'The Leftovers' Recap: Reverend Matt Loses His Church To The Guilty Remnant

by Chelsea ReganJuly 14, 2014, 12:00 amNews >

The Leftovers opened this week with Mapleton’s Reverend Matt (Christoper Eccleston) delivering a sermon to a congregation of roughly 10 people. He tells the story of a little boy who was diagnosed with cancer – presumably him – who went on to beat it. He then mentions a young girl now in a coma from a swinging accident, and asks that they pray for her to get well like the little boy. As he’s wrapping up, a man in a bandana charges up the center aisle, delivers him a beating and stuffs a flier of Amber Johnson emblazoned with “She Sold Drugs” into his mouth.

The Leftovers Recap

At the hospital, Kevin (Justin Theroux) visits the Matt and tries to encourage him to stop posting fliers of people who were taken whose past deeds would ostensibly make them ineligible to be brought to heaven in a rapture. The minister insists people need to know the truth, to know that the people who disappeared were not innocents. When he goes to visit the girl in a coma, he finds out she’d awoken the night previously.

The next day, a young father brings his baby son into the church. Though his wife no longer feels a pull to religion following the 14th, he wants to have his child baptized. As a form of payment, the man tells the minister about a man who was taken on the 14th who was a drunk and gambler who went into his kids’ college accounts to feed his habits. Not wasting any time, Matt heads to the nearby casino to get proof of Andrew Sasaki’s life and then begins making new fliers.

Matt Tries To Save The Church

The minister’s mission takes a hit, however, when he learns from the bank that the church has been bought. In order to keep the land, he needs to pony up $135,001 – and only has a day to find it. His first stop after the meeting is to see his sister Nora to ask her for a loan. He assumes that the benefit money she received for losing her husband and children would cover it. She’ll give it to him on the condition that he stop printing his papers.

Matt gets into an argument with his sister about his calling. He claims that the rapture wasn’t to select the good, but to test those who remained. Nora tries to get him to see that what he’s doing isn’t helping anyone and that he should let his misguided mission go. Then, he drops the bomb that her husband Doug was having an affair with the kids’ preschool teacher, even bringing her to The Plaza in New York City. Nora laughs maniacally in response, and doesn't dig into her pickets.

When he comes home, Matt's wife Mary's (Janel Maloney) home nurse Roxanna wants to be paid for three works of working with no pay. In the bedroom, Mary is catatonic and immobile. After putting her to bed, he finds inspiration in a religious painting and calls Roxanna back. He promises to pay her everything she’s owed when he gets back. Shovel in hand, he goes to the backyard of Kevin’s home, where he finds Laurie (Amy Brenneman). He tells her that her father-in-law left him something there. In the soil beneath the grill, he finds rolls of cash.

Matt Gambles For Cash

Back at the casino, Matt converts his cash into $20,000 worth of chips, heading back to the roulette table where he saw the two pigeons the day before. He wins his first two bets – and then his third, making his total takeaway $160,000. A guy at the table with him, beats him up outside and tries to steal his cash. In response, he slams his face into the pavement and takes back his money.

Happily driving home in the early morning, Matt stops when a Guilty Remnant is stuck by a rock. Calling the police to report the incident, he gets hit by a rock as well. While he’s passed out, Matt imagines his church filled, another minister at the altar. It’s decades ago and the minister is his father and then Matt is getting his cancer diagnosis; he’s watching his family home burn; he’s back on Oct. 14 with his wife knocked out against the steering wheel after a car whose driver was taken in the rapture crashes into them; he’s having sex with his wife; he’s having sex with Laurie.

The GR Wins

When Matt wakes up, he’s in a hospital bed, a bandage over his left eye. When he gets back to his car, his money is still in its envelope. He speeds over to the bank just as it’s closing, but the banker tells him he’s too late – it’s been three days, not one and the Guilty Remnant now owns his church.

The Leftovers airs Sundays on HBO at 10/9c.

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