It's even worse than it appears.
Good morning JSON fans! ;-)#
Spoiler alert. I discuss the final episode of The Leftovers which aired tonight on HBO, and also briefly mention the final episode of Mad Men.#- Finales of HBO series are a Thing. Debated for years. And The Leftovers was such an unusual show, a big enigma, with a lot of sleight of hand it turns out, you had to wonder how they were going to wrap things up, with the plot of the whole three-season show so uncertain.#
- It turns out that 1/2 of the plot was revealed in Episode One of Season One, and the other half wasn't revealed until the final minutes of the last episode. Inbetween? Haha. But they did it. It really does make sense in a science fiction way. If you accept the premise that 2 percent of the population could disappear in an instant, and if you watched the show all the way to the end you had to accept it, then you can certainly accept the resolution, the explanation of how it balances, the symmetry of it. They even showed you the symmetry, with Nora's story, the one character for whom it made sense to make a round trip.#
- I love it. I love it because when the show was originally pitched, the symmetry must have been the whole pitch. Just like the punchline of Mad Men was also for sure the pitch for the show. Yet I didn't see it coming in The Leftovers. In hindsight it seems so obvious. And I spent some time thinking about it. At least the 30 or so hours I've spent watching episodes. #
- The best punchline is the one you didn't see coming which then seems totally obvious. The Leftovers, for me at least, delivered.#
- I also like that they began the last episode with the Season 2 theme song, Let The Mystery Be by Iris DeMent. What a great song, great performer. #
There's this moment when you're on a jury when you realize you're in a courtroom, your mind is focused on the trial, on the testimony, the judge, the lawyers, the accused, when you realize there's no jury, wait no, that's not right, hold on, holy shit, I'm the jury. #- DJ Trump hasn't had that moment yet as POTUS. He still thinks he's an outside bombthrower who's actually just a spitballer. Taking cheap shots at people in power who have to calm down the populace and make the tough decisions. At some point it will dawn on him that this is his job too. And he might just fall apart at that moment. #