The Leftovers Review: Crazy Whitefella Thinking (Season 3 Episode 3)

I’m always a little wary of television episodes that introduce us to a wholly new location, focusing one a single character we’ve never really spent a lot of time with before.

On The Leftovers Season 3 Episode 3, “Crazy Whitefella Thinking,” we follow Kevin Garvey Sr, as he treads through Australia’s dry land.

We have to remember that these final 8 episodes are the home stretch of the series, so even if episodes like these that are slowly paced, make the viewer unsure of the direction they are going on, they are still purposeful.

In “Whitefella,” Kevin Sr. is in search of a lost song that he hopes will save all of civilization from a international flood, which of course coincides with a the upcoming seventh anniversary of the Sudden Departure.

This definitely conjures an idea of a biblical flood, one that might need the help of a certain maybe-messiah named Kevin Jr.? Given that Kevin is now on his way to Australia with Nora, the timing could not be more perfect for something huge to go down.

It’s interesting to hear Kevin Sr. and follow along with the story he tells Christopher Sunday. It goes to show how some of the insanest, most bizarre things can come across as reasonable and sane, given that the world has turned upside down in some ways.

There is a sincerity to the madness, and it’s difficult not to get pulled in.

Back in season 1, Kevin Sr. was in a mental facility recuperating from a total mental breakdown. And while he was largely missing in action in season 2, his reemergence in season 3 connects a lot of threads together.

Maybe he was onto something the whole time, and people just deduced that he was out of his mind.

When we hear on an old audio tape of a young Kevin Jr. asking his father to stop the rain by singing “Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” we realize the motive of Kevin Sr’s quest: He just needs the right song to stop the rain again.

Kevin Sr. later meets with Grace, the woman who drowned the police officer at the end of last week’s episode, and she tells him her story.

On the day of the Sudden Departure, Grace was away from home and found everyone gone once she returned. She assumed “the rapture” had taken them, which made her happy to believe her family was up with God.

But, then they found her children’s bones.

It’s survivor stories like these that are really fascinating to explore when the show sprinkles them in from time to time.

Everyone has had such a different experience with the Sudden Departure itself, let alone the aftermath of it, that each tale has it’s own heartbreak to share.

Grace’s story is a painful one, but in sharing it, “Whitefella” is brought back to reality, especially since traveling with Kevin Sr. has been so surreal.

“Whitefella” may not have been the most exciting hour of television, but in true alignment with the show, it offers up a lot of weirdness and that is moving and human.

In some ways, you’re asked to keep an open mind and trust where the story is taking you, or in this case, where it’s building to an end, even if your anxiety for the show, or because of the show, increases.

I’m excited to see Kevin Sr. and Kevin Jr. reunited in the coming episodes, as their mutual mental disorders and this idea of saving the world from a biblical-esque flood comes to a head.

What did you think of this episode of The Leftovers? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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The Leftovers airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.

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