The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘The Leftovers’ Hall of Fame: “International Assassin”

Episode Date: August 1, 2024

Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney adorn themselves accordingly to revisit an unforgettable ‘The Leftovers’ episode, “International Assassin.” They open by discussing why this episode is so essential to the makeup of the show, how it felt like a moment of critical redemption for series creator Damon Lindelof, and their connection to the HBO drama (6:58). Next, they break down the episode scene by scene and talk through how it expertly balances grounded emotional stakes with the absurd premise (16:15). Later, they highlight how the show’s world-building is utilized to its advantage throughout the episode (45:59). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kai Grady Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together Shop Spring Backyard Days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Well, welcome back to the prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Tramette Robinson.

I'm Rob Mahoney. And listen, sometimes on this show, we cover great television as we did with like Shogun. And sometimes on the show we cover shows that are a little bit more mixed. Yeah. And but it's a rare case that we get to. to cover something that is, we both agree, a stone-cold masterpiece. And that is what we are here to do today.

We are covering the leftovers episode, season two, episode eight, International Assassin. We're inducted into the PrestoTV Hall of Fame, and I could not be more thrilled. Rob, just how are you feeling about this? I'm feeling incredible. I love the feeling of anxiety when a show is in progress

and you're wondering, is this going to be a great episode? Is this going to be a great ending? The security of walking into this podcast, just knowing, beyond knowing, that we are about to talk about an amazing episode of an amazing show. I just feel swaddled.

I feel safe here. Oh. You know? I feel very secure, but I will say, don't ask me about North Korea, gun control, abortion, or Neil, and we're going to be just fine.

I'm going to start with Neil then. Oh, God damn it. Spoiler warning, I guess, is that we're going to, all of the leftovers on the table is as far as working. It has to be. Like, so, but mostly we'll be focusing on this episode. But if we mention something that happens in season three, like, just know that that might be something that we do. It's not my intention to talk about that a lot because we have another season three episode that we're going to be covering next week. So let me just do a quick programming recap for what Rob and Joanna at least are up to on the Prestise TV podcast feed.

We're doing international assassin, a perfect episode of television. We're so thrilled. We're doing that today. Next week, we're doing It's a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World, a season three episode of The Leftovers. We're inducting that into the Hall of Fame. Fabulous episode.

I'm going to call this the Bill Camp double feature, surprise. The summer of Bill Camp continues. Wow, welcome back to summer camp. Here we are, and we're here to talk about two excellent episodes of The Leftovers. And then I'm going to do a little retrospective with a pal of mine, Kristen Rousseau on my so-called life. Rob will not be here for that, but I'm sure he'll be thinking about Georgia.

and Catalana the whole time. So it's the 30th anniversary of my so-called life. So we're going to have an episode talking about why that show mattered as much as it did, because it really, really did. And then starting at, like, last week of August into first week of September, Rob and I are getting into our Slow Horses era. Absolutely. Slow Horses, if you're listening to this and you don't know,

though I feel like it kind of like broke a little wider last year. It's nominated for Emmys, et cetera, is an incredible spy show led by Gary Old Oldman and Mr. Sarsher running on Apple TV Plus, and season four is coming. It's starting on September 4th. We're going to, our plaintiffs do like a little like pre-season episode to say like previously on Slow Horses and talk about like the show and what has happened leading up to. But if you've never seen Slow Horses, it is now, we're recording this on August 1st. Season 4 debuts on September 4th.

You have until then to catch up with Sohorses and we really recommend you do. because it is an incredible show. Rob, what do you want to say about Soul Horses? You've got plenty of time between now and then. There are quick, breezy seasons.

We're talking spy espionage, so you're going to rip through this thing. There are enough fart jokes to fill a blimp. I cannot recommend this show highly enough. And in particular, get caught up with us now so you don't have to be scrambling

to do it later. You're going to want to watch slow horses in real time. You really are. So we're going to go week to week on that. We're really excited for that. We did have a lot of people email us when we said,

like what should we cover? A lot of people, majority of people, did email us asking us about industry. It is not our intention to cover industry week to week, though there will be some

industry coverage on the prestige, but for week to week in-depth industry coverage, you're going to hop over the watch. Chris and Andy are like huge industry heads and they will be diving into that show on a weekly basis over there.

So for all of you who enjoy the slopes, that's a cocaine joke, go over to the watch. Well, while we're talking about the watch, I want to reiterate this one more time because I feel like once we get into the leftover, the leftovers heads are going to come out

and they're going to be asking us, why are you not inducting the Book of Nora into the Prestige TV Hall of Fame? And we need to reiterate one more time that it is Andy Greenwald's fault and we hold him personally responsible for covering that episode in depth, in stick the landing on this very feed

and ripping it from our cold dead hands in the process. I'm torn up about it. And I have to say, I think we've picked two two of my favorite leftovers episodes easily, two amazing episodes, two episodes that don't really have Nora in them, which does feel like a shame. I know, it's wild.

It's really wild, honestly. Before we started recording, I was asking Kai and Rob, who their favorite leftover's character was. And they both said Nora. Nora is like, kind of runs away with the show. Gary Coon is like incredible.

And, you know, the first season of the show, we're in a big, I'm happy to take a Nora diversion here because we won't get to talk better enough. But like, the first season of the show is, based more faithfully on the book. And then it expands from there. And so then it becomes just

sort of like, what is most interesting on the show and that's what the show is going to follow. So we abandon certain things that we set up in season one that isn't working as well on TV. And we really invest in Carrie Coon as Nora. And the fact that the finale is called Book of Nora is like an indication to you how much she like sort of becomes the show. And so, yeah, just because she's not here and just because Kevin and Matt and Bill Camp are here a lot. It does not mean that we don't stand Nora Durst on this show. We definitely do. Absolutely.

I genuinely have never wanted anything for our character as much as I wanted closure for Nora. Whatever that would mean, like, needless to say, the finale of the leftovers is one of the best episodes of the show and one of the best finale's ever made, so you get there in time, but it's hard not to love

that character and everything that, like the full range of what she's capable of in the leftovers is pretty sensational. Carrie Coon, and now she's on the Gilded Age and a show I don't even watch. Okay, so let's talk about like, why is this show, this episode, inside of this show is so important?

