The Leftovers Series Premiere Review: “Pilot” (Season 1, Episode 1)

The crowd looks back. GR members are striding in, moving calmly but quickly towards the memorial day proceedings. A palpable shiver of anger runs through the crowd. Kevin rushes to intercept them, but a woman from the crowd is already ahead of him, yelling, “What the hell are you doing here?” Others are joining her, angrily shouting at the GR. Suddenly, the GR, all with cigarettes, stop moving and form a line. Without a word, they hold up large pieces of paper, each with one letter, to spell out, “STOP WASTING YOUR BREATH.”

For all their silence, the GR sure know how to stir the pot. One woman reaches the line of protestors first and pushes her back, hissing, “Get out of here!” Then another woman smashes a GR member in the face with a glass bottle, and all bets are off. The crowd surges forward, shoving, punching and kicking. None of the GR fight back. Quickly, Kevin is on the scene, blowing his whistle and pulling out a baton, angrily hitting the violent townies in an attempt to get them off the GR. Somber piano music plays as Kevin surveys the field, filled with angry, beaten people.

After that particularly hard-to-watch scene, we cut to a television in a bar, which gives a list of celebrities who disappeared in the Departure. Shaquille O’Neal, Jennifer Lopez, Gary Busey – and most interestingly, Pope Benedict XVI. Might the Guilty Remnant be members of the Catholic Church who were left utterly rudderless in the wake of the Departure without their most crucial figure? “Pope, I get the Pope,” the bartender says. “But Gary fucking Busey? How does he make the cut?”

Drinking in the bar, Kevin attracts the attention of a beautiful woman – the same one from the episode opener, who lost her baby. She asks him where he was when the Departure occurred – and we see him screwing a woman suggested to not be his wife. “At my house, cleaning out a gutter,” he lies. She tells him she was in the laundromat parking lot but doesn’t elaborate. “Hey,” he says, raising his bottle. “We’re still here.” She smiles and half-heartedly agrees.

At that moment, a bald man sidles up to the bar and drops off his glass on his way out the door. The dog killer, Kevin remembers. He tries to get him to stop, but the man drives off even as Kevin yells, “You cannot kill our fucking dogs!” Pissed, Kevin turns around to see two GR members watching him and gets an idea.

After driving to the GR’s headquarters, he asks for Laurie’s residence and gets a member to point it out. We realize that Laurie is his wife, who didn’t vanish so much as disappear into the cult of the Guilty Remnant. Heavily drunk, he screams her name, and a man comes out to turn him away. Suddenly furious, Kevin hits him until he collapses to the ground. As Kevin stands up, he sees a devastated Laurie watching him. He asks her to go for a walk with him, but she just stands there until Patti comes out and writes on a piece of paper, “You are not welcome here,” underlined. Laurie looks to be on the verge of tears. “Please come home,” he begs her. “Please come home.” His voice breaks. Then the man he incapacitated is back on top of him, dragging him back to the car and slamming his head onto its hood. Laurie just lights a cigarette and wallows as he drives away.