"The Book of Nora" is the eighth episode of Season 3, and overall the 28th and final produced hour of The Leftovers. It originally aired on June 4, 2017.
The Bible: When Eddie talks about goats being driven into the wilderness, he is referencing Leviticus 16:10, which is where the term “scapegoat” comes from.
Animals: In Nora’s “Matt Libs” obituary, Jeremy and Erin are her geese, and Matt is her gecko. In the future, Nora lives alone raising homing pigeons for use as a wedding gimmick. A goat is laden with beads at the wedding as a symbol of banishing past sins; Nora later rescues the goat and brings it home.
Memories: While entering the event chamber, Nora has flashes of her family in the moments before the Departure from “The Garveys at Their Best.” A flash of Kevin and Nora in the school hallway from “B.J. and the A.C.” is seen when Kevin mentions the first time they met. A flash of their meeting at the courthouse in “Guest” is seen when Nora mentions asking him to go to Miami.
National Geographic: Nora’s “Matt Libs” obituary says she was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, marking one final reference to the city which was the subject of the article “Cairo: Troubled Capital of the Arab World” in the May 1972 National Geographic.
Cultural References[]
Nora’s “Matt Libs” obituary references Never Never Land, the fictional island from J. M. Barrie’s 1904 play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, and Barrie’s 1911 novel adaptation, Peter and Wendy (better known today simply as Peter Pan).
Eddie calls Aggie “my sun and my stars,” possibly referencing Daenerys Targaryen’s term of endearment for Khal Drogo in George R. R. Martin’s 1996 fantasy novel A Game of Thrones, and the popular 2011-2019 television adaptation, which like The Leftovers aired on HBO.
Literary techniques[]
This episode's main theme, Let the mystery be, foreshadows the unresolved last question.
Matt says Nora is the most brave person on the earth. In the previous episode, Burton said Kevin was the most powerful man in the world.
As Nora dives in, Matt says "I love you". In the previous episode, as Kevin Jr. dove in, Kevin Sr. said the same.
Nora being extremely worried about being locked in the bathroom seems to be a hint, calling back to the previous "machine" scene.
Like Season 1 and 2 finales, a scene takes place in the main street of the town, full with people. This time, though, there is not an urban warfare, but a wedding. Also, this time the scene doesn't take place in the last part of the episode but in the middle of it.
Kevin has now a pacemaker in the same exact spot in which in the previous episode he had the key.
Nora is a "leftover" in this world, because she lost her family. Ironically (assuming Nora's story is true) she is a "leftover" in the "parallel" world too, because her family moved on and they forgot her.
Also, Nora is a "leftover" in Australia, since no one (expect for Laurie) knows she's there. Assuming Nora's story is true, she went searching for her family, while Kevin was going searching for her.
Each season ends with Nora talking to Kevin. In Season 1 she said "Look what I found", in Season 2 "You're home" and in this one "I'm here".
Through the whole "future" section of the episode, we are often led to believe that we are watching a "parallel universe" or a "purgatory-like world":
Both this series, with Kevin's "hotel world", and Lindelof's previous series, Lost, used a lot this narration twist.
It's not immediately clear if Nora is lying or if she actually doesn't remember Kevin.
Nora being alone in a seemingly desolated world make us think she actually "gone through" and she is now in the place where the others who departed are.
Laurie is shown being alive, while we can think she died in Certified.
Kevin saying she met the bride "at the hotel bar" immediatly make us think to the hotel bar we saw in the "hotel world" in I Live Here Now. Also Kevin having a pacemaker in the same spot he had the key for the nuclear weapon make us remember the "hotel world".
More importantly, obviously, Kevin not remembering the majority of his relationship with Nora and all of the events after Season 1 appears to us as the main proof we are in a "parallel universe". Only when Kevin confesses he's lying we understand this is simply the future.
Trivia[]
This is the longest episode of the show, at 1:11:57, narrowly edging out “I Live Here Now” (1:11:52) and the Pilot (1:11:37).
HBO’s synopsis for this episode is: “Nothing is answered. Everything is answered. And then it ends.”
In a rare gesture, HBO promised not to give the producers any notes on the finale.[1]
Kevin says "Just wondering around Australia, off the grid. I like to get a little lost", clearly quoting Lindelof's Lost, in which Australia has an important role.
