Re-watched most of the finale last night as it happened to be on... one thing I caught about the ep on 2nd viewing was the symbolism of the goat scene. After Nora frees the goat and is leading it back to the house, there is a shot of her and the goat, they are both walking slowly, both battered and bruised, and covered in mud. Nora has the beads around her own neck. I sense there was some symbolism there about Nora herself being the "scapegoat" that I missed the first time around.

Also noticed the recurring use of the ladder imagery, calling back to the Millerites from the first ep this season. Actually upon thinking about it, ladders and people on roofs figured prominently in many of the episodes.

Also on second watching I have even more respect for Mimi Leder as a television director. The way the slow dance scene was filmed was so good... the entire ep just had a really unique look, better than most feature films. Many of the best episodes were directed by Leder.

She's empathizing strongly with the goat because she embodies what the goat symbolizes (sacrafice); she's even donned the beads which were described as representing others' sins. She's gone from skeptic to believer to a messiah figure that walks among the living & dead, literally carrying the sins of the world on her shoulders (beads).

The goat scene was the most cringeworthy thing I've ever seen. I think it was the ridiculously over dramatic music.

Would have been worse if they slit its throat.

Season 3 was pretty average but the finale was great and made up for a strange season. The back half of season 1 through Season 2 was elite. The acting was incredible throughout the series and if anyone knows of a series with better music please let me know. Three seasons felt about right. The scene with Matt and Nora at the beginning of the finale was my favorite part of the episode. We've seen that same scene play out many times in this series and that is what I will always remember. A heartbreaking scene and then the music plays.

Agreed. The music on this show is as good as it gets.

Will miss this show, but happy we got 3 seasons (and not 4).

This show isn't on this week

Need a Kevin Garvey "secret agent/president reality" spinoff.

I guess a decent enough finale to an above average show.

I was really surprised to see Laurie - thought she was gone for sure since her episode was titled "Certified", but her killing herself really made no sense to me.

I do question though if there is a machine shipping people back, is it only for those who used the machine in the first place, or for all the disappeared ones?

they should air the actual 1st ep of S3 tonight, and S3E2 next week obv

Not sure why that would matter since the machine was supposedly duplicating the conditions that led to the departures.

And since Nora was either making up that story or relaying her delusion

Nora could be telling the truth - and if so the physicist could send everyone back theoretically.

Unrelated point: Keven's idea to act like he and Nora never had a past seemed pretty silly.

I was fine with him acting like they had no past. I found his line about only having 2 weeks vacation to be super lame. Still one of the best finales I've seen.

Best you ever seen? I didn't like it to be honest. I loved this show but all the wonder for many seasons and story lines and it all ends so quick in one episode that was mostly just Kevin and Nora? It just felt dull boring and i felt disappointed. The show built me up for 3 seasons then blah finale to just answer some questions. I appreciate Nora and Kevin as characters and their love for one another but there was alot more characters storylines i wanted to see.

And what about those other story lines? Like Live Tyler banging kevin son? I thought she was going to have his baby and was wondering if it would have powers like i thought he might and being that his dad was Kevin who we thought was special. Was that black guy really a healer or just made people believe like the son did with his mom? How did Kevin not die when his buddy shot him in the stomach? Why he not die when he got poisoned? How he come out of ground alive? Did he have powers? I don't know i'm so confused. I'm sure you guys figured this stuff out i feel silly to ask but it went over my head some i guess.

p.s. I tend to be disappointed on most finales of shows. Hate Dexter, breaking bad, lost finales. I was ok/liked with Sopranos finale as it was a cool ending to make you really think and shocking when went black but that whole thing ended pretty fast too.

I didn't think Laurie was going to kill herself. I thought it was the only way to get back to Tazmania where the pilot from the church was waiting. The boat driver said something about that being as far as he could go because of the storm. I thought she was swimming/scuba-ing back the rest of the way.

I also think Nora was telling the truth. It all actually added up and had stuff included that wouldn't be needed for a lie. Like having to take the boats everywhere and the fact the new wife was pretty etc.....

She could have thought she was telling the truth while relaying a delusion. The subconscious is pretty good at filling in little details. She and Kevin were both mentally ill after all.

Nora does describe the other world pretty spot on, she walked for a long time before she saw anyone, boats and few pilots, lawns all over grown. I just think that world would have been burned to the ground if 90% of the population disappeared.

Idk, Everyone deals with loss differently, but it seems a bit much for Nora to need an elaborate lie to cope after 20 years. I can get her being fvcked up even 7 years later but not 20.

I do think she lied.

Was it a delusion that the departed vanished into thin air? There was unexplained supernatural things that did happen. Nora's story is no less believable

If Nora's story is true the Departure is a natural event, one that humans can physically recreate on either Earth, not something supernatural. The mirror Earth is presented as a physically real place exactly like Earth, not a kind of Heaven or something else supernatural.

Which leads to many logical problems with her story - not the least of which as the previous poster mentioned is that Earth with 2% of the population would not continue to function normally with working street lights after 7 years etc. It would very quickly become apocalyptic.

I'm with you. I don't get why so many people are trying to logically parse out her story, while all the other things that have happened have not been that logical either.

Thinking about inconsistency in the details because it's the exact type of fiction someone would tell themselves to deal with emotional pain.

Also while the Departure is seemingly logically inexplicable on one level, Kevin's afterlife excursions and Nora's story if objectively real are exponentially worse.

Entire show is about lies people tell themselves to keep living in a s**t world where random terrible things happen for no apparent reason. Religion, belief in the afterlife, idea of life having a purpose, etc. So the idea that Nora's story was a lie fits in pretty well as a coping mechanism. In her story she got to see her dead (departed) kids, and they were OK. It's what everyone who believes in heaven tells themselves.

It's been a while since the finale but at the time I think I took Nora's explanation as like a soft allegory for all the shows themes

Hard stretch for me to think I'm meant to take a conversation between these two characters in, this moment, as literal

To the above posters' point that Nora and Kevin have always used alt methods to cope with issues in ther relationship
--In this episode Kevin is stealthy traveling to Australia for years on end then when he finally finds her instead of confrontation he challenges Nora with disbelief, creating an entirely fictional story yet somehow he connects to her in a way that allows both of them to open up


Parsing out her story a little and what the show wants its audience to feel
--Do you guys think that she is so driven to actually try a theorectical machine which is designed to incinerate you btw. Then teleportation actually works! Upon seeing her happy children + husband, a pretty woman stops her from expressing some pent up raw emotion?

Instead she decides to find the inventor, proceeding to describe her journey in more detail than anything else. Finding the inventor she gives him the idea and inspiration to remake the greatest creation in history and he sends her back home while keeping it all a secret? Not sure.

The more I think back on The Leftovers, the more I appreciate the show. It was even better than I realized. I've rewatched the finale a few times and the ending was perfection. I hope people will watch this show and keep this thread alive. This show deserves to be watched.

I rewatched the finale today because of this post... Thanks.

I was even more blown away by Carrie Coo ns acting than I was the first time. She is sublime.