I will say, I will just come out at the top of the show and say, I'm completely Damon Lindelof-pilled. I think Damon Lindelof is like my favorite TV storyteller. So I just want to do, like a quick timeline is this. The Lost Series finale, which I don't know if you've heard, was quite controversial and divisive, and people hated it. Oh, was it? You want to tell us some more about that?

No, I'm okay, but it's a great episode of television, a great finale, but a lot of people hated it. That came out May 2010. So, Din Lindelof goes from, like, Nerd King of the World to, you know, it's a real Weiss and Benioff sort of situation where it's like the people turn on him. Prometheus comes out June 2012, and it's, that is not Dinle Blas' fault, but it is his name on the screen and play, and he gets further vilified for that. First of all, wait, wait, first of all, Prometheus is good. That's irrelevant. Is it? not received well.

It doesn't matter about how you like for me. It was hated and it was blamed on, it was like, oh, of course the guy who did the last finale did this. That was just sort of the vibe in the air. Never mind the fact that an alien movie is like chock full of very interesting ideas. And maybe swings a little too big, but it sure does swing. It does swing. And Michael Fastbender's there.

How could you possibly complain? June 2014 is when the leftover season one happens. And what you can see in the leftover season of season, and I told you in our listeners that I will never rewatch. Is David Lindelof sort of afraid of being his genre-loving self? The premise of the show, based on a Tom Perot novel, is genre of itself. And if you don't know, the premise of the leftovers is that on October 14th, was it 140 million people?

2% of the population just vanishes. And we're following whoever is left over. And so what's great about the left-over, is for people still, like, licking their wounds about the end of loss, again, a great ending to a great show, and how Lost didn't answer any questions, whatever, the Leftvers becomes a show where they promise from the start,

we're never going to explain what happened. From starting in Season 2, we get this incredible opening theme song, Let the Mystery Be, which just scratches an itch in my brain, every single, I never skip. Oh, never. He's opening credits to The Leftovers. If anything, season three gets a little too cute with changing it up episode to episode,

and I'm like, I just want to let the mystery be. every single time. Can we just keep running it back, please? And thankfully, by the book of Nora, they come back to it. So season one is like, David Lindelof seemingly like afraid to be his most authentic self. Season two, the supernatural paranormal, all that sort of stuff starts to seat back in. We get a character of Patty is like haunting Kevin throughout the season. And then we get this episode, International Assassin, and on November 2015. And this is just sort of like pure, raw, cut. Oh, yeah.

Lindelof goodness. And if you don't get this episode, you don't get, like, Watchman. Like, if you don't get this validation, this is, like, a very much a lost redemption tour episode. There's, like, a lot in common between this episode and some of the most reviled episodes of the final season of loss. It's like he took so many of these concepts that he got kicked for in the final season of loss, and he's just like, actually, I can make you love it.

And he did. To be clear, I like it on lost, but it is even better here. Yeah. Kevin Guider v. is a better version of Jack Shepard. All of this stuff is just like these ideas that he had on Lost, refined and improved. And so here we are, international assassin,

written by Nick Kuse, who is the son of Carlton Kuse, who was Damon Lindelof's co-show runner on Lost. So written by Nick Kuse and Damon Lov, directed by Craig Zobel, who did Merri of Easttown, all of Merrived Easttown, did one of the best episodes of Westworld Economy Nomai,

is doing the Penguin show that is upcoming. I did another great leftover's episode Lens that I really, really love. And we should say both return for what's effective like the sequel to International Assassin in season three as well. In season three. Yeah, exactly.

Rob, so that's just sort of like, this is why, not just the banger episode, but sort of like what it does to a foundational storyteller, like in our, you know, again, I am Liddle-off-pilled, but I don't think it's, you can't argue with the impact that he has had on, on TV storytelling in particular, and genre TV storytelling for sure.

Rob Mahoney, what does the leftovers mean to you in general, or this episode specifically? Jeez, I mean, it means a lot. I, I too am Lindelof-pilled, and I say that without even seeing lost. Just based off of leftovers and Watchmen alone, I am fully

on board, and we need to have an offline conversation about when Watchmen or some contribution thereof is going into the prestige TV Hall of Fame as well, because it... Hell yes. It's got to be in there. I first want to argue, or at least make a half-spirited defense of season one, which we have walked over.

When we were talking about doing this episode in the first place, we were discussing, like, could you walk into International Assassin blind with no leftovers experience and enjoy it? Could you just jump straight into season two and go from there and enjoy it? And I have to say, having just gone through a rewatch of the show, so much of the reason season two hits the way it does

is because of a lot of the emotional groundwork that's set up in season one. And certainly the reason you have the relationship to all these characters. Nora would not be one of my favorite characters without guest, for example, the episode where she hires, prostitutes, the shooter, and a bulletproof vest.

You need all of that stuff. It's just a really hard and grating and emotionally devastating watch to experience. And so I think I want to be clear that the reason I don't particularly enjoy rewatching leftover season one is not because it's bad because it's not, but because it's heavy in a way that weighs you down.

And season two, starting with season two, there is a complete tonal shift within the show and it is just as perfectly pitched as TV can be and it's anchored by and this is going to sound like hyperbole but it's not some of the best performances in the history of television in particular in our two leads with Justin Thoreau and Carrie Coon

like that's as good as it gets and so the fact that you have that is the core of the show a sort of high concept foundation that's interesting and I'm certainly prone to genre type structure like that even though I think there's a fair read of the leftover that following the point of the departure, there isn't actually much supernatural happening at all.