The interior of Nora entering the LADR machine was the final scene of the entire series to be shot. It was filmed on the same day as the bathtub flashback that opens "The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother)" and Nora's "testimonial" video that opens this episode. Set designers consulted with a physicist, basing the machine's design on the Large Hadron Collider and stellarators built decades ago in an attempt to sustain nuclear fusion through magnetism.[1]
The script direction for the moment when Nora opens her mouth says: "And she OPENS HER MOUTH, ALMOST AS IF SHE'S ABOUT TO SHOUT SOMETHING at the TOP OF HER AIR-STARVED LUNGS and WE -- SMASH TO BLUE." Director Mimi Leder said of her discussions with Carrie Coon: "Our discussions were: let's do it as if you are not going out -- at least until the very last second. And then I did have her do takes where she does yell something, just to get that first syllable." Perrotta said that Leder and Coon had given them "both versions to use, and we'll see in the editing room which one makes sense."[1]
The script says that Nora is "maybe fifty" in the future sequence. If Nora was born November 18, 1979, this would place the sequence circa 2029-2030.[2] If Kevin Sr. was born January 26, 1941 (as seen on the wanted poster in "Crazy Whitefella Thinking"), his 91-year-old age in the future sequence would place the timeframe circa 2032.
The church is shot at St. Paul's Anglican Church in Clunes.[1]
A location scout outside Sydney led the production to discover a 100-year-old pigeon coop, which inspired the writers to have Nora be a pigeon-breeder.[1]
The sequence of Nora making the egg sandwich was initially scripted to be a recurring, calming ritual for Nora. She was first supposed to be seen preparing and eating an egg sandwich in the middle of the reused material from "The Book of Kevin": after the birds return, but before Nora leaves to deliver them to the church. She again does so after her call to Laurie, but something is bothering her, and she then proceeds to lock the doors and windows.[2] The first sequence was seemingly removed, whereas the second was presumably moved earlier, edited in after Nora returns home after hearing the nun tell her about Kevin, transitioning into her packing to flee.
As an "organic stall that thematically made sense," writer Patrick Somerville initially pitched the idea of Kevin introducing himself as a wholly different person ("Bill Smith"), but Lindelof refined it to him claiming to be a version of Kevin who has not seen Nora since the dance.[1]
When Kevin mentions being off the grid and trying to avoid the touristy stuff, it is reminiscent of Kevin Sr. on one of the tapes heard in “Crazy Whitefella Thinking” telling a young Kevin Jr. that Garvey men do not follow AAA maps designed to take travelers to tourist destinations.
Damon Lindelof said that no idea divided the writers’ room like the question of whether or not Laurie killed herself at the end of “Certified.” Lindelof initially proposed that Laurie shoot herself, and was opposed by many of the writers (including Patrick Somerville and Carly Wray, the two writers credited with writing "Certified"), but writer Nick Cuse proposed the more elegant scuba-diving scenario. The resulting ambiguity of that ending ultimately led to even more debate after "Certified" was finished. This debate held up writing on the finale as the writers continued to hash out the question of whether Laurie had actually killed herself.[1] Lindelof said he was initially 95% sure that Laurie was dead, but after seeing the way Amy Brenneman played the scene in "Certified," he became far less certain. He and the writers then realized that, by not being honest with Jill and Tom about where she was, Laurie was defeating the idea of making a potential scuba death look like an accident. Ultimately, when the writers needed Nora to call someone after Kevin first shows up in this episode, the two options they considered were Erika and Laurie, and they eventually decided Laurie was the stronger option.[3][4][5] Per Lindelof, "I think that the intention on our behalf always was that Laurie was going to go scuba diving and she would decide when she was under the water whether or not she would turn the knob, but going scuba diving is her way of testing her own resolve after having said goodbye to Kevin and Nora for what she believes to be probably the last time."[3]
The episode generally avoids the issue of addressing how technology has advanced in the show’s future by taking place in a very isolated, technology-free setting. However, the Telstra payphone Nora uses is solar-powered, as specified in the script[2]; a solar panel can be seen on top of the booth in the episode. The script describes Laurie's cell phone as "slightly, but distractingly futuristic";[2] it is mostly obscured by Laurie's hand in the final edit, only briefly glimpsed in one quick angle.
The wedding sequence was filmed at the Victoria gold-rush ghost town Clunes. The look of the wedding was influenced by Australian bachelors' and spinsters' balls, as well as a "hipster" take on Australian "bogan" (hillbilly) culture. After the production settled on this location, they found Nora's cottage in the surrounding locale; it was owned by an "eccentric artist," and "very cluttered and full of cats."[1]
The idea that Kevin and Nora's "date" take place at a wedding was writer Nick Cuse's idea, inspired by Jason Reitman's 2009 film Up in the Air, in which George Clooney and Vera Farmiga's characters attend the wedding of Clooney's character's sister.[1]
The script as shared in Vulture's making-of article features some minor additional dialogue which was cut from the episode during Kevin and Nora's talk at the wedding. After noting that Mary really loved Matt, Kevin adds, "Right up to the end." He goes on to say: "And Noah... What a sweet kid. Hard to lose a parent that young... I hear they were close." When Nora asks about Jill and Tom, Kevin's scripted reply was split in editing. The line, "It's a little creepy, but I'm impressed," was part of his initial response, but was moved after Nora says, "Yeah, I remember," to allow her emotion to breathe before Kevin's jokier line. After Kevin mentions his pacemaker, he goes on to say: "[...] I have a new appreciation for life and I have to watch my sodium intake or I'm a fucking dead man." His scripted response to Nora's "...Really?" was, "Yup. One salted pretzel. Done," and Nora has to clarify that she was asking if he really had a heart attack.[1]
Kevin Sr.’s age being 91 might be a reference to Sarah Vaughan’s “Frasier (The Sensuous Lion)” song, heard in “It’s a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World.”
