The Leftovers Review: “Cairo” (Season 1, Episode 8)

In that cabin in Cairo, we also get our best picture yet of what Patti and the Guilty Remnant want in Mapleton. She tells him that all she wants is for him to “understand.” The Sudden Departure happened, but people have tried to move on. Patti takes that to mean that people are ignoring that it happened, denying that those people vanished into thin air. And that just won’t do. “We are living reminders of what you try so desperately to forget,” she says of the GR. (BOMBSHELL ALERT!) Patti cops to arranging Gladys’ death, and says she’ll do the same for Laurie, so that they’ll all be remembered. The GR’s purpose, something that so many lack in the wake of Departure, is to remind people about the day everything changed, forever. It’s ironic that Patti calls this “something to live for,” seeing as what the GR do can’t really be called living. In some respects, they’re already dead; and in others, they’re actively hastening their own demises.

Kevin never had a choice in killing Patti. Dean, quietly reinforcing Patti’s dangerousness from the sidelines, and Patti herself, goading Kevin onward, made sure of that. “I want you to commit, I want you to go all the way, I want you to understand,” she says. “Understand what?” He asks. “What happened, what’s happening, to me, to you.” It’s a desperate statement from a woman who prides herself on being cool as a cucumber, and one that I’ll analyze just down the page. But when Kevin, in violation of every animalistic urge he has, cuts Patti’s ties and decides to let her go, it’s meant to be a victory for him.

However, no sooner is his back turned than does Patti stab herself in the neck with a piece of broken glass, hoping that her death by suicide will force him down the same road he would have traveled had he killed her directly. The end result is the same: Kevin dragged Patti off the streets up to a woodland cabin, where she died. The police chief has blood on his hands. He’s been irreparably tainted.

Patti’s last words, “You understand,” leave a clear impact on Kevin, even if their meaning still eludes me. This woman’s entire thought process about the Sudden Departure is as fascinating as it is headache-inducing. She wants Kevin to compromise, to forsake the idea that he can do good in Mapleton. She also wants people to really think about the Sudden Departure, though her reasons for wanting that remain somewhat opaque. Because she’s worried they’ll forget? There are still major pieces of this puzzle missing. The poetry she recites doesn’t help. It’s W.B. Yeats’ “He Bids His Beloved Be at Peace,” from A Wind Among the Reeds. The “horses of disaster” are reminiscent of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and indicative of something bad coming to Mapleton down the road. The message seems, then, to be that Mapleton’s residents are so unengaged, essentially asleep, that they cannot hear the horses, or the doom they signify, approaching. Kevin, however, is now awake.

Regardless of what lies ahead, “Cairo” already has Kevin going down a darker path. The two big musical choices in this episode (“I’ve Been ‘Buked,” sung by a choir; and “I’ve Got Dreams to Remember,” by Otis Redding) describe the two sides to Kevin – one vengeful, the other baffled. By episode’s end, the vengeful side has gotten what he wants, and the baffled side (who doesn’t remember what’s been happening when he’s asleep) is at least a little more clued in than he was before. And now that the Guilty Remnant’s leader is out of the picture, I’m expecting Kevin to be gunning for the rest of them – especially now that they’ve taken both his daughter and his wife.