There's a lot of psychological breaking and there's a lot of internality that's happening. But maybe there's nothing mystical in the universe beyond that initial kind of rapture event. What matters is that it takes all these big swings. It wrestles with these huge ideas. It never, I would say, especially starting from season two,

never for a second loses its humanity. And the reason, something like International Assassin, works. and really the only reason it works is because it's built on real emotion. And it takes a lot of work to get there and shoehorn that into something experimental. And it really is kind of like a magic trick

or a Trojan horse to get real actual development within an episode in which a character may or may not be in purgatory and someone is lamenting that no one will take a shit on his chest. And also this episode might make you cry and find you a show that can do all those things at once. That's what I would implore everyone out there to do. I think in general, I love, that and I completely agree. Season one is just

so bleak. Like, here's what happened to me. I was watching The Leftovers because I liked Lost a lot. And I was watching The Leftovers. It was like before I was working at, season one happened before I was working at Vanity Fair. I was at a place called Bajibah. And like, I was watching because my boss really liked it. And then there's

a thing that happens in season one of the leftovers who've never seen it, where a woman gets stoned to death. And I was like, I'm out. Yeah. I was just out. There's a lot of hard ejection points where if the violence bothers you, just the grief and despair alone, especially if you're someone who's lived through a lot. If you're at all sensitive to violence against animals,

season one is not going to be the experience for you. Dog stuff. Yeah. So, like, I was out, and then season two happened in my, and then my, I had started at Vanity Fair by the time season two happened, my boss there, Mike Hogan, who loves Twin Peaks. And we'll talk about Twin Peaks a little bit as we talked about this episode, obviously. But, like, he was, like, so into the leftovers that he, like, sort of cajoled me back into watching leftovers. and then I became his like, he was doing like recaps and I was editing his recaps.

And so I got back into it and I was like, and I loved season two. And so I will go and back and rewatch parts of season one. Like I will rewatch the Kavana and Nora Meet Cute or, you know, like there's things in season one that I will watch some of the Tyler stuff. You know, like some of the Matt stuff I will watch, but I will never watch it as entirety because of that bleakness. And I don't even consider myself like so soft and touchy that I can't handle a bleak story. It's just something so devastating. And I think, you know, not to, again, I don't like to armchair. Actually, that's a lie.

I love to armchair analyze Damon Lindelof, but like, I really think that's just the headspace that he was in. He was like, bottom, scraping bottle of the barrel of his own sort of like storytelling self-esteem coming off of Lost and Prometheus. And so we get a lot of that grim darkness in a very grim, dark premise. So here's here. So the premise of the of the story itself, we already set, which is. is that we are after this sort of rapture, this sudden disappearance that happens, the story follows the people who stayed.

Who's left over? And what does it mean? And this is the core of the story and the core of this episode. What does it mean to try to connect with people when this event happened where randomly all these people just disappeared? And you'll never know why.

Perhaps randomly. I think that's some of the difficulty, too, is the character's wrestling with, why did these people disappear? Is there an order? Is there a theme? Is there something binding them together that I, the person left behind him missing?

Is God involved? Is he? Is a big question? Is Bill Camp involved? Is Bill Camp involved? Okay. Promise two is the promise of this episode, which I'll just say as a refresher

in case people haven't rewashed or whatever. So, like, Kevin Garvey, one-time chief of police in Mapleton, New York, having lost his wife and alienated his stepson and his daughter, has relocated to Texas with his girlfriend Nora and a ban of baby they found and his daughter

to try to start life again in a place called Jarden. And if that sounds like, Garden, you're on the right track. He's been haunted all season by the medicine ghost, a woman named Patty, played by a character actor, Sand Dowd, a cult leader who killed herself in front of him in season one. We entered this episode in a hotel that is actually the underworlds. Maybe. That is actually probably, maybe possibly the underworld.

Yes. Because Kevin, Desperichard writ himself of his ghost, has taken poison in the previous episode. and the plan is a vision quest through the afterlife, essentially, led by a man named Virgil, who was also killed himself in the real world in order to guide Kevin there. So that's sort of where we left it, is that Virgil is the guy who's like, guess what?

You're going to kill yourself, and then you're going to get rid. You're going to exercise Patty, and then she's never going to haunt you again. Let me just say, just we're covered for legal reasons, Joe. If a man in a trailer mixes up some murky brown liquid in a mason jar and tells you to drink it, do not drink it. Don't. Don't.

Whatever you do, don't drink it. Don't drink the water. Dave Matthew said it best. Did he? You said earlier that like emotion is what carries this very surreal. Like we're just like following Kevin, assuming a new identity.

We'll sort of go to B by B through the episode. So we'll recap the episode as we go. We sort of, we're following Kevin through this like dream space where a bunch of weird shit is happening, constantly all around us. And your point is that the reason. that the sort of doesn't fly off the tracks is because of the emotionality. And I agree with that on one point. Justin Thoreau is in my top five on-screen criers of all time. Oh, he's so good.

When he cries, I cry, like inevitably. He is so good. So that is true. But I think there's also a couple TV tricks because that is something that Lindeloff and his crew are really good at is sort of they know the bones of like basic bones of television storytelling so well. There's stakes, real world stakes on this episode, right? Whatever the nebulous rules of if you die in the underworld, you die in the real life, which is sort of like an implication or whatever, we watched Kevin die in the real world. You know, there is a character we like who has sort of custody of his body, but the guy who is just to bring him back, just shot himself in the head.

So we have like some sort of nebulous ticking clock on this of like, how long can he be in this dream state while his body is dead in the real world? That's an anxiety that's like a moment. We're not wandering in a dream space. We've got that sort of external pressure. And then there's the very clear stakes of the dream space, which is find Patty and kill her,

even as they shift or find Patty and put her, take her to the well or whatever it is. It's like you have a clear mission of what you, Kevin have to do and me. And it is stated in the episode by Virgil, his guide, and then you get to go home. That's it. Do this. Then you get to go home.

And so putting those parameters in place, I think really make the episode sing. And then another thing that I just want to say parameter-wise, and then I want to hit it back over to you is like, we're going to talk about David Lynch a bunch because David Lynch Lynch is a huge influence on David Lindelof. Twin Peaks is a huge influence on David Lindelof. If you have, even haven't seen a second of Twin Peaks, you have surely seen. a photo of Asian Dale Cooper in his tidy black suit sitting in a place called the Lodge. You've seen red curtains and a black and white floor.