Kevin’s pacemaker scar would presumably be in a similar location as the incision from “The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother).” Notably, Damon Lindelof has said that the “undiagnosed heart condition” might actually be damage sustained from his repeated “deaths,” noting that it was important to the writers that there be a physical consequence.[3]
Linedelof assigned the writers to think of an animal-centric ritual for the wedding. In a rare instance of two pitches making their way into the show, Carly Wray's idea to incorporate Nora's pigeons (delivering messages of love) and Lila Byock's idea (of a scapegoat, championed by Tom Perrotta) both became wedding rituals, reflecting the bride and the groom's points of view.[1]
According to Lindelof, on set, Justin Theroux and Carrie Coon danced to Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” but Lindelof ultimately decided that selection was too saccharine for the scene.[3] However, the Vulture making-of article claims that they danced to Bob Seger's "We've Got Tonight" on set, and the song was abandoned when Mr. Robot used the song five days after the shoot.[1]
Mimi Leder shot some takes of the dance without any guests surrounding Kevin and Nora, as if everyone else had disappeared. A few seconds of this this footage made it into the episode.[1]
Nora climbing on the roof to look for her pigeons calls back to the Millerite sequence that opens the third season.
The scene of Nora calling the nun a "fucking liar" was the final day of location shooting on the series.[1]
Carrie Coon did the stunt of rolling down the hill herself.[6]
The scene of Nora rescuing the goat was inspired by a YouTube video, "Fail Rescue Sheep NZ."[1]
After taking the beads (representing the community’s sins) from the goat onto herself, Nora ultimately hangs the beads on her paper towel rack, calling back to the centrality of the paper towel rack to her own guilt surrounding her children’s disappearance, as seen in “Guest” and “The Garveys at Their Best.”
The script included an additional line during the scene when Kevin tells Nora about his annual trips to Australia: “And I tell everybody back home that I’m going horseback riding, or mountain climbing, or going on these adventure trips, because I’m too ashamed to tell them that I’m looking for you.” This would have made clear that Laurie did not know that Kevin was still looking for Nora, making her withholding of the information that Nora was alive less cruel. However, Justin Theroux did not want to say the line, feeling that the information was already implied in the scene. On set, after a few takes during which Theroux was clearly uncomfortable with the line, Lindelof allowed him to stop including it. The scene in the episode is made up of the stronger, later takes, and Lindelof decided that to include the line from one of the earlier takes would be “betraying Theroux,” so it was left out.[3]
When Damon Lindelof first met Tom Perrotta, Lindelof asked if Perrotta knew where the Departed went, and Perrotta replied that he honestly didn’t think about it. Lindelof said that to work on the show, he needed his own answer, even if they never told it. While shooting the Pilot, Lindelof came up with the idea that the departed “flipped,” occupying a version of the same physical space, where they lost the 98%. On location for the Pilot, Lindelof asked director Peter Berg to shoot an alternate version of the opening Departure sequence depicting the flip side, where baby Sam remains and his mother’s voice on the phone abruptly cuts off, and then a father is heard yelling for his son. When Berg asked why, Lindelof proposed that this might be the way to end the series. However, Berg said they were losing light and didn’t have time to get this shot.[3][4][7][1]
At the start of writing season 3, Damon Lindelof held two weeks of "pre-room" meetings with Tom Perrotta, Tom Spezialy and Patrick Somerville, to determine the course of the season. Even before that, Lindelof had agreed with HBO that "the central journey of the season, and perhaps the whole show, would be Nora's." The first thing written on the whiteboard during the "pre-room" sessions was, "Nora, Nora, Nora." They had decided on the action moving to Australia (inspired largely by the influence of 1970s Peter Weir movies Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave, which executive producer/writer Tom Spezialy had brought in as influences beginning in season 2), and taking place leading up to the seven-year anniversary, with the possibility of the end of the world. Although they toyed with the idea of actually ending on some sort of apocalyptic event, they decided the human themes, and the idea of what happens when an expected apocalypse fails to materialize, were far more interesting, leading to cognitive dissonance becoming a major theme in the season.[1][8][9]
Damon Lindelof said that the initial two through-lines conceived for the final season were Kevin learning that Matt had written a gospel about him and becoming a reluctant messiah, influenced in part by the 1979 Monty Python religious satire Life of Brian (an idea which Lindelof and Perrotta conceived the bare-bones of even before the "pre-room"), and Nora being told about the LADR machine. The writers also knew that they wanted Kevin and Nora to have a huge fight and break up, but ultimately end up together.[3][4][5]
