This episode we’re following Rev. Matt and his crusade to
tell everyone what terrible people the Departed were. We begin with Matt’s
sermon at church in which he asks people to pray for a girl called Emily in a
coma. His prayers are interrupted by a man barging into the church, beating him
up and making him eat one of his leaflets describing the crimes of one of the
Departed, presumably a woman who meant something to the man.
Matt is checked out in hospital and Kevin arrives to
confirm Matt doesn’t want to press charges – it’s not the first time this has
happened. We also learn that Matt knew Kevin’s dad and there’s some big
awkwardness they don’t want to talk about. On the good side, when Matt goes to
check on Emily he finds she’s woken up and is totally ok now. Matt proudly
tells the orderly there that his congregation prayed for her that morning, the
orderly tells him that she woke up the night before.
Matt’s also being followed by a couple of Guilty Remnant, smoking away.
That night, a man sneaks in with his baby to get him
baptised without his wife knowing (since she’s not a big fan of churches). Matt
doesn’t accept payment but tries to get the man to bring his wife to church
though he says it’s not going to happen with her. Instead he dishes dirt on
another of the Departed gambling away his kids’ college fund.
Matt goes to the Casino and convinces an employee there
to break confidentiality by showing a file on a child abuser who Departed –
and, because he Departed, is now regarded as a hero. And just to add to the
randomness, two pigeons decide to land on one of the tables in use – and stay
there.
Back at the church he draws up another condemnatory
leaflet and tries to give some clothes to the GR who are following him around,
smoking at him. He tries to convince them they’re wasting their time with him –
they just stare and smoke.
Matt also has money trouble – as we learn when he goes to the bank – someone has offered to buy the church which is owned by the bank since Matt couldn’t pay the bills. The only way he can save his church is by coughing up $135,000 by the next day.
He turns to Nora (the woman who lost her whole family), his sister (with an awkward “world’s greatest dad” mug). Like everyone else, Nora asks after Matt’s wife, Mary and he fobs off the question. He’s there to borrow the money from her. She refuses, she’s not invested in the church like him (I also like the byplay of her objecting to him telling her not to get upset – you don’t get to make her upset then not tell her to get upset). He wants her to lend him the compensation money she got for losing her whole family. She agrees – but only if he agrees to stop distributing the leaflets, thinking he has some other agenda behind it after an accident; she disagrees with his crusade. He objects to her invoking godly purpose when she doesn’t believe in god (then why are you hitting her up for money to save a church) and he asserts that it’s a test. She says he may be failing it and that his church isn’t helping
To which he tells her that her husband was having an
affair. My gods man what are you thinking?! She reacts with hysterical laughter
and he leaves.
Matt goes home (on the TV there’s a super creepy advert of creating models of the Departed for burial) to relieve the care worker, Roxeanne, there – who hasn’t been paid for 3 weeks, Matt’s money troubles are showing all over. She’s there to care for Mary, his wife, who is completely unresponsive. After caring for her he goes to bed and suppresses sobs; he prays her help and has sudden inspiration.
He goes behind Kevin’s, grabs a shovel and runs into Laurie.
He tells her that Kevin’s dad, the ex-police chief, left something for him to
collect. Laurie just wants to be sure Matt won’t tell Kevin she was lurking
round his house in the middle of the night. Matt digs up a huge wadge of cash
and one of his leaflets that accuses a judge of having taken bribes and a note
from Kevin’s dad saying Matt deserves it. (From what we’ve heard Nora say, this
judge was someone Matt first targeted).
He drives off and sees pigeons on a red traffic light
that flashes oddly. This, for some reason, leads him to a casino where he turns
the $20,000 into chips. He goes to the Roulette table and bets all of it on red
and insists on playing on the table (despite it being way over the table’s
usual amount) he saw the pigeons on earlier. He wins – repeatedly. Turning $20,000
into $160,000. In cash.
And when he leaves the casino he is mugged. Don’t just hang around in your car with $160,000 in cash in a paper bag. Matt fights back – repeatedly slamming the head of his assailant into the tarmac (hey, when the rev gets on the sin train he goes for gold). He buries the money and steals some street signs (ok… what… why… have we just stopped making sense now?)
As he’s driving along he sees a car drive by two members
of the GR and someone inside throw a rock at one, hitting him in the head. He
stops to help and call 911- and the car comes back. The next rock hits Matt
He has a series of visions while he’s unconscious, of a
doctor ominously telling him something is “spreading”, a burning building, and a
car crash with him and Mary during the Departure (the car that hit them had no
driver – he Departed) in which Mary is badly injured. The last, at least, is a
memory and the cause of Mary’s current condition and then another memory/vision
of him having sex with his wife (who turns into Laurie and then fire because
random).
He wakes up in hospital and realises he has to get to the
bank before it closes to stop the church being sold – yelling his way past a
nurse he runs. He grabs the money he stashed in his car (I don’t know what he
buried, maybe only some of it) and drives to the bank. They let him in despite
it being after closing but it’s too late – he was unconscious for three days.
Going to his church he sees the windows being painted
white – it has been taken over by the Guilty Remnant. Matt isn’t happy
The complexity and nuance The Leftovers add to their characters is impressive. I mean, it
would have been easy to just have Matt object to the idea this is the Rapture
because he finds it theologically unsound. It would have been easy to have him
object to the idea that this is the Rapture because some of the Departed were
terrible people; especially since, as we saw in the first episode, labelling
the Departed as “heroes” or similar positive labels is not unknown. But his
argument invoking truly terrible people who Departed being linked to innocent
children and genuinely good people who happen also to be Departed is an extra
powerful addition of nuance – and it feels more outrageous when you see him lay
it out that way. It’s a nice touch and gives some important motivation as to
why he’s doing this, especially given the violence and push back he faces.
The flip side is that his bare assertion to Nora – a woman who lost her whole family – that the Departure was a test also shows that part of his objection may be as simple as doctrinal difference. Isn’t he, after all, making his own assertion based on pure faith and even denying Nora of all people the right to argue against it because of her lack of faith? It’s a big knotty mess of human dilemma
And we end up with a great big dollop of odd irony – he may
be the only man in town who regards the GR with any level of respect and they
buy his church out from under him
Again, The
Leftovers focuses 99% on emotional drama and then we have psychic gambling
pigeons…
