The Leftovers series finale: Damon Lindelof sums it up

The Leftovers is a love story. This is something that we pondered over the past week or so since the events of this past episode, when Kevin Garvey realized that his behavior towards Nora was one of the reasons for his memory. Over the course of the series finale, this reverberated further when Kevin did everything that he could in order to find Nora Durst a.k.a. Sarah, and have everything that he and in some ways she always wanted.

So was it the goal for the series finale ending to be some simple? Speaking to TVLine, executive producer Damon Lindelof offered up the following:

“We worked for almost three weeks on the last scene and the last episode and what it was going to feel like and [it essentially boiled down to] the two things that you articulated — it being simple and it being a love story. We wanted it to be very simple and not pyrotechnic. Not built on twists or surprises or subverting audience expectation, but more leaning into the bread and butter of what the show was. And when we went in to pitch HBO I had a three-page document and the first four words on the document were, ‘This is a love story.’

“I don’t know if I want to say that the entire series was just about [Kevin and Nora]. I think that it was about family and the loss of family. But it was also about this idea of once you’ve lost your previous family is there a way to find a new one? And can you love again once you’ve lost love?

Having his story end in such a way this time was wonderfully basically because it completely reverted all expectations of what you would have expected to see going into the final season. With his last series in Lost, Lindelof saw things get more and more complicated, and there was such an expectation for answers that things started to spiral out of control for many viewers. (Personally, we’ve always contended that we enjoyed the series finale for that show, but not many people are.)

All in all, this was a brilliant end to The Leftovers.

Do you think that Lindelof’s vision for The Leftovers series finale was ultimately the right one? Share below.