We have a man with newspaper clippings about the missing
Evie and her friends approaching Miracle for “research.” Surprisingly this
seems to be valid, because they let him in. And with a load of equipment he
packs onto the bus (otherwise full of a prayer group of tourists).
Inside he only gets a golf cart as a visitor and we get
the standard backdrop of oddness that is Miracle as he makes his way to the
Murphy household to knock on the door – and rudely take a picture of Erika
without her permission. He then goes next door and actually introduces himself
to Nora – Dr. Juaquin Cuarto. He’s asking lots of questions and seems to be
trying to connect the disappearance of Evie to Nora’s presence – and further
asks if she touched her husband and kids when they departed. All before making
even the slightest small talk
Y’know, if she murders him I’ll totally be on her side. Instead she just kicks his equipment off her property and screams at him before reassuring Erika that she’s fine. She does a very good sincere-but-not-really.
The next day she throws a rock through the Murphy’s
window… for some reason, before tending to Mary who is now in her care. She
also gets a call from one of Dr. Cuarto’s colleagues and hangs up – that’s even
worse than PPI calls. Jill continues to be the most calm of the family and Nora
is still chaining Kevin up which has its advantages. He’s also hallucinating
still (and passing it off as cramp).
The Murphys see the damage and Erika seems to be blaming
John (his actions probably don’t win them many friends). They also get another
visitor from the Department of the Departed, George – from the “Secondaries”
(which Nora says never happens – people who supposedly Departed after the main
event) branch who the Murphies won’t speak to. Nora greets him since she also
works for the department.
Instead Erika goes into the woods and digs up her box inside which is a dead bird, which she adds to the pile of dead birds. Because this is Leftovers and it likes the random. The parents of Evie’s friends who also vanished want to press Erika into speaking to George. She’s not having it and she’s certainly not being pressed into it.
Erika treats someone who was brutally beaten for selling
spring water for ridiculous high prices (that would be John’s work again,
against anyone peddling woo-woo). Her fellow medical professionals ensure she
gets the job to treat him – so she can pressure the man into not pressing
charges against John. She also sees the attackers took the man’s palm print.
Nora follows George to poke for more answers – and learns
that the usual “fraud flags” are not apparent, in a new questionnaire they
have. Every indication is that these are a genuine secondary Departure. This
leads her to question the idea that someone could be to blame for a Departure –
and there’s a new “lens” theory – where one person somehow leads to people
around them Departing
That is so not going to be helpful for Nora. She goes
home to research. Erika finds Lily left on the car by Kevin who is all
distracted – when Erika brings her home she learns for the first time that Nora
had other children who Departed leading to Nora abruptly closing the door.
Kevin is distracted by his hallucinations of Patti (and arguing with her over
wallpaper)
Nora also wants to go to the fundraiser for the Murphies
despite the whole Matt drama last week – though Nora puts that on Matt, not her
neighbours. Jill is also going – with Michael. Nora and Jill are kind of good
together.
Before that she takes Mary to visit Matt who is now
dressed and apparently allowed out of the stocks. He now has some kind of congregation.
He keeps giving Mary lots of attention. He’s not a big fan of Nora taking Mary
to the fundraiser – he thinks it may be seen as hostile. Nora gets hostile over
this suggestion.
She also gets another call from Corta’s colleague who is
pushing the idea that Nora is a lens. Because the demon Azrael has chosen her. Nora
listened, stunned for a while before hanging up and crying.
To complete her wonderful day, Laurie calls Nora. She
wants to know if Tom is with them – Nora tells her she’s never even met Tom.
Laurie asks Nora to tell Tom she’s sorry if he ever shows up. Laurie is also
smoking.
Back at the Murphies, Erika and John talk about John
beating people up, whether it’s behind the broken window and what he’s really up
to violently attacking people (especially since he’s taking palm prints to
match the one left on the car which Evie disappeared from). She strips out his
excuses and says “you need to hit people because you need to hit people.” He
gets all sad and she feels the need to comfort him, She then goes for more
batteries for her hearing aids and finds them under huge wadges of cash.
She’s interrupted while changing her batteries by a kid leaving pie on her door step. Caught in the nefarious act of pastry-gifting the kid runs and Erika chases him down. Having caught him and got answers she goes to confront the baker – the same man who bought Nora her groceries. They argue, she wants him to stay away, he’s done something bad in the past – and he’s apparently family.
