Pilot (The Leftovers)

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"Pilot"
The Leftovers episode
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 1
Directed by Peter Berg
Written by Damon Lindelof
Tom Perrotta
Featured music"Why Can't He Be You" by Patsy Cline
A variation of "Vladimir's Blues" by Max Richter
"Do or Die" by Flux Pavilion feat. Childish Gambino
"My Lover's Prayer" by Otis Redding
"FML" by Deadmau5
"Let's Stay Together" by Al Green
"Retrograde" by James Blake
"Sweet Love for Planet Earth" by Fuck Buttons
"Andante / Reflection (End Title)" by Max Richter
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" by The Kingston Trio
"Are You Satisfied" by Reignwolf
Cinematography by Michael Slovis
Production code276070
Original air dateJune 29, 2014 (2014-06-29)
Running time72 minutes
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
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"Penguin One, Us Zero"

"Pilot" is the series premiere of the HBO drama television series The Leftovers . It aired in the United States on June 29, 2014. The series is based on Tom Perrotta's novel of the same name. [1] It received mostly positive reviews, with critics praising its themes and the performances of the cast.

Contents

Plot

October 14

A young mother (Natalie Gold) is at the laundromat with her baby, Sam, who won't stop crying. After putting Sam in the backseat, she ends a phone call and finds that Sam has disappeared. As she searches for him she sees a little boy calling out for his father, who has also vanished. The parking lot and surrounding area erupt in mayhem, and several juxtaposed 911 calls are placed reporting the disappearance of numerous people.

Three years later

Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), the police chief in the town of Mapleton, New York, witnesses Dean (Michael Gaston) shoot and kill a dog and flee in a truck during his morning run. After attempting to return the dog's remains to its owner, he rushes to a meeting with the mayor, Lucy Warburton (Amanda Warren), to the annual Heroes Day parade to remember those who vanished during the "Sudden Departure." Though the mayor is confident that it will be an uneventful gathering of grieving people, Kevin warns that the local chapter of a cult known as the Guilty Remnant, who have grown to the point where they own several houses on a cul-de-sac in town, will protest the event, and leaves when his request to cancel the parade is denied.

At a Guilty Remnant house, Laurie (Amy Brenneman) wakes amongst her fellow Remnants, and is angered when she is left out of the group's planned protest during the parade. As the Remnants do not speak, she writes her grievance to the group's leader, Patti (Ann Dowd), who allows her to join in.

At school, Kevin's daughter, Jill (Margaret Qualley) chooses not to participate in prayer. After breaking another girl's nose during field hockey practice, she is invited to a party by her friend, Aimee (Emily Meade). She gets permission from Kevin over dinner, and leaves for the party, but departs soon after a game in which Aimee and Jill's crush, Nick, have sex. While helping Adam (Max Carver) and Scott Frost (Charlie Carver) look for car keys, she finds the dead dog her father picked up inside the trunk of her car. With the help of the twins, she buries the dog.

Meanwhile, on the west coast of the United States, Kevin's son Tom (Chris Zylka) drives a blindfolded Congressman Witten (Brad Leland) to a compound outside of town belonging to another cult. Upon their arrival, the Congressman is taken to meet the cult's leader, known as Holy Wayne (Paterson Joseph), while Tom chats with cult member Christine (Annie Q.). Once the Congressman is ready to leave, Tom is asked to stay the night, as Wayne wants to speak with him. Wayne comes to Tom at night and tells him that Christine is important, and Tom needs to protect her from impending danger.

At dinner with her fiancé, Meg (Liv Tyler) continues to be harassed by Guilty Remnant members, including Laurie, for unknown reasons. When the couple head home, she finds the same Remnants standing outside her home, and slaps Laurie before heading inside in tears. The following day, Kevin arrives late to the parade and marches with the rest of the town. The mayor unveils a statue in tribute to the victims of the Sudden Departure, and invites Nora Durst (Carrie Coon), a woman who lost her husband and two children in the event, to speak. As she finishes, the Guilty Remnants arrive holding letter signs to spell "stop wasting your breath". The assembled townspeople take offense and attack them, while Kevin and his officers struggle to contain the violence.

