‘The Leftovers’ season 2, episode 7 review: Doing battle

Is “The Leftovers” taking a page out of the “Walking Dead” playbook with Glenn, or are they looking to do something even deeper and more profound with their latest new episode from this past Sunday night? Both are fair questions, and in true show fashion, we cannot provide any answers for now.

All we can say is that Kevin Garvey is dead … for now. Maybe there will be a way where Virgil’s grandson Michael will be able to get Kevin back, but for now it seems like this will all part of Virgil’s plan to let him die, get rid of medicine meant to revive him, and then kill himself. Clearly, this is the happiest ending of the entire season.

But why end things this way? The good news is that with Kevin’s death, we also lose what is left of Patti. She has no consciousness to inhabit any more. Even if somehow he is revived, it is hard to envision many scenarios in which the character turns back up and is somehow different. There are only so many detours that the series can take with her, which is an unfortunate thing to say given just how wonderful Ann Dowd is on this show.

Seeing the story bring us to Kevin’s death was magnificent in itself, as Kevin spent the entirety of the hour trying to free himself of one burden or another. First, it was the handcuff that Nora Durst had put on his wrist, and from there, it was the spiritual burden of having this ghost in his head. Nora was ready to leave him unless he managed to get it out, but nothing was working. Kevin was a highly desperate man. He was haunted, heartbroken, and intent on making sure that he had what little he wanted in his life back.

The funny thing is that even if he did survive what happened to him at Virgil’s odd little cabin, it would not have earned him freedom. John Murphy has ready to identify the handprint, and Kevin stumbled into a situation where he had to hand over his in order to prove his innocence.

While this uncharacteristic episode of “The Leftovers” generated many more questions than it did answers, we’re for the most part thrilled with it still. If we had this sort of crazy, OMG-moment sort of ending every week, it’d feel trite and uninspired. Instead, it has racked our brain ever since we saw the closing seconds. Grade: A-.

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