TV Corner: The Leftovers

[Content Note: Spoilers for the latest episode of The Leftovers. Violence; cultism.]


This is pretty much the face I'm making every minute of watching this show.
We have now reached the third episode of this series, which apparently means they've done enough random set-up of our main characters and story, and now we're going to move into dedicated character episodes.

Obviously, there's no better place to start than with a character who has only minimally penetrated the edges of our awareness, so we begin with an episode centered on Reverend Matt Jamison, of whom we've gotten only the briefest of glimpses as he hands out his flyers detailing the sins of the people who have disappeared.

Here's what happens: The bank is foreclosing on Pastor Who's church, because he has failed to make payments for a million years. This is because no one is going to church anymore. Also? His wife is severely disabled from a car crash caused by an unmanned vehicle during the rapture-or-whatever, and he can't pay her home healthcare aide. Basically, dude's pressed for cash.

He asks his sister for the money. She's the lady who lost her husband and both children in the rapture-or-whatever, and also has hand lotion in her car. She tells him to fuck off. He tells her that her husband was cheating on her with their kids' preschool teacher. She laughs in his stupid face.

He digs up money in a peanut butter jar that Police Chief Kevin Garvey's dad buried under his backyard grill and earmarked for Pastor Who before he was hauled off to the asylum. But it's only $20,000. Pastor Who drives to a casino and bets it all on red three times. Yay! He has the money he needs.

The casino gives him a giant wad of cash in an envelope, and a shady character who saw him winning at the roulette table follows him to his car, asking for gas money. Pastor Who is a dildobrain charitable, so he offers the shady character $200, but of course the shady character wants it all blah blah blah fight fight fight and the shady character is left on the pavement and Pastor Who returns to his car, shouting with the invigoration that only bashing in another man's head can deliver to a put-upon white man, if my TV is to be believed.

On the way to the bank, Pastor Who sees one of the cigarette cultists get hit in the head with a rock by kids in a jeep. It's like mailbox baseball, only with rocks and heads. He gets out to help and whooooooooops then he gets hit in the head with a rock! I think god is definitely telling this guy to stop helping people.

Anyway, following THE WORST DREAM SEQUENCE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE, he wakes up in the hospital. Eccleston butt. It's late in the day, and the bankman only gave him one day to come up with the cash to save the church, so he rushes over to the bank. Turns out he's been totes unconscious for two days and fully missed the deadline. Sad trombone.

He goes over to the church to discover that the cigarette cultists have bought it, because of course they have. And they are painting the entire exterior of the building, including the windows, white, because of course they are.

Pastor Who looked pissed. The end.

And I still have no idea what this show is even doing. Is it supposed to be funny? Is it supposed to be serious? I don't get it. I have never not gotten a show before the way I'm not getting this one.

Discuss!