It's the most iconic imagery of Twin Peaks is a very straight-laced normal looking guy in a place with red curtains and a bizarreo surreal floor beneath him. And that is so very much the imagery we're playing with here. But what I love about what Lindelof is that's different from Lynch is Lynch takes Americana normal, right? Your pie shop, your, you know, whatever, your picket fences,

your green lawns, et cetera, and he makes it, he plays with that, he makes it weird. What David Lindelho does is he takes like early aughts straightforward,

almost like characters welcome kind of television. He worked on Crossing Jordan. He worked on Nash Bridges. And he makes that weird. So, Kevin Garvey, having very much a like,

when you're a spy, like adventure through a very normal looking hotel, right? He's not like Robin Williams, What Dreams May, coming his way through like an oil painting. We're in an absurdly normal. An absurd normality is going to come up again and again and again in this episode. Absurdily normal space where completely bat-shut things are happening. And that's another thing that anchors us as viewers. We're not in some sort of like hellscape where we're completely disassociating from what he's going through. What do you think of any and all of that?

Well, I think those two points, both grounding it in something very recognizable and real, but also that's already sort of an alternate dimension. Like, when you step into a hotel, it is a different world than whatever you're used to. And so it's drawing on that, but it is grounded. It does feel like somewhere you've been before, somewhere that you would recognize. Yes. And having the very straightforward plot momentum you talked about of the mission. Those are two things that I think a lot of surreal turns in TV often get wrong.

I love a spirit quest episode. You know, anything where we're going inside the mind, I'm usually down for, many of them are very meandering and very indulgent and feel like they don't have any momentum to them at all. And I think one of the things the leftovers get so, so right is something that's really crucial, which is that disorientation is storytelling jet fuel. And so if you put us in this world, we know some things that Kevin needs to do, but we don't know how it works.

We don't know, we don't really understand, like, why shouldn't he be drinking the water? is he picking his clothes? Like, why is any of this stuff happening and what is it that he needs to do? Beyond just the very bare bones, like, he needs to find and kill Patty, everything else is a mystery to him. And because it adds a mystery to us, and if you can put us on the back foot, but with a clear end point, I think you can take an audience almost anywhere. If you can do that, it's just really hard to do all of that at once. And the genius of exactly what you're saying is that we revisit this space two more times inside of this show, again in the season two finale. and then again in the sort of sequel episode in season three. Yeah.

And so, like, each time we go sort of down the rabbit hole with Kevin, we're like, we know, we already know some of the rules. We already know, like, some of the things. And the fact that, like, in, haven't we watched the season three episode yet, I'm like, I watched, we've watched season two. I've started season three. I'm not, like, all the way through season three yet. But, like, that birth canal, let's start the beginning.

The birth canal entrance sort of thing. He wakes up in a bath in a hotel, in a nice but ordinary looking hotel. very nice, but ordinarily looking hotel room. And he wakes up in the water and it's, you know, it's just, it's just Justin Thoreau, extremely well-muscled and completely naked and wet, sliding out of the bathtub, like, face first, like, towards the camera sort of thing. Just like a very birth canal imagery. And he's like, what's going on?

What's happening here? And then we get this, like, choose your clothes moment. What do you want to say either about the sort of like watery entrance or this self-costuming moment? I think as far as the watery entrance, I want to say first, like we're going to go into this episode in considerable depth. I think you could really go down the rabbit hole with this episode in particular. Also, of course, the leftovers more broadly.

I don't think it's a show that asks you to solve it. I think it is so much more about the emotional stakes of the characters. And it's pretty open about the fact that you're not going to find satisfactory answers here. But Good Lord is International Assassin, like, loaded with symbolism and motif and through lines from the seasons. and the show. And water is a huge presence throughout the entire series as sort of, you know, a baptismal thing, an element of rebirth. And here, like, as you're saying, literal birth into this world. And the fact that he comes in and it's also, it's that, but it's also don't drink the water. It's also like a forbidden kind of inverted sort of dynamic that tells us immediately,

this is a weird place we've never been before. Something is happening here that is strange and beyond our understanding and our grasping at that, I think starts on a subconscious level with stuff like the water. Yeah, I love that point. I think to your point about like, this is a show that's going to let the mystery be, but also, and this is just something that, which is why he's cattened up to me, like, Damon Lindelof does so well as he'll just like, he will put in all these philosophical or religiously philosophical references or um, illusions that it's just such fodder for the English major. brain to like constantly want it to like break down the symbology and and and in the same way that

david lynch never will tell you what is happening in twin peaks because we're not going to be told what's happening then we're just forever left to like write our thousand page long reddit posts about all the like various what does electricity mean in david in david lynch's world what does water mean in david lind lindalph's world in this tweet thread i will yeah exactly and it's just like it is I roll inducing and also my favorite thing to do. That's the thing, yeah. You know, so like, I don't, you know, it's, he will for, this, this episode will forever be fascinating for me because to your earlier point about emotional authenticity,

it's a kind of story that will meet you wherever you are, right? Wherever you are in terms of like, because so much with the leftovers and so much about this journey for Kevin is about empathy and connection, the show is just a your ability to connect with other people. Who are you when you watch it? Are you someone who would choose out of the closet of clothing? The International Assassin Tuxedo, which is an indicator for the kind of lifestyle,

and it is mentioned later in subset by That Fucker Neal, the kind of person who has- This is official title, by the way. That's the official epithet of the prestige TV podcast, That-Fucker Neil. That fucker Neil. An international, James One-Type is the kind of guy who's like, you're not going to have the same bond girl to, for the most part,

shout out to you, Leahas to do, multiple, you know, movies in a row. Like, you're the ultimate disconnected devil may care. I have to kill people and not care sort of person. So, like, are you watching this episode when you're like maybe younger and footloose and fancy free and just sort of like don't want attachments to tie you down? Or are you watching it when you're older and you're like, oh, no, I do want those kind of attachments and connections or I feel like I've missed out on them or I am or I have fucked them up somehow or like they could be better or they're the most important thing in my life or whatever it is.

It's like it's going to meet you where you are because the premise is so bendy to the viewer. You know what I mean? And this episode and this season make all of that sort of stuff so digestible. Right. Like international assassin is everything that I want TV to be because it is making you think and activating our English major brains. It makes you feel a lot. The ending of this episode is incredibly emotional.

