs. That search didn’t interest me all that much, though there was a sort of powerful nostalgia to hearing a young Kevin Jr. excitedly narrating their Niagara adventures on the tape. What made the episode worthwhile was the final scene featuring Lindsay Duncan, recently seen in a very brief but memorable role in “Birdman,” as Grace, the woman who killed the other Kevin in the previous episode. Her story about losing her family and then finding Kevin Jr. with a page from the book in his hand, which led to her drowning Kevin because she thought he was testing her, was incredibly compelling. Kevin’s response was even better, telling her that he didn’t think she was crazy at all, rather that she just got the wrong Kevin. I wonder how relevant all this will prove in episode four and beyond.