Intern Alana Pedalino reviews The Leftovers via Andy Duke - she ain't like it

By Alana Pedalino Voice recording by THE great Andy Duke The Leftovers has gone stale. Though the HBO series’ second season has garnered positive reviews so far, I ain’t buying what HBO is selling. It’s not that the show is bad – HBO wouldn’t have greenlit it if it was. However, after a lukewarm first season that withheld action and information until its ninth episode or so, I had expectations for the second season to be different and elicit more growth from its main characters. Unfortunately, all that seems to be different is the setting and the directors’ choice to include more racial diversity in some not-so-subtle casting decisions. Actually, subtlety is a weak point for The Leftovers. The show tries so hard to be bizarre and symbolic and it just doesn’t work. It has plenty of opportunities to be surrealist and clever, but misses out on most of them. That combined with the utter joylessness of the show and all of its characters makes this show a pretty depressing watch. Don’t get me wrong, it’s understandably a depressing premise – 2 percent of the world’s population vanishes for Pete’s sake. But a show like that needs to provide redemption in either answers or its characters; The Leftovers provides neither. Take a listen and hopefully you’ll understand.