It looks incredible. And it's just fun as hell to watch. And I think, again, maybe the most important thing about season two overall and sort of the direction that everything has taken leading to this point. The leftovers lets the air out of so many of the big, mysterious questions,

which allows the show to engage in all those ideas without getting weighed down. And by having fun with itself, like this is an episode that is mocking itself. Like, this is an episode that is mocking itself constantly. Oh, yeah. And mocking the show constantly. And in the lead up to all of this,

the episode before International Assassin, Kevin finally asks Patty, who's been following him around, a vision, a symbol of his guilt, whatever it is that she is, he finally asks her like, what do you want? And she tells him that he needs to go to Cairo

to retrieve an ancient artifact called the Wishing Cup. It's more of a chalice, actually. And Kai, if you give me a hinder, I think I'm going to let character actor and Dowd take it from here. It's going to be heavily guarded, but you need to get it any way you can. Because once you do, you need to fill it with your come, Kevin. And then you need to drink it down every last drop.

Jesus, Kevin! Jesus, Kevin! Kevin! Kevin! Oh, my God, I should have known when you asked me the other day, Like, how do you record audio off of something you're watching, Joanna? Oh, I should know you were here to dazzle me with leftover soundclubs. Well, it's also just very important that I don't say that combination of words into any microphone or podcast at all.

Like, we live in an AI generation. I don't want any part of all that. A great point. Well made. Yeah, exactly. Sigmapus out of itself all the time constantly. It's so good. And which vision quest do you take seriously?

Do you go get the chalice and fill it with your cum? Or do you drink poison in a trailer? and find yourself in a mystery dream space hotel. Okay, so Kevin picks the International Assassin costume, right? There's a no first who you are and then adorn yourself accordingly sort of plaque there. It's very Westworld, except West World came after this, gets a flower delivery and is immediately like thrust and sort of into assassin territory. We have to fight off this flower delivery guy.

Speaking of, all these sequences of Justin Thoreau in a suit with his resplendent boots fighting off would-be attackers. How have we not just gotten that movie? I know he's played spies, usually in kind of more comedic roles, but I just want Justin Thoreau-Hayre. Can we get that? Oh, yes. What is Steven Soderberg doing?

Get him on the phone. Okay, I'll call him. Steve, Stevie, boy. Come on. Stevie. We have something of a killer promise for you. Actually, I think this is a good entry point into a broader Justin Thoreau conversation,

because he's carrying all this episode. As I've said, you know, he is the spy. He also as Kevin, and what makes this sort of a Hall of Fame performance in its own right, he is always kind of floundering even when he is presenting in the leftovers as if he has his shit together, and it's a very delicate thing to perform and to act that he's so good at. But an underrated thing about his performance as Kevin is he's like always playing a guy who doesn't have the answers. And I don't want to say he's dumb, but he's kind of clueless all the time. Yeah.

And him spending most of this episode trying to figure out what he's supposed to do. and what the rules are. And for example, when he finally does locate Virgil, his spirit guide here, and they meet in the garage, deep throat style, and they have this covert meeting. His first follow-up question is he's a little hung up on the fact that in this world he's Kevin Harvey and not Kevin Carvey.

This is the guy we're dealing with. And I could not ask for a better entry point into surreality than someone who asks questions all the time and is kind of mystified, but not too bogged down by everything that's happening around him. There is. We should say also, I love that. I love that analysis of Kevin. We should say on this, you know, English major bullshit level that our guy is named Virgil, we're in like Dante's infernal circles of hell. The way that he goes physically down, down to the lobby, down to the pool level, down to the parking garage. I mean, he goes back up and down again a couple other times. But like, you know, we're not slowly going down. But like, hell has an elevator. And then eventually down a well, like, you know, we're just like, we're, you know, we're just having fun. That's just a fun thing for the English majors to enjoy.

You know what else the English majors can enjoy is the abs, you know? Sure. We just get enough of Justin Thoreau in his full splendor, I will say. That who among us could not appreciate that? Something for everyone. I also just love, like you mentioned there's like 70s paranoia, the sort of all the president's men, parking garage stuff. there's like, Manchuring canon

almost like stuff going on here there's like this hotel hell you know be it shining or Barton Fink or whatever you prefer like all of that stuff

is in the mix here but then just like as you're sitting there and you're like maybe I was an English major and I'm Phil Minor I was like you're sitting there taking your notes feeling so smug

and he's like you gotta go to the toilet and there's a tape with like a gun taped and I'm like oh godfather reference and Kevin's like the godfather

and I'm like oh okay yeah yeah yeah They're making fun of me now. They're making fun of me now. Oh, no. I'm in this photo and I don't like it. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help.

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of daddy issues. Dim Linlough has talked about, like, daddy issues as, like, this core concept has talked about his own, like, Watchman being a thing that he made because of his dad and all this sort of stuff like that. And, like, that extrapolates larger to the concept that comes up again and again in Lindelof stuff, which is your relationship to God, the ultimate bad dad, the ultimate life of the dad is God, right? And so, like, with no offense to any of our listeners who don't agree with that, but, like,

sort of, I mean, I think Job would agree, you know? Like, I think it's just, like, part of them. I think we can all agree that God is a. daddy of some kind. Whether he's good or bad, your mileage may vary, but he is the top daddy. He is the daddies of them all. But like, that idea that like

inscrutable or like, you know, and the way in which this show David's obsession with faith and then also specific religiosity, be it like a Jewish or Christian or Buddhist or otherwise,

this idea of faith and how it's connected to so Kevin just has faith in the things that he's told in this episode, right? Like Virgil's like, you do this, you get to go home. Or his dad on a vision quest of, on a spiritual vision quest of some kind of his own in Perth, right? Well, we know of what kind. It's a drug-addled God's tongue-aided kind. That's for sure.

Fire inside a hotel room kind of vision quest. But like, it just has to have faith in all these people telling him what to do that he will, if he follows his path, he will get what he wants, but just to go back home and ghost-free. in general, trying to love someone or feel connected to someone is an active faith because, you know, these things are so scary and impermanent and someone could get snapped away. Thanos is not involved here, but he could be, you know, so I just think all of that, all of the ways in which we'll get to Bill Camp, who is ostensibly God, question mark in this universe. Maybe, yeah. How does that work for you? The specific, like, religious tinge supernatural of this show?

