Who Is Evie Murphy On 'The Leftovers'?
The second season of The Leftovers has taken the exact opposite approach of Damon Lindelof's previous series-the tremendous, wounded, Lost-where characters coyly avoided giving explanations to those who were frothing at the mouth for answers.
The first two episodes of "The Leftovers" Season 2 both ended with Evie's (Jasmin Savoy Brown) mysterious disappearance the night of that ominous earthquake in Miracle.
So far, Nora has been unshakable in her determination to build a new life, and it's going to be a good life, damn it, and she is going to freaking enjoy it. I wonder if her disappearance, whatever its cause, took something of him with her because they're twins.
When Nora wakes up, the earth shaking and Kevin gone, all of that falls away. Most importantly, she knows that it was no accident that he woke up at the bottom of a drained lake with a cinder block tied to his ankle.
"Do you think they will ever find those girls?" asks Nora. Oh well, he tells Nora, with a shrug.
The next morning Kevin tells Nora everything, and she does not think it would look good if he told the police. The baby Lily, though, is calm, almost like she knows something, but Nora panics, especially after she sees a familiar-looking dog roaming through the neighborhood.
Speaking of Kevin's "problem", he stays well after dark at the lake basin searching for his missing phone. Now, Kevin and Nora face a much more concrete crisis, which lends The Leftovers an immediacy it's never had before. John insists and the two of them are headed back to town. Matt believes in Miracle, and so does Erika, but John most assuredly doesn't.
Nora's storyline wasn't the center of the episode, necessarily, but with her perspective on the season premiere's catastrophe leading off the hour, it was the most affecting. She may be an ghost, haunting him as punishment for his sins. Patti warns Kevin do not get in that truck, but he refuses to listen.
Kevin is ready to help with the search but a park services trooper needs to verify that he's supposed to be there. Still rattled, he can barely remember his new address, so he's about to get tossed when John vouches for him as his new neighbor. There's a skirmish, and John takes a bullet (thank goodness he's married to a doctor), but there's no sign of the missing girls.
Inside the cab, Kevin rolls down a window and hears part of the discussion and it sounds like John knows exactly who left that palm print on his daughter's window. John insists and the two of them are headed back to town. Isaac really could see that something bad was going to happen to John.
Funny enough, the cops come calling on their front door instead but it's not in a search for Kevin.
John is back, and he eyes Kevin suspiciously.
The guy in the trailer is the rather poetically named Virgil. "All you have to do is ask", she says. "Axis Mundi" didn't spend a ton of time with Evie, but she was sketched with enough detail that the audience is actually experiencing the loss rather than watching characters deal with the loss of someone we've never met. Kevin may have physically stopped John from taking Isaac's life, but Erika works everyday to keep John alive. It's almost as if someone were deliberately trying to set him up. Obviously, not all these questions will be answered. She looks outside and sees Michael Murphy sitting on his porch, reading his bible and quietly sitting alone.
Jill goes over to talk to him and then asks for help fixing the sink, which he's more than happy to do for her. Michael fixes the sink, but this isn't the real reason Jill wanted him over there. It's not magic, but it's more than anybody else has done for her recently. He says Jill would not understand because she does not believe in God.
Before leaving, Virgil tells Nora that he's so sorry for her loss - and she's immediately taken back by his presumption that she lost anything or anybody.
Nora's emotions, on the other hand, are more anger than delirium.
He does explain, though, telling Nora and Jill what happened - everything except the part about Patti and the cinder block. Not kidnapped-vanished. Vanished-vanished, like the others who disappeared everywhere but Miracle on that fateful October 14. That was the great cleansing from God - Noah and his ark being spirited away and the remaining people left on Earth were just waiting for the flood to arrive.
That that gives this episode its title, the government-approved symbol designating the town was untouched, means nothing now. But Nora's not so sure about anything, and she's prone to big gestures to make herself feel safe-like buying million-dollar houses on a whim, which so far hasn't worked out so well. It's been my assumption that he's Michael's grandfather, but as of now he just seems to be a spiritual leader who knows a terrible lot about people.
Kevin leaves the clinic after John is patched up and he wanders into town square where he finally sits down next to Patti. But at least Kevin has a close ally to defend him, someone who-contra what Patti claimed-might be as committed to him as the Murphys are to each other. She was there after all. Then the handcuffs come out, though, and regardless of what Kevin may want, there's no saying no to her in that moment. That fight is still going on today; it follows him, quite literally, in the form of Patti Levin.
Matt has a different opinion of the town and the power it holds. She notes how Erika did not even question what John had done to get shot.
The first being the whereabouts of those three missing girls. Then she reveals what anyone paying attention has guessed by now - Kevin tried to kill himself.
Finally before going home, Kevin looks up in the tower where that man has been sitting ever since the season started and he looks down and asks the troubled former police chief - 'hey, who's your friend?'.
One of the cops gives Kevin a hard time near the crime scene.
Kevin snaps at this and finally screams at ghost Patti.