The Leftovers fourth episode, ‘BJ and the AC’ continued to build upon the strong episode last week, turning away from Reverend Matt and back toward the Guilty Remnant, which has morphed from a mysterious unknown entity into an evil f*cking cult and the show’s real villain. In bringing out the cult’s insidiousness, Lindelof and company have managed to create more sympathy for Kevin and, finally, for his daughter, too. The wild card here is Amy Brenneman’s Laurie, who is both a terrible mother, a frustrating person, and the show’s most heartbreaking character.
The Christmas episode centered on the disappearance of a baby Jesus (The “BJ”) from the town’s nativity scene, which at the very least allowed for a very impressive opening sequence that saw the mass production of dolls that, in a way, would mirror the larger, more realistic dolls that were strewn on the road later in the episode. Those, of course, were Loved Ones, which are basically mass produced corpses which allow grieving family members to bury something in lieu of their departed family members. They are also creepy as hell when they’re strewn about on the highway. “Some sad idiot paid a f*cking fortune just to bury those things.”
The baby Jesus subplot admittedly felt like a quirky plotline straight out of an episode of Northern Exposure, but it succeeded in doing a few things: 1) It allowed us more time with the twins, Adam and Scott Frost (Max and Charlie Carver, the twin kids from Desperate Housewives), who are shaping up to be a solid source of much-needed comedic relief on The Leftovers, 2) It gave us a sense that Aimee (Emily Meade) is more sympathetic than Jill (and almost certainly has the hots for her best friend’s Dad, Kevin), and 3) It showed that Jill Garvey can be a petulant, bratty teenager, but — in refusing to launch the Nerf arrow for the baby Jesus’ Viking funeral — we also realize that there is a heart buried somewhere deep underneath all the emotional scarring.
We saw more of that in a scene in which Jill gave her mother a Christmas present, a cigarette lighter with a message inscribed on it asking her mother not to forget her. That was a heavy Christmas present, and it came on the heels of an emotionally torturous scene in which Laurie — through Meg Abbot — served divorce papers to Kevin. Kevin rightfully refused to sign them until Laurie would speak to him first, something she refuses to do, as she clearly honors her GR vows over the vows of her marriage.
That scene gave us more insight into Kevin as a father and husband: He had taken an already damaged Laurie in after a bad relationship and treated Tom as his own son. Laurie, as she pointed out in the letter, has always been screwed up. The “Rapture” only hastened it to the surface.
Knowing that about Kevin — that he still loves his wife, that he loves Tom as his own, and that he is left alone to do the hard work of raising a teenage daughter — made it easier to accept that Kevin had also cheated on his wife, a revelation he shared with Nora in a weirdly excellent scene that probably has more than a few of us shipping the crap out of Kevin and Nora. That one exchange between Kevin and Nora in the high school may have been — outside of last week’s episode — the best scene in the series in terms of humanizing characters. It’s there where I really grew to appreciate Kevin, faults and all, and kind of fell in love with Nora. Clearly, there’s chemistry there.
But back to Laurie. My heart broke a little when she opened up the cigarette lighter, and for a few minutes I f**king despised her for throwing it down the grate. The parent in me came out, and I found myself shouting at the TV: “What a sh*tty mom. How DARE she abandon her kids.” That’s basically the worst thing you can do, in my book. Her involvement with Guilty Remnant is not endearing her to anyone, and the more we see of the GR, the more we grow to dislike that cult and sympathize with Kevin, even if he overlooked certain laws to apprehend Patti and the GR for being near school property. (“Their word against ours,” Kevin said. HA!)
Of course, Patti was three steps ahead of Kevin. It was all part of her plan to be arrested, a distraction while the rest of GR broke into people’s houses and STOLE THE PICTURES OF THEIR LOST LOVED ONES. What the f*ck? What a heinous thing to do. What the the hell is the GR trying to prove? They’re only making people hate them more.
In the beginning I thought there might have been a spiritually noble reason for the existence of the Guilty Remnant. Even after last week, when they took the church away from Matt, I thought there might have been a larger purpose behind their actions. Now, after this petty bullsh*t, I’m convinced that Patti and Co. are pure evil. I only hope that Laurie (and Meg, for that matter) can figure out how to listen to the part of her that went back to get the lighter in the grate, that spies on her family, and that can’t quite bring herself to do what is needed to divorce her husband.
Meanwhile, I’m still not positive what’s going on with Tom and Christine, beyond the fact that Christine is carrying Wayne’s devil baby (the “AC” in “BJ and the AC” may well refer to the Anti-Christ). That subplot was more interesting this week than it has been up to this point, but — untethered from the rest of the storylines — it’s still difficult to get invested. I’m looking forward to that storyline eventually intersecting with the rest of Mapleton. There were a couple of interesting revelations about Tom’s scenes, however: 1) We know that the Guilty Remnant is not just in Mapleton, and 2) we got a taste for the other kinds of cults that have sprung up since the Rapture, like the people with the targets on their head. For a moment, wouldn’t it have been cool to have a quick crossover with Arrow?
Random Thoughts
— That was Scott William Winters (brother of Dean), as Laurie’s ex husband. Who knows if we end up seeing him down the line.
— I bet there is a whole subset of people who order “Loved Ones” and don’t bury them. They just Lars and the Real Girl them.
— Kevin’s car gave out when he yelled, “The Baby f**king Jesus,” which was weird timing. Maybe God does exist, and he has an awesome sense of humor.
— Speaking of sense of humor, my favorite line in the episode was from Kevin to Patti: “Can I offer you something to drink? Water? Coffee? Drano?” I even appreciated that Patti smirked at that.
— Sure, all the pictures the GR stole are almost certainly on hard drives or in the cloud (although, what a pain in the ass it is these days to create physical copies), but symbolically, that was a terrible thing to do. But also, WHAT IF THAT’S WHERE ALL THE PEOPLE DISAPPEARED TO? THE CLOUD?