That night, after getting drunk, Kevin arrives at the Guilty Remnants cul-de-sac and demands to speak with Laurie, who is revealed to be his wife. He begs her to come home but she refuses to speak with him, and he is thrown off the property. Shortly afterward, Meg arrives in a taxi and asks Patti if she can stay with their group for a few days, and Patti has Laurie take her inside. Kevin stops driving when he sees a deer standing in the middle of the road. As he exits his car to approach the deer, it is chased down, killed, and eaten by a pack of dogs. Dean, arriving soon after, tells Kevin that "they are not our dogs anymore," and the pair shoot at the pack.

Production

"Pilot" was written by series creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta and directed by Peter Berg, who appears in a cameo role as Pete. [2] The budget for the pilot episode was $8,433,643. [3]

In an interview with Tom Perrotta featured on the Season 1 Blu-ray, Lindelof explained that much of the show was informed by the decisions that were made while shooting the pilot, saying, “that’s the most exciting thing, I think, about television. There’s an improvisational quality to it. You know, we’re shooting the pilot and basically there’s nothing behind it yet, so, so much of that process of writing episodes two through ten was informed by the experience that we had while shooting the pilot.” [4]

In a 2015 interview with Uproxx, Damon Lindelof explained that before shooting the pilot episode, director Peter Berg told Lindelof that the script made him think about Newtown after the Sandy Hook shooting. He recalled Berg saying: "I read this and I just remember the news that day and what it was like to be completely and totally blindsided and how I related it to my own child, and how some act of completely and totally inexplicably devastating violence breaks the rules because, you know, people are going to get shot in war zones but that”s never supposed to happen. And I just keep thinking about Sandy Hook." [5] Lindelof goes on to explain that while preparing to shoot the pilot, Berg took him to Newtown, and that "the entire town felt just really sad and tragic, and there were ribbons everywhere, and they had built this amazing lighthouse monument that was covered in messages . . . all those things just became embedded in the show at that point." [5]

Reception

Ratings

The pilot episode received 1.77 million viewers when it premiered, and achieved a 0.8 rating in the 18-49 demographic. [6]

Critical reception

The pilot episode received largely positive reviews, with praise for the series' themes, performances, and intrigue. On Rotten Tomatoes, it gained an approval rating of 100%, based on 13 reviews, with an average rating of 9.00 out of 10. [7] The A.V. Club gave the episode a B+. [8] Alan Sepinwall of Uproxx said of the Garvey family: "What I've always found interesting about the story is that it focuses on the Garvey family, who lost absolutely no one close to them in the Departure, but who have all lost each other as a result" and stated "I don't know how many of you are going to have the patience for this going forward, but I'm all in." [9] Ben Travers of IndieWire gave the episode an "A" grade. [10] Robert Ham of Paste wrote of the pilot: "It is doing what a pilot episode is supposed to do, though: setting up the central themes and characters and leaving you hanging just enough to encourage you to come back for more." [11]

Accolades

For the 67th Writers Guild of America Awards, the pilot episode was nominated for Best Long Form Adapted, but lost to Olive Kitteridge, a fellow HBO series. [12]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Leftovers</i> (novel) 2011 novel by Tom Perrotta

The Leftovers is a 2011 novel by American author Tom Perrotta chronicling life on earth after a rapture -like event takes some and leaves others behind. The billions left behind are all touched by the loss of loved ones in the "Sudden Departure", compounded by the significant social and philosophical concerns and implications of what it means to be left behind, when others were chosen. A television adaptation premiered on HBO on June 29, 2014.

<i>The Leftovers</i> (TV series) 2014 American supernatural television series

The Leftovers is an American supernatural drama television series created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta that aired on HBO from June 29, 2014, to June 4, 2017. Based on Perrotta's 2011 novel of the same name, the series begins three years after the "Sudden Departure", a global event that resulted in 2% of the world's population disappearing. The lives of police chief Kevin Garvey and his family, along with grieving widow Nora Durst and her brother, Reverend Matt Jamison, are the focal points of the series as they struggle to adjust to life after the Departure.

