Distributor: Warner Home Video
Episodes: 10
Duration: 59 min (per episode)
The Leftovers: Season 2 (Blu-ray) – Series Review
Even though ‘The Leftovers’ might sound like the table scraps you feed to your dog, in this case it’s something a lot more serious. The Leftovers is all about how the world has changed after 140 million people vanished into thin air. In this second season things will move towards a new location, namely Jarden, which lies in the Miracle national park, in Texas. A fresh start is something mainly people seek in this place, or at least try to, as this is the only place on Earth where no ‘departures’ occurred.
The newly composed family of Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), his daughter Jill Garvey (Margaret Qualley), his new girlfriend Nora Durst (Carrie Coon) and the infant that was left at their doorstep, moves to Jarden in Texas, to start over. Not only to build up a new life, after Kevin’s (ex-)wife Laurie (Amy Brenneman) and his son Tom (Chris Zylka) left him to join the ‘Guilty Remnant’, a strange cult that wants to keep the ‘departure’ fresh in the minds of the people. While everything looks like it’s about to become a tad better for the Garvey family, Kevin sees Patti Levin (Ann Dowd), someone who was in control of one of the Guilty Remnant’s branches. This should not be a big issue, if she weren’t dead that is. Strange sleepwalking habits start to form and he even finds himself tied to a cinder block, in the middle of a drained lake after his latest nightly episode. It seems he will need to get rid of this ‘spirit’ no matter what.
Meanwhile Laurie and Tom have their own set of troubles, and it seems the ways of the Guilty Remnant are not in sync with their visions anymore. Tom tries to lure people away to Laurie, who tries to reunite these people again with their families. Of course, it seems that money and fame are an ulterior motive of Laurie, as she’s working on a book in the meantime.
In Jarden things aren’t always as peaceful for the original residents either. John Murphy (Kevin Carroll), his wife Erika (Regina King) and their two children Michael (Jovan Adepo) and Evangeline (Jasmin Savoy Brown) seem to be a happy family, but they do have their fair share of trouble. John goes around the city to punish those who try to scam people from their money, by convincing them
Miracle national park, or Jarden to be precise, is a wondrous place and no miracle is too big to occur. There are those that claim to be psychics or simply those who wish to sell object that are supposedly blessed. When Evangeline and her two friends suddenly go missing at the lake during the evening of Kevin’s episode, it looks like another departure occurred.
The pace of this series is actually hard to describe, as some sometimes periods are revisited over several episodes, but through the eyes of the other characters. Overall things have a pleasant flow but you will experience several what-the-fuck-moments in rapid succession of one another, which is actually oddly satisfying. Even though it might seem not that much actually happens over the course of these ten episodes, there is actually a lot going on.
What makes this series slightly more unique is the overall vibe of things and how they are portrayed. While things stay very calm at the surface, there has been a lot of attention spent to details and how it might come across for the viewers. Another thing that lifts up the whole is the music choice at certain key scenes, and the strength and intensiveness of said songs.
This series has a surprisingly strong cast, of actors and actresses that not only have a lot of experience under their belt, but also those that actually starred in box office movies. Actresses like Regina King and Liv Tyler are great to see in series such as this. Truth be told, the main cast of The Leftovers is extremely strong and convincing from start to finish.
This Blu-ray release sadly comes without any extra features and while a making of would not add that much extra value to this series, there are other things that could have added an extra layer to this second season. It would have been nice to get some extra story value or perhaps the thoughts on certain of the ‘odder’ scenes, instead of nothing.
Conclusion
The Leftovers: Season 2 proves to be a very interesting second chapter for the series. While for some viewers certain things might be rather farfetched, it’s a very pleasant tale to watch unfold. With the odd occurrences at the end of this second season, we hope the next season will have a lot of surprises in store for us, but hopefully this will become one of those series that doesn’t get stretched out too far, as it would lose its edge and power.
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