21 pop culture moments in 2017 that spoke to the zeitgeist
By Amy Woolsey
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 01: (L-R) Actors Carrie Coon, Justin Theroux, Amy Brenneman and Scott Glenn attend the ‘The Leftovers’ FYC New York Screening at Metrograph on June 01, 2017 in New York City.
The Leftovers
The Leftovers has always been timely. Its inciting incident — 2 percent of the world’s population disappears into thin air — offers a blank slate onto which viewers can project an array of tragedies and traumas. For his 2011 book, Tom Perotta looked at 9/11. When adapting the book for an HBO series that would debut in 2014, co-creator Damon Lindelof and director Peter Berg visited Newtown, Connecticut. There, they found a community still reeling from the elementary school shooting that killed 26 people, including 20 children.
Newtown loomed large in my mind as I watched the pilot. Back then, many found the persistent sadness overwhelming or off-putting; even glowing reviews talked about it. I found it sublime. While most entertainment sought to pretend things were okay, or at least capable of being okay, here was something that saw the world in crisis and refused to turn away. It felt as though I’d been screaming into the void and suddenly heard a voice answer: “I believe you.”
As the show went on, a more intricate tapestry of loss formed. Season 1’s raw anguish subsided into a delicate ache, as characters fumbled for direction. The humor tipped into absurdity, even silliness (bless the source of infinite amusement that is “Kevin Harvey”), though its morbid edge stayed razor-sharp. Liv Tyler terrified us, and Justin Theroux crooned Simon & Garfunkel. In the final season, the apocalyptic subtext became text. With the seventh anniversary of the Sudden Departure approaching, doomsday prophesies run rampant, and society teeters on the brink of chaos. Twice, missiles arc toward the screen — an especially alarming spectacle in light of rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.
Contrary to how it probably sounds, The Leftovers resists nihilism. In fact, it is shockingly life-affirming, salvaging meaning from madness, grace from cruelty, beauty from desolation. (Under Mimi Leder’s eye, the Australian wilderness looks like paradise). After all, we follow not the Departed but those who remain, the people burdened with the daily ordeal of surviving. Every so often, it seems the world is about to end, or the world did end, and the fact just hasn’t caught up to us yet, like light from a distant star. But, for now, we’re here. Maybe that’s enough.