The Leftovers (TV Series) It's a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World (2017) User Reviews

Don Quiboaty

[jay-95578 · 10/10 · 29 July 2021]

Don Quixote was not a knight. He was a man who was afraid of death, who needed to believe that he was a chivalrous knight so that he could give himself something important to hold onto and which gave his life meaning. The world laughs at him for his ridiculous pretence but still he holds onto his delusion. Eventually, however, he is forced to come to terms with reality, and (400 year old spoiler ahead) after his illusion is shattered he goes home, renouncing chivalry, to die.

Like Don Quixote, Matt is a man who desperately needs to believe in something - anything -, and that he is at the centre of it all. But in the end, he too is forced to reconcile with the fact that, either way, he's going to die, and that he was never special. It's a Matt World may not be one of the most flawless episodes of the leftovers, but it's definitely one of the most riotously entertaining, until the end when it's suddenly one of the saddest.

Matt's zealotry has annoyed me over the years, but seeing his certainty stripped away is heartbreaking.

Fantastic episode

[raj-bhullar · 9/10 · 26 May 2022]

The guy that plays Matt is the best actor on this show. This season has been terrific better than the last two seasons. Last few episodes including this one have been very interesting and engaging. I was going to quit this show after season 1 and 2. Season 2 episode 8 was fantastic but many episodes in previous seasons were boring. But I'm glad I didn't quit because season 3 is absolutely phenomenal so far. Acting is always good. It's the story that interests me. The story and the writing has been exceptional this season. Not a single episode had a boring scene. This is where the leftovers is showing it's true class and I'm glad I stuck with it.

One of the most satisfying hours of television...

[akshatdave · 14 May 2017]

Spoilers..This episode is fantastic.It focuses on Matt, just simply stunning,A little about the episode -- It starts with a strange scene on a submarine that scene gives us the answer to the questions of previous episode that why all flights are down,then the whole episode focuses on Matt. With Laurie,john and Michael he tries to go to Australia (Melbourne) in a ngo plane but they end up in Tasmania.So they try to book a boat but all boats were full and they had to make their way into a strange boat where everyone's partying and dealing with loss in their own ways there Matt learns about a man who calls himself God and interacts with him.but he doesn't believe and he watches him throw someone in the sea and then he tried to tell everyone about that but no one cared so he tries to make him confess about the murder but end up believing he is God and we get to know that Matt is dying.In the end Matt proves to be right about that killed man and the man calling himself God dies by the tiger and so does Matt's faith..

I suppose when I thought about what the final season of The Leftovers might contain, "an orgy at sea with a sex-lion cult" was not on the list, but, then, I'd like to meet the person whose list it was on. Isn't that why we watch this show? For its endless number of ways to show us how people handled the Departure really, really poorly?What's even better is that this episode tosses The Leftovers' most stubborn, most faithful character into the midst of its big orgy, in hopes that he might have an epiphany, and then he kinda does. I'm speaking, of course, of Matt.The episode contains what might be the entire series' most naked moment of questioning God and wondering why God would do, well, anything that makes humanity suffer. And it happens against the backdrop of sex lions and a murder at sea.It's the end of the world as Matt knows it.Even if the episode ends with, I think, Matt taking a good hard look at his stalwart faith and bitterly smashing it to pieces, I haven't been able to shake his prediction that the seventh anniversary of the Departure will bring forth an apocalyptic flood.Well, technically, the question is whether or not David Burton was God, as he claimed. But if the answer is "yes," then God would, in fact, be dead. (Or at least trapped in a hotel.) And what will Matt do now? Since he no longer has "pressing business" in Melbourne, how will Matt spend his last days on Earth? Ouch. Sorry. That was meant to be a joke about the seventh anniversary of the Sudden Departure, but then I remembered Matt is really dying. Damn it. This show is sad sometimes.

from the beginning to the end. I have no word to describe Ecclestone's performance,he deserves at least an Emmy nomination. Overall, all the acting is fantastic. Maybe my favorite episode of my favorite series of this year. If you haven't already watched this episode, you should do it right now. And if you haven't already start watching The leftovers... man... you know what you have to do. Maybe this show won't give you all the answers but the emotional impact is amazing.. Incredibly unusual, thought-provoking, emotional and now frequently hilarious, The Leftovers is making every last minute count. With only three episodes left, I cannot wait to see how the arcs for each character ends and which, if any, of the big questions will be answered. Even if the ending isn't entirely satisfying, the ride has been something to behold. "It's a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World" has more than enough allusions and symbols for us to tease out at great length, but I like the way that it ultimately comes down to a kind of synthesis. Believe in God or don't believe in God — either way, you're still stuck with yourself..10/10

There's Something About Matt

[lchadbou-326-26592 · 6/10 · 23 November 2018]

There is something about the character of Nora Durst's brother Matt that brings out the ability of the writers of this fascinating show to come up with wildly imaginative episodes centered on this impassioned believer that have a probing moral thrust worthy of a Bible story. In the second season, it was the episode where Matt tries to bring his wife back into Miracle. Here it is a boat that he, Laurie,John and Michael are forced to take from Tasmania to get to Melbourne, a boat that has been bought out by a group of decadent sybarites who carelessly carry on with their pursuit of sex and partying even after Matt has witnessed a man hurled overboard. The story also allows for a confrontation between Matt and the murderer, a man who supposedly has (like Kevin) come back from the dead and claims to be God. Throw into this mix a ferocious lion being transported on the boat (we see Matt reading the passage earlier on the plane of Daniel in the lion's den from the Bible) and you have a striking and troubling little story worthy of the Old Testament.

Matt's image is as annoying as possible

[ivu · 1/10 · 31 May 2022]

Another annoying and infuriating episode. Matt's character is the worst created. This is the second episode in which he has a central role and once again I was on the verge of giving up watching this show.

A turning point for Matt

[TheDonaldofDoom · 2 February 2018]

After so long of his fanatical beliefs, this feels like the biggest turning point for Matt. Played wonderfully by Christopher Eccleston, you see his faith challenged, but everything that should make him question his faith instead compounds it even more, for example seeing his wife and son leaving him as a test. That alone is truly sad, as his faith is causing him to set aside his family, which is arguably the most important thing in life. And amusingly, he probably see the lion orgy cult as a temptation coming from the Devil.

But the ending, and Matt's discussion with the guy who might or might not be God, is what leads to Matt's profound change of heart. What is he going to do now, now that he appears to have realised his journey is meaningless? Will he even believe in God at all now?

Whatever outcome, it's certain that Christopher Eccleston is amazing as Matt, playing the troubled pastor with all the unstable emotion he has. He carries the Matt-focussed episodes like this one.

Any episode over 9.0 on IMDB

[bnevs18 · 7/10 · 28 March 2024]

...has a to be full of wacky, esoteric crap. I mean, I love Matt...a character that I should by all rights hate, a preacher so sure of himself. But if you look into it, nothing he does is THAT FAR out of line. He does lose sight of his wife and kid, but otherwise he acts with moral clarity that we desperately need in today's world. And even though he is tested here, he sticks to his guns and wades through the morass of sin.

...but about that sin...It wasnt a bad episode, but it was far from the tour de force that the rating would seem to suggest. In an 8 episode last season, we are wasting time on esoteric arthouse baloney. This episode and the Senior episode could have been combined into one superwacky one and freed up one for the Garvey family. Instead, we spend an hour of two just showing off arthouse bunk...and the reviewers lap it up.