Lindsay Duncan Was the Best Part of Last Night’s ‘Leftovers’ Episode

In the third episode of its final season, HBO’s The Leftovers left the surly bonds of America behind and spent the hour fully in the Australian Outback, following the story of one of its more minor characters. We’d last seen Kevin Garvey Sr. (Scott Glenn) on a TV in a supernatural hotel where his son, Kevin Jr. (Justin Theroux) was being put through some supernatural crucible of the afterlife in a purgatory that appeared to be populated by the dead. Kevin’s dad seemed to be communicating with him via some kind of supernatural means, and and he said he was in Perth, Australia, where he’d gone on a quest to, as he put it, save the world.

And save the world is exactly what Kevin Sr. tries to do in this episode, though the details of his plan are kept to himself. It appears to involve collecting the songs of various peoples and then singing them in order to prevent a Great Flood. So … he’s crazy? Except he’s probably not, because this is The Leftovers, and the world has already gone crazy, so going right along with it isn’t exactly abnormal behavior. Certainly, the show appears to be ambling towards something happening on the anniversary of the Sudden Departure.

But Kevin Sr.’s Australian adventure doesn’t lead him to salvation; not yet, at least. Where it leads him is to a cross in the desert, which turns out to have been placed there by Grace (Lindsay Duncan), one of the four women we saw drowning the local sheriff last week. Turns out, the women were looking for an immortal sheriff named Kevin because they read about it in the page from Reverend Matt’s “Book of Kevin” that Kevin Sr. is carrying around with him. (Officially too many Kevins, by the way. Thank God the ladies eliminated one of them.) By way of explaining to Kevin Sr. how finding him in the desert led to her drowning a man.

Grace’s story begins, as all stories on this show eventually do, on the day of the Sudden Departure. She was out getting groceries; her husband and five children were home in their chapel. When Grace returned, she found her family gone, their Bibles lined up neatly in a row. She knew this was the Rapture, never questioned it, let it strengthen her faith in God. Until two years later, when she got a call saying that the authorities had found the bones of five children in the Outback. After their father had departed, they’d set out to find their mother; they didn’t make it.

It’s a phenomenally powerful scene, attributable to Mimi Leder’s confident direction and especially the performance of Lindsay Duncan as Grace. Duncan is an actress not unfamiliar to HBO audiences. For two seasons, Duncan played Lady Servilia of the Junii on the 2005-07 series Rome. That show — a BBC co-production — was a rare peek into the American marketplace from an actress who is far more notable in Britain and on the stage (she’s an Oliver Award-winning theatre actress). But if you’ve ever seen her give a performance like the one she gave in last night’s Leftovers, you don’t soon forget her.

Some highly recommended further viewing options for what by now should really be your new Lindsay Duncan obsession:

• Sherlock, the British series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Duncan played Lady Smallwood, a political figure who is often in need of Holmes’ help.
• Birdman (Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), the 2014 Best Picture winner, wherein Duncan plays the role of a poison-penned theater critic who is out to sink the production that Michael Keaton’s character is starring in. It’s an abhorrently-written character, full of Alejandro G. Iñarritu’s defensive bile towards the critical establishment, but Duncan sells the role with panache and even a bit of humanity.
• You, Me & Them, a broad British comedy about a May-December romance, wherein Duncan played the ex-wife of Anthony “Giles on Buffy” Head’s character. Easily the most outwardly silly of Duncan’s streamable performances.
• Le Week-End, a tragically under-seen drama from the director of Notting Hill, about an older couple (Duncan and Jim Broadbent), whose marriage is strained as they take an anniversary trip to Paris. Both Duncan and Broadbent are phenomenal in a movie that finds humanity and contradiction on both characters. This is a movie that deserves a second wave of cult appreciation, so seek it out.
• About Time, Richard Curtis’s unapologetically sentimental film about fathers, sons, and time travel. With that description, you’d think Duncan would be stuck in a thankless role as Bill Nighy’s wife/Domhnall Gleeson’s mother, but it’s not the case. Curtis makes sure to give her some really fantastic dry dialogue and at least one scene of her remaining stoic in the face of tragedy that just about murders me every time I see it.

• Black Mirror, wherein Duncan co-stars as a political operative in the surrealistic series’ infamous premiere episode, “The National Anthem.”
• Starter for 10, where she and Charles “Tywin Lannister” Dance play the parents of the girl (Alice Eve) whom James McAvoy is attempting to romance.
• Mansfield Park, where Duncan played Lady Bertram in the Jane Austen adaptation.
• An Ideal Husband, where Duncan played Lady Markby in the Oscar Wilde adaptation.
• Traffik, where she played the wife to the drug-smuggling character in the original British miniseries that was the basis for the Oscar-winning American film Traffic. Duncan’s role would end up being played by Catherine Zeta-Jones in the American version.

Where to stream The Leftovers