Here’s the joke from which the third episode of The Leftovers gets its title:
So there’s this huge flood one day, and an entire town looks like it’s going to be swallowed up by the waters. And the Police and Rescue Agencies are running all over the place trying to get people to safety.
So they send the rescue boat over to this house where a guy’s sitting on the roof with the water lapping around his ankles and they say “Come on, quickly, there isn’t much time”
To which he says “Nah, it’s ok, God will Provide”
So about an hour later they’re zooming past in the boat again and they notice the guy’s still there, only the water’s up to his waist, almost at the top of the roof.. “Quick” they say, get in the boat, it’s going to get worst before it gets better.
“Nah, don’t worry – God will Provide”
An hour after that a rescue helicopter flies over the area and notices the guy, who must be standing on the peak of the roof now, with only his head and shoulders out of the water. “GRAB THE ROPE!” they cry “IT’S YOUR ONLY HOPE!”
“Don’t worry” he replies calmly “God will provide.”
So he gets drowned of course. And he goes to heaven, and is a little ticked off with god for drowing him like that, and expresses his concern saying “I had FAITH, I BELIEVED in you – and still you didn’t help me”
“HELP YOU?!” God replies “What MORE did you want – I sent you two boats and a helicopter!”
It’s less of a joke and more of a parable. It’s not about getting breaks, but rather about recognizing them. And it’s appropriate for “Two Boats and a Helicopter,” because the Rev. Matt Jamison could really use a boat or two.
It’s tough to say where this episode will fit in with the overall narrative of The Leftovers. It’s surreal, bleak, and at times unendurably tense, so it definitely fits in with the overall tone of the show. But mainly, it’s a damn good hour of television, anchored by a sterling performance from Christopher Eccleston.
Eccleston might not always do the best job of disguising his Scottish accent, but he more than has the chops to carry a full hour of his shoulders. I spent all day shopping for a cell phone and called it a bad day – but I didn’t live Matt Jamison’s day.
At the end of a powerful sermon (delivered to a crowd of about a dozen congregants), Matt gets cold cocked by someone angry at his smear campaign against the departed. Well, “smear campaign” might be an oversimplification; what Matt’s doing is trying to expose the departed sinners for what they were – murderers, drug dealers, crooked judges – so they don’t drag down the innocent departed into their mire.
As if getting punched in the face wasn’t enough, he’s being followed by the Guilty Remnant, the bank is going to sell his church unless he can come up with $135,000 in twenty-four hours, and he has an invalid wife to take care of at home. Eccleston wears his desperation like a favorite sweater, and his hangdog features perfectly convey the look of a man who has run out of rope.
“Two Boats and a Helicopter” takes place over one frenetic day, but director Keith Gordon (who’s had a busy week, having also helmed the season premiere of The Bridge) never lets it become frenetic or discordant. He directs with stately tact, slowly ratcheting up the tension (paradoxically doing so as Matt’s situation improves). Gordon conducts the episode like a piece of music, flowing into a surreal digression that gives way to a devastating coda of an ending. I promise not to make any more jokes about Keith Gordon being in Back to School.
It’s a sign of just how confident The Leftovers is in itself that it would attempt a one-man show like this only three episodes in (Eccleston is in every scene of the episode, and Kevin Garvey only shows up once). “Two Boats and a Helicopter” was a superb episode of what is quickly becoming one of the best shows on TV.
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