Critic Reviews

Many will hate it. But there will be viewers in whom it strikes a chord so deeply that they will feel themselves overwhelmed by it in the best possible way: not like they're drowning in the misery, but like it's teaching them a new way to breathe.

None of this would work without compelling characters. Fortunately, The Leftovers has bunches of them.

Each episode hits harder as a result [of the story told from the POV of only a specific subset of characters] while the narrative has gotten tighter. It's still a show defined more by emotion than plot, but structuring it this way--and moving most of the action to Jarden, which has many mysteries of its own--creates a sense of more momentum, rather than a bunch of characters wandering around in a daze.

This is, if anything, a sequel to season one, one that shares some of the same cast members, a bit of the same tone, and a general sense of the world tipping off its axis, ever so slightly. It's a show that wants to provoke a reaction in you, whether it's admiration, hatred, or just bafflement. It's HBO's best drama--and thus must-see TV.

The Leftovers shifts locations, expands its cast of characters, delivers new soul-shaking twists and drills more deeply into its theme of spiritual vertigo. This season, it's less about loss itself than how to fill the chasm. It's breathtaking.

Season 3 is no less than a coup, wrapping up a wild narrative with ambitious new threads and honing in on each character’s fundamental spiritual and psychological beliefs.

The new episodes don’t represent another radical leap forward in style or quality the way season two was, but whatever’s lost from the shock of the new (nothing here is quite as weird or surprising as the cavewoman prologue or “International Assassin,” though a joke in the second episode and a party sequence in the fifth come close) is gained in how much more we know all the characters at this point, and how aware they are of their proximity to their story’s end.

Superb final season of The Leftovers. ... Suffice to say that Lindelof, Perrotta & Co. have continued to think about ways to make the fantastic seem mundane and vice versa.

The new season of The Leftovers is spectacular, in every sense of that word.

On top of the phenomenal performances, stellar narrative structure, and compelling/emotionally devastating writing, the show’s thematic relevance all but secures it a lauded place in TV history. Buckle up and grab the tissues, folks--this is one hell of a sendoff.