"A Matter of Geography" is the second episode of the second season of the American supernatural drama television series The Leftovers, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta. It is the twelfth overall episode of the series and was written by series creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, and directed by executive producer Mimi Leder. It was first broadcast on HBO in the United States on October 11, 2015.

"Off Ramp" is the third episode of the second season of the American supernatural drama television series The Leftovers, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta. It is the thirteenth overall episode of the series and was written by series creator Damon Lindelof and co-producer Patrick Somerville, and directed by Carl Franklin. It was first broadcast on HBO in the United States on October 18, 2015.

"Lens" is the sixth episode of the second season of the American supernatural drama television series The Leftovers, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta. It is the sixteenth overall episode of the series and was written by series creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, and directed by Craig Zobel. It was first broadcast on HBO in the United States on November 8, 2015.

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"I Live Here Now" is the tenth episode and season finale of the second season of the American supernatural drama television series The Leftovers, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta. It is the twentieth overall episode of the series and was written by series creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, and directed by executive producer Mimi Leder. It was first broadcast on HBO in the United States on December 6, 2015.

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"The Book of Nora" is the series finale of the HBO drama television series The Leftovers. It is the eighth episode of the series' third season, and the 28th overall. The episode's script was written by series showrunners Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, based on a story from Lindelof and Tom Spezialy, and directed by Mimi Leder. It aired in the United States on June 4, 2017.

"Penguin One, Us Zero" is the second episode of the first season of the American supernatural drama television series The Leftovers, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta. The episode was written by series creator Damon Lindelof and supervising producer Kath Lingenfelter, and directed by executive producer Peter Berg. It was first broadcast on HBO in the United States on July 6, 2014.

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References

  1. ↑ Adalian, Josef (June 28, 2012). "Damon Lindelof Talks to Vulture About His New HBO Project: Tom Perotta's The Leftovers". Vulture. Archived from the original on June 28, 2013. Retrieved June 18, 2013.
  2. ↑ Keene, Allison. "THE LEFTOVERS Series Premiere Recap: "Pilot"". collider.com. Archived from the original on July 6, 2014. Retrieved July 6, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Film L.A. 2016 Pilot Production Report" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-12-12. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
  4. ↑ "The Leftovers | I Remember: A Season One Conversation with Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-05-05. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
  5. 1 2 Sepinwall, Alan (September 29, 2015). "Damon Lindelof: 'I was really depressed' writing 'Leftovers' season 1". Uproxx. Archived from the original on March 17, 2023. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  6. ↑ Kondolojy, Amanda (July 1, 2014). "Sunday Cable Ratings: 'BET Awards' Leads Night + World Cup Soccer, 'True Blood', 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians', 'The Last Ship' & More". TV by the Numbers. Archived from the original on October 11, 2014. Retrieved July 1, 2014.
  7. ↑ "The Leftovers Season 1 Episode 1". Rotten Tomatoes . Archived from the original on August 4, 2022. Retrieved August 4, 2022.
  8. ↑ Saraiya, Sonia (June 29, 2014). "The Leftovers: "Pilot"". The A.V. Club. Archived from the original on July 7, 2014. Retrieved July 9, 2014.
  9. ↑ Sepinwall, Alan (June 29, 2014). "Series premiere review: 'The Leftovers' - 'Pilot': Paint the silence". Uproxx. Archived from the original on March 30, 2017. Retrieved July 9, 2014.
  10. ↑ Travers, Ben (July 1, 2014). "'The Leftovers' Season 1, Episode 1 Review: What We Know, What We Don't, and Questions for Episode 2". IndieWire. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  11. ↑ Ham, Robert (June 30, 2014). "The Leftovers: "Pilot"". Paste Magazine. Archived from the original on April 30, 2021. Retrieved March 22, 2023.
  12. ↑ Gelman, Vlada (December 4, 2014). "Good Wife, True Detective, Thrones, Louie Among 2015 WGA Nominees". TVLine. Archived from the original on December 9, 2014. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
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