Things are tense at home and she confronts Michael about
praying to the man – but Michael is all about forgiveness.
Fundraiser time, and Nora donates a generous $500 (much
to Kevin’s brief surprise). She also runs into colleague George who isn’t
willing to dismiss the whole Lens theory yet – and has his briefcase full of
documents Nora really wants to read so naturally helps herself to. The
Fundraiser also contains a chorus of praise for Miracle being saved which cause
John and Erika to look like this
And also is really tasteless – I mean let’s sing a song
of praise about how special we are that no-one vanished here while raising
money for some vanished kids? Erika seems to be notably separate from the other
two women (but, then, she did recently say one of the women smelled of drink).
And the guy who sacrifices goats decides to sacrifice a goat (there’s also a bride in the audience… because… reasons). Erika objects to goat sacrifices in the middle of a quasi-memorial for her daughter and the town people… object. Because it’s just a little goat sacrifice!
Erika’s not having that, she calls out the fact that this
guy was killing goats before the Departure happened and was locked up for it –
but now, because it’s Miracle, it’s decided that he’s special and should
totally kill livestock anywhere and everywhere. She even snaps at John for
giving Jerry the goat killer a huge pass. She decides to call out several other
random behaviours – Cecile in her wedding dress before raging about how they’re
“spared” and “safe” when her daughter is gone
She storms out – with the goat.
Nora is the one who goes after her. And she gives Erika
the questionnaires she stole so Erika can see the questions George will ask and
not be scared – when Erika questions the idea of “scared” – with Nora claiming
the questions will prove Evie didn’t depart. Erika asks her to come in and ask
the questions. She reads them, in the random, the poignant – and it looks
increasingly more and more like she is Departed. And in the questioning we
learn that Erika had withdrawn a large sum of money from their bank… planning
to leave John. She also explains her whole bird burying thing – her grandmother
says it’s a way to get wishes granted. And how she never believed that or that
the town was chosen – until it was spared the Departure. After that she took a
bird and buried it – wishing her kids would be ok if she left John. She knew
Michael would understand because his faith would get him though – but not Evie.
The bird lived – and Evie disappeared. Ericka blames herself
And Nora pisses all over that bonfire. Because why Evie, why not her? Why not John? And did she bury a whole flock to cause the main Departure? Nora uses her own story to harshly call out blaming yourself for Departure - calling it pathetic
Erika asks Nora the same question Nora asked – and Nora
leaves in tears.
Back home Kevin demands he and Nora talk – about him
losing his mind. He tells her that he’s hallucinating Patti. Patti disapproves.
And then Erika throws a rock through their window.
The concept of a lens sounds like it could have a lot of interesting
implications. I mean, what would you do with such a person? A completely innocent, non-malicious person
who is even hurting and grieving, but who may cause anyone around them to
vanish?
I think it says a lot about this show and it’s random
whacky mysteries (above and beyond the departure itself, all the other random
weirdness) that when I heard the “demon Azrael” I though “excellent! An
explanation – bring on the demons!” before realising that the doctor being a
crank is more likely. But I’d take it. Ye gods I’d take ANYTHING at his point
I don’t know what is in the water at Miracle but even if it doesn’t make you vanish proof it does seem to come with some strong hallucinogens
I mean, I get it, I do – something inexplicable has
happened so they’re seizing on ANYTHING that may explain it. Jerry sacrificed a
goat and no-one vanished here? Maybe that did it? Or wearing the wedding dress?
Or singing Oh Clementine every morning or the demon Azrael or… who knows? Who
can know? Who can say any of these are NOT the reason? All they’ve got, as the
opening lines say, is a whole lot of correlation and no causation
But all these random acts would be great ornamentation
and world building on a forward moving story… which I’m not sure we have
I feel like the pacing of Leftovers is slow. No, that’s wrong. “Pacing is slow” suggests we’re
going somewhere but painfully slowly. Pacing is slow would be trying to swim up
a swift river upstream. This isn’t a river. This is a mudhole or maybe even a
tar pit. A pit filled with weird, unknown fragments of plot that have sank to
their doom only to occasionally emerge to give us a brief glimpse before
seeking again into the murky depth while we wallow and flail about.
The one thing Leftovers
has going for it is some excellent acting and directing that can really portray
the severe pain and trauma the characters have lived through – and here Erika
was another excellent example of that
Nora’s anger shield is… very brittle.
