Review: HBO’s The Leftovers Ep 7 – “Solace For Tired Feet”

Folks, this is it. This is the episode where I realize watching all the previous episodes of The Leftovers was not an exercise in vain. This is the episode where we finally get to see some faint conception of continuity.

Color me shocked.
Color me shocked.

“Solace For Tired Feet” is quite the ironic name for this episode as we literally get to check up on every character (major or minor) that has been introduced to us thus far in some form or fashion – this episode jumps around all over the place, without any respite. We start off the episode with Kev’s daughter, Jill, and Kev’s estranged wife/her estranged mother making eye contact while she begins taking down posters depicting the deceased Gladys with the subtitle “SAVE THEM.” No words are exchanged – a glare, filled with longing, comes from Jill while a look of regret comes from Laurie. Jill, in the next scene, decides to work off her anger by trapping herself in a rusty graffiti’d fridge. An unexpected guest comes along to bail her out.

Fridge is love. Fridge is life.
Fridge is love. Fridge is life.

We see Kevin and Nora really hitting off since the last episode, and it’s really something that can’t not make you smile – they’ve been on six dates since. Meg Abbott, in between the last episode’s gap and now, has fully assimilated with the GR. We find Tommy, Kevin’s estranged son, holed up in Rudy’s homebase – Gary, Indiana. After waiting for months for Holy Wayne’s call, he finally figures out that he’s been living a lie through a shocking discovery. Kevin’s father is on the loose and without his meds – he causes the town to go in to a bit of hysteria wherever he seems to go. Justin Theroux also gets the chance to go back to the surrealist world of Lynch.

The-Leftovers-season-1-episode-7-jill-kevin
“Jill, honey, you listenin’ to me? Your old man wants to reminisce aloud, back to Inland Empire and Mulholland Drive.”

I had my doubts, but The Leftovers has managed to bring back the magic that made the first pilot so enjoyable. It’s chock-full of twists and turns and it all moves with the pace of a two-ton boulder rolling down a two-mile tall mountain. My only problem is that only just now has somebody said anything about the family photos being taken from a couple of episodes back; it was Nora and the event was only entertained for a few seconds. Kevin didn’t even really comment on it – he had photos taken too! How has he not noticed? The preview for the next episode looks promising, so we may actually start getting answers to some questions that have been with us since the first couple of episodes finally. Things are lookin’ up.

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