I want to save some of that for next week just because I feel like it's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world is explicitly religious. And it's so much about that idea of not only having faith, but what it means to wrestle with it and what it means to hold it to account. And when you can afford to keep it and when you can afford to lose it. But there is a great deal of faith in Kevin. And he's always been a weirdly religious figure from season two on, right? Like, that's kind of the framing that the show starts to take on is this idea that, as in this episode, maybe he can't die.

Maybe he is someone who can go to the spirit world and come back, who can literally be buried and jut out of the ground, that that is something that is available to him in a way that clearly it's not to so many other people. I feel like the show wrestling with all of that, wrestling with the idea of faith, is as interesting as anything that it puts forth. Like, the leftovers, I think,

look, there's so many big glaring questions in this show of my life. others just like, can you ever literally ever be okay? Is that a thing that a human being can do? Is that accessible to you? Is that accessible to you as a person in the world who is surrounded by terrible things happening all the time, whether they're rapturous

or not? Yeah. And for a lot of characters, their answer to that or their attempt to answer that is through some kind of faith, whether it's a cultish faith, whether it's a religious faith, whether it's Kevin sort of trying to grasp literally anything that's in front of him that is not a ghost. I think

at this point in the story, he's so hungry for something tangible, that he's willing to listen to anybody's ideas as far as, like, how can I possibly get rid of Patty? Because she is following me everywhere. She's ruining my life, man. I want to talk about Patty, Petitler, like what she represents for Kevin here. This idea, okay, so to go back to Twin Peaks, in Twin Peaks, there's this place called the Black Lodge, which is this sort of way station, this purgatory-esque place.

purgatory is a real trigger word if you are a lost fan but also this is what David Lynch said the character says about the Black Lodge quote one character describes it as a place

all souls must pass through and face their shadow cells before moving on so this idea that Patty is this because whoever he's talking to here is it the real Patty

I think that's like the least interesting sort of interpretation that this is actually I think my answer to a lot of leftover's questions is I really don't care. Sure. You know?

It doesn't fundamentally matter one way or another, but like, no matter whether or not it's literally Patty or not, this is a person who is like the fake Patty from earlier, the politician Patty. Rhonda Janaro from Lowell, Massachusetts. There you go. Her whole spiel about assassins and the whole reason they kill is they feel some sort of like, you know, connection to the message of the person that they're assassinating. Whether or not that has any foundation and reality, what is fundamentally true here is this

idea of like Kevin when he knew padding in the real world thought of her is so profoundly and fundamentally different from him. He is protective law and order, chief of police, dad husband, that's his role. And she is like chaotic female violence, like, you know, all this other stuff like that. So, you know, he's clad in all black. She's clad and all white. Yada, yada. Like whatever. So like it's very subtle. I love the leftover subtle it often is not just like the godfather

guys so when Patty winds up being this little girl that he initially rescued from the pool and then rescues from that fucker Neil and then takes to a well to push her down and kill her

she becomes this figure that he just immediately and again Justin Thoreau and his incredible ability to just sort of emote is protective of empathetic towards learning about Neil's existence is one way putting her like making you

confront your monster you know Liddle Lough compared it to Anakin Skywalker like meeting it meeting Darth Vader as a little kid like this is this is Darth Vader as a little kid put the Pat and Oswald bit aside and just like think about like how that could

actually be interesting to be like we all started as you know sweet kids and what happened to us. When I interviewed Damon for Watchman, I asked him like sort of profoundly what he was most

interested, like what connected lost to leftovers to Washington? Like, what is he most interested? And he said origin stories, which is like a perfect thing to say about a comic book show. But then you think about lost and you think about the flashbacks, like the premise of loss, I mean, if you've never

seen it is that there's like every episode focuses on one character you get a flashback of who they were before they were on this island they find themselves in and then what's happening in the island so how did you as a character get here and we get a version of that in leftovers as we get learn more and more about who these characters were before you know the sudden departure right but this idea of the origin story of patty and what that forces us to confront about characters or archetypes who we decide are the villains. Well, but it's like, how did we how did we get here? You know what I mean? Well, especially when the version that Kevin is wrestling with most often may or may not

be Patty at all. Right. Like, is this a ghost? Is this just a manifestation of how he feels unresolved about the way in which she died, which we should say jutted a giant-ass piece of glass directly into her own neck right in front of Kevin while telling him that he understands when it was so clear that he did not understand anything that is happening. And his whole process with this version of Patty, whatever it is, feels like Kevin grieving someone he hated and did not really know. And his journey here in the hotel, his journey through International Assassin is so much about, first of all,

he has to save Patty from drowning so that he can drown her himself. Like, it has to be him who does it. And in order for him to do it, he has to understand what he's doing and he has to understand Patty. And like that being the journey through this crazy ass episode, That's the sort of like tethering that I don't think a lot of shows and stories can pull off. Like that's the sort of emotional throughline I'm talking about, where there is something real here that in retrospect makes the whole season make more sense, makes Kevin's whole character make more sense, makes Patty's continued presence in the show make a lot more sense.

I love that. I think we're down a well. Patty has transformed from little girl to the Patty that we last saw in the real world when she killed herself. she asks for Kevin, it's not enough to just push her passively down a well, he has to get down the well and hold her down in the water too.

We should say, while I am breathlessly praising Justin Thoreau throughout this entire podcast, the body language acting of the way he pushes the girl down the well is such a gutting way to perform that. That may seem like a ridiculous thing to say. I'm so moved by it.

I think the whole well at Sunrise Secret Oh, yeah. Is a devastating thing to watch. And the specific timing and the specific way that he pushes young Patty into the well is something. I just don't think I will ever forget it. It's devastating. It's horrifying. And it's also a little funny.

