TV Review: HBO’s The Leftovers Season 1 Episode 3 “Two Boats and a Helicopter”

This episode was slightly disturbing and completely focused on Pastor Matt Jamison.

So far we’ve only seen this forlorn pastor walking around, handing out papers with faces of the people who disappeared and claiming that all of them weren’t heroes but some criminal, compulsive gamblers, perverts, etc. However, these people were loved ones to many residents in the town and some of the residents aren’t happy with the fact that the pastor is exposing their loved ones’ dirty linen. I mean, c’mon, they’re already grieving about the fact that they’ve gone missing.

Apparently, this also makes Matt a target for constant attacks. In the beginning of the show, he’s assaulted by a huge homeless-looking man who bursts in, beats up the pastor mid-sermon and stuffs a piece of paper that is degrading a woman who is obviously close to the homeless-looking man. This just seems to be the beginning of Matt’s woes as the rest of the episode entails him going through desperate measures to keep his church and control of his life. The bank tries to constantly get in touch with the pastor. His wife’s personal nurse keeps threatening to quit if he doesn’t pay up what he owes her. And pigeons seem to be following him around everywhere he goes.

When this episode reached half-way, the pastor had already gotten a lot of my sympathy and I feared that the remaining 27 minutes would only portray even more pain and misfortune. And I was dead right.

Unfortunately, his wife became paralyzed when a driver’s, who got taken in the “departure”, car crashed into Matt’s and his wife’s car. He got a nurse who came in regularly to take care of his wife when he’s away but of recent he can’t afford to pay the nurse. The same day the bank calls him in and tells him he’s got till tomorrow to pay off his debt or he’ll lose the church that has been in his family for years, the nurse threatens to quit and leaves him to attend to his wife for the night.

After he bathes his wife and tucks her away in bed, he makes a makeshift bed beside hers and muffles his cries. He cries out “help me” to a supposed religious painting with a distressed man who’s got a long goatee and his finger on his chin. Instantly, he leans up in bed like he’s gotten some epiphany. And I’m so sure that the revelation he got was to go rob a bank or something.
But no. Instead, he pays a visit to Kevin’s house and sees Kevin’s wife on the swings. She writes on her notepad asking Matt to not tell Kevin that she was there since she joined the Guilty Remnant and is supposed to leave that life behind. He agrees and tells her that he won’t tell if she doesn’t say anything about him being there. After they part ways, Matt uncovers a grill and lifts up a loose tile to reveal a jar that has a ton load of money in it. Apparently, Kevin’s dad left that money there for the pastor because Matt is the only one who chose to “reveal” the personalities of the people who disappeared. This particular person used to take bribes from judges and Kevin’s dad left Matt the money that was supposedly that guy’s bribe money.

So here I thought “whoopee! He can finally turn his life around, forget about saving the church, be sustained for a while and can afford to pay his wife’s health assistant!” But no. Our dear pastor takes the money and gambles it on a casino table a pigeon flew on because I guess he figured that the pigeons were following him around for a reason.

Fortunately for him, he wins the money and more from betting on one single color (I suck at casinos so I don’t know what game you call that). Then, misfortune just seems to be rolling his way as Matt gets mugged by a riff raff who takes his money, walks off and is feeling pretty good about that trip to Niagara Falls with his little girlfriend. I kind of figured something would go wrong after Matt was winning so much money. I mean, it was either the casino was going to hassle him or that hoodlum since casinos are all about making money not losing it (that much I know). What I didn’t expect was for Matt to go apeshit on the not-so-little thug. He, literally, jumps the guy and then starts to bang his head on the gravel as if he’s trying to crack a coconut. Then, when he’s satisfied that the guy won’t get back up, he takes his money and drives off. This part really freaked me out because it showed what even “religious” people would do when put under extreme pressure.

So, he’s got the money he needs to save his church and handle the rest of his business but his trials aren’t over as yet. Right as he’s heading over to the bank, he witnesses two GRs get attacked by an asshole who threw a stone out of a passing car. Immediately, he reacts and goes to help them. Out of all the people in that town, it seems like he has the least amount of hate for the Guilty Remnants. I mean, when they follow him around he smiles at them or gives them donations.

Anyways, he calls an ambulance for the two GRs that got attacked and the same guys who attacked the GRs come back and throw a stone at Matt. And it isn’t just a slight hit. It’s a hit that sent him into a sort of delusion where he’s a little boy again getting diagnosed about a condition he has that isn’t treatable. It also makes him: relive the car crash that seemed to have paralyzed his wife, relive the traumatic experience of losing his parents in a fire and experience what sex with his wife is like when she wasn’t paralyzed but there seems to be a glitch in his daydream as his wife turns into Laurie. Then everything goes downhill and his hands catch fire. At this point, I’m wondering whether or not he died and woke up in hell or if there was a deleted scene with him doing meth or something.
Eventually, he wakes up in a hospital with a head bandage the size of a pre-historic bird’s egg and hustles to get his clothes on when he remembers that the bank said he only had one night to get the money. After dodging a not-so-concerned nurse and slipping into his car, he dashes off to the bank. Unfortunately, they’re just about closing when he reaches but the guy who deals with Matt is still in the building and gets the security to open up for him. What’s most disappointing is that the banker tells Matt that it’s been three days and that he’s too late. Apparently, he’s been in the hospital for more than a night and totally missed the deadline. Crushed, heartbroken and in shock, Matt wanders back to the only place he’s ever loved just to find the Guilty Remnants remodeling his sanctuary. I was just as shocked as him to find out that they were the ones that bought the church. I mean, it’s so ironic because the pastor hasn’t done anything to them but helped them and there they are, confiscating something he’s treasured since he was a boy. It seems like they’re trying to give people a reason to hate them.

Like in most episodes so far, I didn’t understand the reason behind what some of the residents of this town did. Why was Matt so instant on “exposing” the people who disappeared on that fateful day? What purpose or result did he expect to get even if people did agree with him? Was he trying to say that it couldn’t be the rapture because he should’ve been among the people taken instead of just the innocent and criminal? I mean, he was so insistent on his mission that after his sister denied to give him the money to save his church, he told her about the affair her “raptured” husband had and that he didn’t make a poster about him because it would have hurt her. What kind of insensitive jerk does that?

Then there’s the Guilty Remnant. What’s their gist? Why do they purposely pick on people? Did they single out the pastor for a reason? Out of the whole town, they could’ve gotten somewhere other than the church. I mean, is their plan to convert the whole world? Then what? Everybody goes moping around and smoking their lungs out till they die? What kind of alternative is that?

And what is up with the animals? So far, Kevin has attracted the attention of dogs, a deer and a maniacal hunter while Matt has gotten pigeons that appear to be lucky. What’s up with them? Is there some alien force that is screwing with these people? What is the purpose of this show?

*sigh* I’m so intrigued by this show that it’s literally agonizing having to wait a whole week for the next episode.

Rating: 8/10