TV Review: HBO’s The Leftovers 1X08 “Cairo”

It is episode eight of The Leftovers and there still aren’t any new developments.

In the beginning of the episode, Nora joins the Garveys for dinner and Jill doesn’t make light of the event. Then Aimee brings up what Nora does for a living and asks if it gets dangerous. Nora says it doesn’t and Jill exposes the fact that Nora carries a gun around in her purse. This new and improved Nora doesn’t seem to be the kind that takes bullshit – especially from teenagers. She confesses to having walked around with a gun (in a past episode viewers get a look at what she does with it), but says that she no longer needs it. Then she slams her bag down on the table and dares Jill to look for the gun in the bag. When Jill finds no gun in the bag, the entire table goes quiet. Later that evening, Kevin walks Nora out to her car and apologizes the whole way there. Wayne’s hug probably worked better than I thought since Nora brushes off the whole incident.

Shortly after, Kevin heads to bed but is restless and can’t get any sleep. Before he can even blink, he’s in his car and the Dog-Killer man is tapping on his window. Curious to know how he reached in the woods and what happened, Kevin follows him into some deep parts of the woods. He leads him to this dilapidated cottage. I really didn’t know what to think at this point. If the Dog-Killer man was involved, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see a mound of rotting dead dogs inside the cabin. Unfortunately, it was even worse than that. A beat up, bleeding and unconscious Patti is tied up on a chair in the middle of the tiny cottage. Even though Dog-Killer man tells Kevin about what he’s been missing out on during his blackouts, Kevin has minimal memory of anything.

But what really spices up this episode is that The Guilty Remnants actually speak. When Pastor Matt’s daily harassment goes wrong, Laurie has to literally drag Meg off of the bloodied man. All this time Meg is screaming curses at the top of her voice and when Laurie manages to get her into the house, she tries to quiet her down. But Meg is having none of it; she explains that the pastor was handing out flyers about her mother that she couldn’t take sitting down. Ironically, she hates the pastor and his crew because they follow the Remnants around and hand out flyers about people. She goes on to talk about her hatred of the fact that people do all kinds of horrid things to the Remnants and they don’t react. She believes that the GRs should stand up for themselves and not make people walk all over them. Laurie explains that violence is weakness and there are other ways to stand up to your rival.

She takes Meg to the pastor’s home to apologize, and meets Nora. Matt knows that Meg’s apology isn’t honest but accepts it anyway. After his little episode where he took drastic measures to keep the church, Matt’s settled down a whole lot and has returned to the ever-smiling pastor that he once was. Laurie and Meg decide to leave when the Pastor tells Megan that he’s not giving up on her as of yet. Before they leave, Nora takes a jab at Laurie when she tells her about having dinner with Jill. She also tells her that since Laurie is in such an apologetic mood, she should drop a note off for Jill.

Meg is practically a newbie in the organization, so I understand how easy it is for her to return to a world of speaking. Patti definitely isn’t but she talks up a storm when she regains consciousness. However, Kevin’s pleading does nothing for her as she tells him that she’s going to report him to the real authorities for assaulting her, destroying his life and career. She tells him to just finish what he started. Only, Kevin doesn’t even remember what that was.

Dog-Killer man takes Chief Garvey outside and lectures him on not being the same man he teamed up with last night. He tries to make Kevin understand why they can’t allow Patti to continue living. But throughout their whole discussion, I couldn’t help but notice that the right side of Dog-Killer man’s mouth is perfectly fine! The previous episodes showed him with a horrible injury that made him able to only talk through one side of his mouth. Is this a part of the plot or something? Or is the show just not being consistent?

Disoriented and bewildered, Kevin goes off into the forest to clear his head and figure out what exactly has been happening during his blackouts. Out of desperation, Kevin phones Nora. Unfortunately, she isn’t home and doesn’t get Kevin’s voicemail because he’s in the woods and has poor phone service.

He walks deeper into the forest and finds all his white t-shirts pinned up all over the trees, as well as remnants of a campfire. Dog-Killer man was telling the truth and this just frustrates Kevin even more. He goes around to every tree and rips down all the shirts.

Meanwhile, Jill and the twins who like to follow her around sneak into Nora’s home to look for the gun. Jill looks for it to prove that Nora isn’t “okay” and hasn’t just gotten over her entire family disappearing. Eventually, she finds it in Nora’s kid’s room and, I guess, is relieved that she’s not alone. Later, Nora comes home and finds the gun uncovered.

When Kevin goes back to the cabin, Dog-Killer man is trying to suffocate Patti with a bag. Kevin starts to panic and rushes to get the bag off her head but is stopped by Dog-Killer man. He wrestles Dog-Killer man for a while before he breaks free from the man’s hold and tears a whole in the bag so Patti can breathe. Looking like the lion that couldn’t catch the deer, Dog-Killer man walks out of the cabin frustrated.

Back in town, Meg can’t seem to shut up as she goes on and on about what Nora said to Laurie. Laurie tries to shut her up by shushing her but Meg decides to ignore the hint. When Laurie can’t take it anymore, she slaps Meg across the face, covers her mouth and gives her the loudest shush in history. Then, a van pulls up and Laurie and the other GRs collect whatever packages are inside. The way they carry them with so much care, I’m positive that they are the artificial bodies of their loved ones. I mean, as creepy as the whole act is, I think the Remnants are either going to bury the artificial bodies or are going to dress them up and keep them in the church. In the beginning of the episode, Patti was laying down clothes in the church so they must be using them for something.

Regardless of the creepy act, Laurie seems to have settled down into Patti’s role as she seems to like being in command; she smiles as she sits in Patti’s chair. Maybe Laurie wants to stay in power? Is that why she won’t send a search party for Patti?

Despite all the crazy things going on in the Remnant household, a knock at the door reveals a solemn Jill. Decked out in all black, Jill decides to join the Remnants.

Meanwhile, Kevin and a non-dead Patti talk about the Guilty Remnants as Kevin tries to make sense of everything. Patti continues to taunt Kevin and, I guess, tries to make him understand her and the Guilty Remnants. She tells him that they take away everything that makes them human and only remember what happened on October 14^th. She says that the GRs become living reminders of what happened and that people join the Remnants because it gives them purpose.

Then Kevin asks if Patti killed Gladys (the GR that got murdered in a previous episode). But all Patti says is that Gladys was “okay” with it. I’m not sure whether or not this means that Patti is Gladys’ killer or she means that they’re all going to die sooner rather than later. However, she adds that Laurie’s and the other Remnants’ time are coming too. I think she was indicating that Kevin will be their murderer.

After Patti recites some coded poem, Kevin gets up from his chair and goes over to the toolbox. I actually believed that Patti’s poem triggered something in Kevin and his alter ego came out. But when he walks over to her, he cuts her loose and says that he doesn’t care if she tells anyone what he did to her, he just wants to keep his sanity. Patti gets out of her chair, picks up a shard of glass and offs herself! She jams the piece of glass deep into her throat while Kevin watches. He runs over to her and tries to stop the bleeding but it’s already too late.

At this point in the series, I’m more frustrated than traumatized about the fact that they haven’t decided to move any further into the plot of the story! Sure, the show has some very emotional and disturbing moments but it’s like watching grass grow. I’ll continue watching the show only because I always finish something I start.

Rating: 5/10