Like, I'm sorry. It's a little bit funny too. The timing of it where he's like, just stop talking, just stop talking. And they just like pushes her. I mean, it's just like, it's extremely good. But it goes down the well and they have this like last conversation where, and this is what I mean about anchoring the like sublime. or the supernatural in the ordinary,

a Jeopardy story. Yeah. Like this is sort of just like a classic leftovers. Leftovers is so connected to the most basic bitch, and I say that as a lover of Jeopardy. Yeah. pop culture, you know, we'll get cousin Larry to like perfect strangers. The references on this show are like, what was on TV when you were sick from school at like 2 p.m.?. those are the reference points that the show is drawing from a lot of times. Yeah. So it's perfect that she has this whole, like,

monologue about going on Jeopardy, you know, beating a champion, winning this money, and then getting the money that she needs in a very sort of like the plot of waitress kind of way. Like getting the money she needs to leave her abusive husband and then staying with him anyway, which is devastating. And then this competitor that she met who wouldn't talk to her. You know, and again, that's like,

the connections were afraid to lose, the things that we're afraid to walk away from in terms of meal, the inaccessibility of people. And the way that this, again, maybe in Kevin's mind or maybe in reality, a competitor that Patty met when she was on Jeopardy, who she wiped the floor with, by the way, or refusing to talk to her, is that the origin of the guilty remnants in their, like,

the power and their silence. You know what I mean? Him guessing the Ukraine is really what started all of this. Exactly. So I just, I love all of that. And then, you know, yeah, he drowns her and he gets to crawl out of the dirt and go home. What else do you want to say about...

There's a couple other things, like details. Yeah, we've yada yada yada through some of the middle of the show, I would say. Like Virgil decides to drink the water, so he's not coming back. And I do think the whole, like, putting all of these characters we know in this space. We have Virgil, we have Patty, we have Gladys, we have Holy Wayne. Yeah, Wayne, yeah. A bunch of characters we know are dead. We see Mary from the back.

We never really get to actually interact with her in this episode. But all these characters who you know, but they're all a little bit different and a little bit off. And I think that allows them to be really surprising with the way that they respond to things and what they say. And even just like the torture sequence in the middle of this episode where they put Kevin on a lie detector. And every time he lies, they spray him in the eyes with Windex

is just fucking hilarious. And frankly, I think would make for great content. like if we wanted to repurpose that at the ringer.com hook Chris Ryan up to a polygraph. Chris, have you ever actually seen Seabiscuit before? Spraying with a windex. We know the answer to that A, B, HR would never let us get away with that.

Well, we're not management, so I think we can get away with it. If we do it, it's just revolution. Oh, okay, great. I love that. We just had a strike, and this is the result. I love all that, yeah, and all these characters who have died on the show or Mary who's in like a liminal space at all time sort of thing. I think it was really, really clever.

Oh, and then also that we see, you know, Kevin has his choice of costume, if you prefer. Right. The International Assassin suit. His uniform from,

from Mapleton, he's a priest's raiment and then a guilty rednet, white sort of suit. We see a priest in the elevator crying. We see, We see other people in the hotel who seem to be on their own, like, vision quest and is sort of like, this is my YMCA costume that I've chosen from my closet to do my journey. I'm a nurse.

I'm a priest. I'm a whatever. And again, that's a very final season of lost coding. It's also great in the way that the leftovers is often great, which is the world building on the show. I just think it's top-notch on a really consistent basis. And some of that is, you know, there are time jumps within the leftovers. and it feels like the world has organically changed

in a way that you could track and it would make sense. And sometimes you're plunged into these weird alternate realities and it's like, I don't know the rules of what's happening here, but there are rules and there is some kind of waystation quality where people are coming and going and they're not all Kevin and it's not, despite what he may feel sometimes about himself or other characters may feel about him, it's not all about Kevin. Like this is a space that exists that he is passing through.

And I think giving it that quality while being a hotel just makes a ton of sense. Yes and no, because we're going to talk about Bill Camp as God question mark. A lot more next week. But, you know, he meets him on this bridge, the bridge to Jordan, which will be, you know, a big set piece in the finale of the season. But he meets Bill Camp with an Australian, slightly dodgy Australian accent. That's extremely rude. I found it very convincing, personally. I would say just slightly doughty.

Look, it's another world, all right? The rules of accents are a little bit different here. Australia also a very important part of Lost. The flight in Lost is going from Australia to L.A. There's a lot of Australia shit in Lost. Anyway, I don't know. I actually don't know what Daimalin Luff's fascination with Australia is. But the bodies that have, like, chosen to go over the bridge, essentially, like, choosing, like, the true death, right?

Yeah. If, you know, he, Bill Camp stops the car, David Burton, isn't the name of character, stops the car, puts this noose around Kevin's neck. and it says like essentially this is more real that has ever been. The choice you make here is not just some sort of wishy-washy dream choice. This is a real choice that you're making here. And Kevin chooses to do the hard thing.

And I don't know if you know this, Rob, but the hardest thing in this world is to live in it. I have been told that once or twice. Speaking of shows with a vision quest or two. Exactly. I was thinking about that when you're like, I love a vision quest. I'm like, ooh, even the Cheez-Man episode.

I kind of like the Cheez-Man episode. That's buffy reference. I was trying to think about that. I'm so familiar with the trope and I was trying to place what my favorite Vision Quest-y sorts of episodes are. I do think Legion is one of my favorite. I mean, we just did a great one on Fargo, too,

to be honest with you. I'm down for a lot of those. Legion is just one entire... The whole thing is kind of a Vision Quest, really. Legion, what a time you had on television with Legion. Maybe the last thing I want to say, and then I want to hear what you want to say. But, like, I just want to include this here,

because I don't think we'll get a chance to talk about it next week. This is my, the finale of The Lefters is my favorite episode of The Leftovers. This is probably my second favorite episode of The Leftovers. But my favorite moment of The Leftovers comes in the season two finale and we're back in the hotel. And Kevin has to, you know, lip sync for his life, do like karaoke in order to get home. It's not push Patty down a well. It's you have to sing, just sing a song and you get to go home. just also ridiculous.

Like, I know this is supposed to be purgatory. Hell is karaoke with eight songs on a wheel that people are spinning. That is what hell looks like. What I love about that, I just want to bring it up because David Burton, what David Burton says to Kevin in this episode is, you're the most powerful man on the world. Right. Which we don't learn until much later,

whispered Lost in Translation style into his ear. Hail Hydra. When he comes back in the season too now, just like a couple episodes later, someone shoots him and he's back in the goddamn hotel. right? And he just has to sing this time. And Kevin's like, no, I'm not going to do that. And the way that David Burton, who might be God, is like, oh, you're too good. Like, this is too low stakes. You got to go push a lady down the well. You won't get up and sing a song. The reason is my favorite moment is he picks Homer Bound by Simon and Garfunkel. He sings it poorly, intentionally poorly, like fine, like a person who doesn't really sing would sing it. I just sometimes pull that up. on YouTube and watch it. Just that clip, yeah.

