Justin theroux

Like cinematic malaria, ‘Zoolander 2’ drains your resistance with its fever-dream insanity.

For possibly the first time in The Leftovers’ run, “A Most Powerful Adversary” does something you’d think it would do a whole lot more often: it conjures up the spirit of Lost; it’s almost as though we’re getting a glimpse of what a more conventionally “entertaining” version of The Leftovers might look like.

One of the best, most fascinatingly perplexing films from a director who knows a thing or two about fascinating and perplexing films.

The Leftovers, Season 1, Episode 10, “The Prodigal Son Returns” Written by Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrotta Directed by Mimi Leder Airs Sundays at 10pm EST on HBO “He’s never coming for us, is he?” Christine asks this to Tommy in regards to Wayne, but in a series that asks all the Big Questions by …

Well, that was a neat trick.

Not the final reveal, no, that is something that (I hope) will become almost beside the point. But what I’m really talking about is the episode itself. That is something that I did not expect the show to pull off so well this late in the game.

Nine episodes after the fact, we are now getting who Tommy is and what he means to Kevin. We get what Jill has lost. And we see where Kevin’s head has been at, and where it might go, all in an absorbing, if necessarily stuffed hour. This flashback to flesh everyone out is absolutely invaluable as we head into the finale and the second season. It is also pivotal in continuing to explore Kevin’s hero’s journey, which has been smartly pushed to the forefront in the previous two episodes, and looks to be the definitive crux of a finally focused series.

Cults on TV are tough. They seem like a really good idea. They’re weird and scary and, bonus, we have them in real life. But anyone who has seen or read my reviews of The Following knows that it is incredibly easy to abuse (big, unnamed plans that go nowhere; non-believably-cultish members, too much access and synchronicity on too many fronts). It’s exciting to see, then, that this show, which has saddled itself with two cult plots—both trickily heightened from real life— finally comes through with really activating at least one, with making it live. A lot of what’s in “Cairo” is material I’ve been waiting for since the pilot. The gusto with which it delivers it makes it absolutely worth the wait.

The Leftovers, Season 1, Episode 7, “Solace for Tired Feet” Written by Damon Lindelof & Jacqueline Hoyt Directed by Mimi Leder Airs Sundays at 10pm EST on HBO There’s finally a flow happening with this show. In previous reviews, I have discussed the many problems of The Leftovers I won’t delineate now. Slowly, however, they …

The Leftovers, Season 1, Episode 6, “Guest” Written by Damon Lindelof & Kath Lingenfelter Directed by Carl Franklin Airs Sundays at 10pm EST on HBO “I’d like to remain Nora Durst,” Nora (Carrie Coon) says toward the beginning “Guest,” and that perfectly sums it up. She will get a divorce, but she doesn’t want to …

Damon Lindelof’s latest TV effort, The Leftovers on HBO (co-created by and adapted from the novel by Tom Perrotta)  just hit the halfway mark through its first season on Sunday, and it’s easily the best new show to premiere this summer. This comes with two disclosures: 1. Summers are usually treated more like draughts than harvesting …

The Leftovers, Season 1, Episode 5, “Gladys” Written by Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrota Directed by Mimi Leder Airs Sundays at 10pm EST on HBO Gladys, Gladys, you were so classless, intimidating the leftovers with sass and badass-ness. This is a song. This is a song I came up with, but do not necessarily feel …

The Leftovers, Season 1, Episode 4, “B.J. and the A.C.” Written by Damon Lindelof & Elizabeth Peterson Directed by Lesli Linka Glatter & Carl Franklin Airs Sundays at 10pm EST on HBO Starting off positively—and it’s a big one—no new mysteries were introduced this episode! At least, nothing of the paranormal, never-going-to-be-answered-adequately nature. What we …

While the pilot was almost pure set up, and in this mostly disappointing second episode we have a further muddling of that set-up, what has at least become clearer now is that despite its literary origins, The Leftovers is definitely shaping up to be, for better or worse, Lost’s direct successor.

The best thing about The Leftovers is its premise, and not because it’s really that ingenious, or cool. Its rapture-based concept is ground that has been covered before in other series and books, but the scale of it is just right here for nuanced material, the incident being big enough to be a personal catastrophe, yet small enough to keep it from being a global one (like say, all the males dying was in Y: The Last Man). With no rhyme or reason to who was picked, on top of a three-year gap from the event itself, what we’re left with instead of the typical action plot or mystery, is basically the perfect, world-wide existential crisis.