The last time The Leftovers did an episode focused on just one character, it was the superlative “Two Boats and a Helicopter.” The show’s sixth episode “Guest” put the spotlight on Reverend Matt’s sister, Nora Durst. In many ways, Nora is the most tragic character on a show full of them. The disappearance of her family was our introduction to The Leftovers, and for that reason she’s remained important both to us and to the city of Mapleton (as the mayor said in the first episode: “She lost her entire family, she can say whatever the fuck she wants”).
“Guest” wasn’t as nerve-wracking or tense as “Two Boats,” which served to provide a respite from episodes like last week’s, which was so bleak that it caused some reviewers to quit the show entirely. Don’t get me wrong, “Guest” wasn’t exactly light-hearted, but it had moments of levity absent from other installments of The Leftovers, and Carrie Coon delivered a fantastic performance. Nora Durst is cold, vulnerable, charming, brash, and a little nuts – often all in the same scene.
“Guest” finds Nora attending the DROP conference, an annual event wherein people attend panels about coping with and understanding their loss (and also sell shit). She’s supposed to be a speaker, but someone has taken her badge, and everything gets a little surreal from there. She meets Marcus, who’s kind of really a douche, but nevertheless ends up partying with him and some other folks in the hospitality suite, like a weird version of Cedar Rapids.
Marcus works for a company that makes fake dead bodies for people to bury. They retail for $40,000 each. Patrick Johansen, another attendee, has written a bestselling book called What’s Next, and Nora calls him out for being a fraud. “Guest” has unkind things to say about the way people profit from grief.
The entire episode, in my mind, builds to one magnificent scene, where Nora is introduced to Wayne.
At first, Wayne seems aloof and disinterested, even telling Nora, “I don’t give a shit about you, and I’m fuckin exhausted.” But she opens up to him, and all of Wayne’s charm and warmth come spilling out. “Do you want to feel this way?” he asks her. Nora’s face crumbles while Wayne’s does the opposite: it lights up. Wayne might be the vision of hope that The Leftovers sorely needs, and as he embraces Nora there is palpable relief. It’s a brilliant, devastating, and ultimately uplifting scene.
Back in Mapleton, Nora seems better. She’s no longer stalking the kindergarten teacher her husband had an affair with; she’s buying food for herself and not her departed children; and while she’s not yet taking Matt’s calls, she is saving his messages (one can assume she also stopped paying dominatrixes $3,000 to shoot her). She even agrees to go on a date with Kevin. By now The Leftovers has made it clear that happiness is fleeting and tenuous; the very basis of the show revolves around people we love being yanked out of our lives. But “Guest” showed a suprisingly tender, optimistic side to this show. Everyone deserves hope.
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Who was the actress playing the kindergarten teacher in Season 1’s “Guest”?
Thanks!