I just think it is so extraordinary. There's some cutsy stuff with the lyrics where they're like, cutting to like literal stuff of the lyrics. But when he says, when he sings home where my love lies waiting silently for me and we cut to Kerry Coon as Nora Durst, just like looking at him and then at the end of that episode he comes home and like everyone's there, Niagara Falls.

And if they had never gotten to season three and that's how it all ends, like it works so well for me. And then season three is a masterpiece. So like I'm so glad they did get it. But like, I'm going to hit you some real English. major bullshit and you're going to forgive me and I know you will because you have in the past. This is one of my favorite quotes of all of literature from Ian Forster from a book I don't really

love, which is Howard's in, which is only connect, only connect that was the whole of her sermon, only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted and human love will be seen at its height live in fragments no longer. Like I just, this connection spine that runs through the left over as our most of profoundly human quest inside of all the bonkers fun, weird, scary, violent shit that happens on this show is what makes it something

that I think about constantly. Rob, what else you want to say about this episode or anything else? Well, on that point, I think we get this interesting sort of positioning from Senator Patty, who, again, may or may not be saying anything that's true. It's clearly she's just kind of like riffing and making stuff up,

But she, similar to the way the guilty remnant is deposed in the show, is like a voice of nihilism in a lot of ways. And I think if you were to watch the leftovers straight through and just feel, especially season one, like can feel very nihilistic. But what makes season two and three so great, and I think so redeeming is the fact that it is pushing through that to articulate something very different

and to argue against it constantly, like in ways that we realize and in ways that we don't. And like, she makes this case that attachment and love have become extinct. Right. This is her big speech that it became abundantly clear that you can lose anyone at any time and that therefore, if you don't have love, if you don't have any attachment,

that you're better off. She's talking specifically about this baby that was abandoned and the fact that it's going to be better off by the fact that it doesn't have any attachments. This show, I would say over three seasons, including in the first season, even though the messaging can be a little bit muddled, argues very strongly that love and attachment are not extinct,

that it makes the case that because you can lose, anyone at any time. It's even more important to hold on to the people you love while they are here. And I think the book of Nora makes that abundantly clear in an inarguable and final way. But we're already getting that here too. Like we're already getting that in season two, especially in the later stages, as Kevin's journey is like he's trying to get back to life and trying to shed Patty. But part of the reason he's trying to shed Patty is because when he told Nora about Patty, she flipped the fuck out and got out as fast as she possibly could.

And so understanding that part of the reason he's trying to be okay is for other people, I think is a really key part of understanding what the leftovers is all about. The show, this episode is incredible. Justin Thore, you will always be a legend. Can we just get him in more good stuff?

Like, he is in a bunch of incredible movies and TV shows. He also does a bunch of just junk. I found out through this exercise that he was the voice of the tramp in the live action lady in the tramp well I get your checks but the Thompson was the lady like you know

it's like but I want better for both of them is my argument like I just I want I want Justin Thoreau in spy shows I want him in these kinds of complex dramas I want him doing all kinds of things because he can do all kinds of things I'm really bummed that White House plumbers which was the

Woody Harrelson Justin Thoreau sort of like Waterhouse thing didn't really take... Or Watergate thing. Sorry. Waterhouse Watergate, yes. Like, that had incredible potential and it didn't really...

It's like one of those shows that gets lost. Has like an insane cast and a great creative crew behind it and it just doesn't even feel like it exists at all. And that's, you know, and that's true of like some of the stuff that Justin said. But yeah, like bring Justin... Bring Justin into Linda Lost Green Lantern.

Why not? Whatever that's going to be. I'm really excited to find out what it is. Okay, let's do it. I love that. Some sad news before we go. I just wanted to take a moment for us as a prestige TV team to mourn. Peter Starr's Guard will not be returning

for presumed innocent season two. This is something our producer Kai texted us earlier today. Rob, your thoughts and feelings. It's fucked up, Joe. It's fucked up. Tommy Maltow. Who is presumed innocent season two

going to be about? We were really hoping it would be Tommy Moldo and his cat. Yeah. It seems that at least Tommy Maltow will not be returning. Maybe the cat, maybe it's about like the Cucon's,

of the cat. And we follow, every season we follow the cat as it's passed from one family to the next or one person to the next. A real, like, babe pig in the city

sort of vibes. I was thinking Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, but I think it's more or less the same framework. Perhaps she never consumed the Rangoon, and perhaps we'll never see

Tommy Moulto again. What if she never consumed the Rangoon? What? Calamity. I have so many concerns about the future of that show. But we'll get it when we get it. We'll see how it goes. It's very in vogue right now to continue your limited series and throw it to the wind.

And we should say, in the spirit of that, the leftover season one is the only source material from the novel. And from that point, it goes to insane and amazing places, untethered from everything that the novel had to be or was compelled to be. And so I think taking some of the soul of that source material and spinning it off in the ways that season two does, I don't want to rule out the possibility that any show can be great once freed of the shackles of what it's supposed to be. based on, but maybe these other shows can do it too. More than Tommy Maltow with us. Celebrate the leftovers with us. We'll be back next week for it's Matt, Matt,

Matt, Matt, world. It is like mutual fans of Dr. Who and Chris Rackleton. We're quite excited to spend that time with our guy. And thank you guys for joining us as we honor the leftovers. I don't know how many of you did, but I hope you

enjoyed it. Again, we'll be covering, we'll be doing a little love towards my so-called life, and it's like a see and then Slough House, slow horses. Straight to Slough House. You will not regret it.

No. You will not regret joining us for that. From one international assassin to a team of fuck up international assassins. I love this for all of us. Okay.

We will see you next week. Thanks to Kai Grady as always on the character, actress, and out audio drop, among other things. Thanks to Justin Sales for his additional production work

on this episode. We'll see you next week. Bye. Expedia. Hey you. What's you doing? Scrolling? Doom scrolling? Looking at other people's vacations? Miami, San Diego, Cancun?

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