Season 1, Episode 10: “The Prodigal Son Returns”
From the start, “The Leftovers” has felt like a tug-of-war between its two creative lodestars: Tom Perrotta, the sensitive novelist of small-scale suburban malaise, and Damon Lindelof, the mad-hatter auteur, fond of grandiose plots and supernatural intrigue. The two shared writing credit for Sunday’s finale, “The Return of the Prodigal Son” — a well-executed and surprisingly satisfying hour of television — but it seemed, in the end, that Mr. Perrotta won the day. His novel’s ending, with Nora finding the baby, was re-enacted nearly word for word. After nearly 10 hours of pain, the series left us with the suggestion that hope and humanity can persevere, even in the cruelest of circumstances.
I did not expect that message, although I was not sure just what to expect. This series took far too long to decide what kind of show it wanted to be: a probing examination of grief, or a “Lost”-style enigma punctuated by shock-and-awe horror. There is surely an argument that it can be both. But looking back, those rambling, symbolism-laden episodes from midseason seem like so much unnecessary noise around a core story that, on its own, was quietly compelling: a close-knit town riven by tragedy, a twisted Thornton Wilder play focused on despair and family and loss and rebirth.
Nora’s letter to Kevin, a heart-breaking and deeply human confession — “I want to believe it’s still possible to get close to someone, but it’s easier not to” — could be written by any mourner trying to move on, not just one whose family happened to vanish into thin air one day at breakfast. Kevin’s desire to have a family again (and I bet that was his silent wish, the one Wayne devilishly pronounced “granted”) could be shared by any despairing father, not just one whose wife ran off with a cult of mute emotional terrorists.
Universality is not a requirement for a good story, but unless “The Leftovers” was planning to go all-in with the Giant Supernatural Conspiracy angle (and its creators admitted from the start the Departure would not be explained), it can help a lot. And this series was ultimately about a group of troubled people trying to find real connection in a cold world, to transcend the fog of despair that had enveloped them. “We’re in this together,” Kevin Garvey tells Matt Jamison in Cairo, and it’s a warning, not reassurance. Matt’s reply is the warmest thing of the entire season: “Then let’s be in it.”
Note that Dean, the bald dog-killer who usually showed up during the times the show got weird and boring, was noticeably absent from this episode. And Kevin’s elaborate dream sequence, which brought back unexplained and ill-conceived devices like National Geographic and reruns of “Perfect Strangers,” felt like a last gasp of Lindelofian mischief. Maybe there is a master code governing the world of “The Leftovers”; maybe the writers needed to gin up the mystery to keep viewers around for next season. But Kevin Garvey’s journey makes a lot more sense as the struggle of a man who believes he wished away his family than as the ghostly visions of an Ambien-popping narcoleptic.
I don’t mean to spoil the supernatural fun. This series was filled with so many haunting images that I will not soon shake. The finale’s director, Mimi Leder, did a wonderful job showing us the Guilty Remnant’s final, unspeakably sadistic crime: Nora’s silent scream as she came downstairs; the still images of Loved One dolls frozen in the street. The dolls’ faces were distorted for maximum “uncanny valley” effect. And that haunting string music was a classical cover of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters,” a perfect theme for the amoral Guilty Remnant.
Speaking of the Remnant, was there some measure of redemption in their cruel last act? Sure, it led to bloody violence and a townwide revolt, but in a funny way it also ushered in catharsis for viewers and characters alike. There were cheers from my couch as the angry mob beat up the cult members, who have been annoying us all season. The Loved One dolls melting in flames evoked the Viking funeral of the Baby Jesus doll; maybe family members found comfort in finally “burying” a relative who had disappeared. Meg’s explanation that “we made them remember” was meant to be defiant, but it’s true, as Laurie told Tommy last episode, that forgetting a tragedy “doesn’t work.” Maybe Mapleton needed to remember to move on.
We leave Laurie on the banks of the Hudson River, and I wondered if she was contemplating a Virginia Woolf-like suicide. She knowingly placed her daughter in harm’s way. She led a scheme to inflict enormous mental anguish. (It’s always the psychologists, isn’t it?) Tommy’s re-appearance at this crucial moment, his clasping of her hand, seems an impossible coincidence — but no more impossible than the disappearance of 2 percent of the world. Like Wayne’s rest-stop encounter with Kevin, it may or may not be divine intervention, but it seemed to save her, at least for now.
Should Laurie be saved? That final glance between her and Kevin struck me as his farewell. Can he welcome back someone who would allow their daughter to die? She and Tommy make a good pair, refugees from bombed-out cults who abandoned their children: Christine’s baby, whom Tommy leaves on the doorstep, might as well be his.
The truth is that not everyone recovers from grief. But in its final scene, “The Leftovers” suggests that Kevin, Jill and Nora can mourn their losses but still find a makeshift way to live — maybe even stumble their way to something resembling love. People vanish from our lives, but sometimes new ones appear. Strip away the hokum, and you might discover that “The Leftovers,” in the last judgment, has a soul.
Final questions: Would the show have worked better as a five-episode mini-series? I credit the writers for their clever foreshadowing, but there were whole episodes I could have done without. And I’m curious what viewers would like to see in Season 2. This finale felt more like a full-stop than a pause, and most of Mr. Perrotta’s material in the novel has been used. My request: More Nora Durst. As Kevin knows, she’s a keeper.