The initial inspiration for the LADR machine was the teleportation device in David Cronenberg's 1986 film The Fly, and thus, the second thing added to the pre-room ideas white board was, "The Brundlefly Vaporizer" (referencing the name of the lead character from the film, Seth Brundle).[1] The initial plan for the LADR storyline was to actually show Nora going through, and to definitively answer the question of where the 2% went, actually showing the "flip" universe. While all the other writers were on board, Tom Perrotta was adamantly opposed to ever definitively answering the question of where the departed went, feeling it was analogous to the mystery of where we go when we die. Perrotta managed to sway the rest of the room to his side, and Patrick Somerville proposed the compromise of Nora telling someone the story of the "Other Place" over tea, leaving it to the audience to decide whether or not her story is true. "Nora Makes Tea" was then added to the whiteboard. Once the full writers' room assembled, the rest of the season was reverse-engineered with the goal of reaching the "Nora Makes Tea" scene.[1][3][4][5]
Other early notes on the pre-room whiteboard include: "MLB," referring to Mark Linn-Baker, Nora's guide to the LADR; "Western!," a note on the tone they were going for; and "John Murphy, Believer," a note on the direction to take that character. An ultimately abandoned idea was "Nora + Laurie Go to Jacksonville," a planned bonding road trip to Florida which would have set up their therapist-patient relationship. Other very early notes from the pre-room which never came to pass include: a huge massacre occurring (after the seven-year anniversary comes and goes, but before Nora goes through the LADR); Nora gets vaporized, and Kevin comes two days later and goes after her, leaving the audience to wonder whether both characters are alive or dead; Kevin uses the hotel from "International Assassin" to find Nora after she dies (and the possibility that Nora is also a shaman); and Kevin staging his crucifixion and laying low as a grief-stricken messiah who never went through after Nora. Another idea Lindelof had, which was quickly rejected, was to have Kevin and Nora rescue a dog then have to stand by while it was euthanized.[1]
After agreeing that Nora would lose Lily to Christine, reinforcing Nora's isolation (and eliminating the technical issues of bringing a child actress to Australia), the pre-room writers decided that Nora would tell the story of her trip to the "Other Place" to a teenaged Lily, who had tracked her down. Later, in the full writers' room, it became obvious that the more satisfying arc would be an aged Nora telling the story to Kevin.[3][4][5][1]
Lindelof says that he knows 100% whether or not Nora is lying. The writers had an internal conversation “so that there would be no question whatsoever about [their] intention.”[3] "We have a unanimous feeling as to which one of those realities is real and we will never, ever, say, 'This is what really happened.' Kevin believes, or says he believes, the story; that's the whole point of the series. That's what religion is." On set, after watching Coon perform the second take, Lindelof turned to Perrotta and said, "I think I believe her." The morning after the scene was shot, Lindelof said, "I was trying to put aside my expectations for the scene and just be there. But the prevailing emotional sentiment that started to push through the day was: How big of a deal is this 'Do I believe her or not' thing gonna be? If I could build a machine that could tell people how to think, it would essentially be that 50 percent of the people believe that what Nora is saying happened and 50 percent think she's making this up, but all 100 percent say it doesn't matter." That same morning, he added, "Let's say you wrote something that you knew was not true, but then somebody else recites it and they believe it. Does that make it true?"[1] Lindelof has also said, "I think that the scene that she has with the nun when she goes and confronts the nun before she crashes on her bike is just as significant in terms of analyzing Nora’s final story, but not just that scene, also the scene that she has with Erika in 'Lens.'"[3] Notably, in the script, after the nun tells Nora, "It's just a nicer story," the stage direction says: "Let that sit there for a moment. It's a lesson. A moral. One that, at least for now, Nora won't fucking HEAR."[2] Director/executive producer Mimi Leder told Lindelof she did not want to discuss whether or not Nora was telling the truth, and Carrie Coon never asked Lindelof or had any discussion about it. Lindelof feels that Coon is now more qualified to answer the question than he is, since she played the scene.[3] Coon has said that she sat with both possibilities, and did not have a strong instinctual reaction either way, feeling that each audience member's interpretation says more about them.[6] Justin Theroux believes the story is not true, but that Kevin decides not to care.[10]
The final two scenes of the show were shot the same day, in reverse order, due to production concerns: the interior with Nora's long monologue over tea was shot first, followed by Kevin driving up to Nora's house and confessing why he lied.[1]
Lindelof has said that he wanted every season finale to restate the conclusion of Tom Perrotta’s book: that people can be okay again and form attachments after the Departure.[3]
Book to Show[]
Nora prominently rides a bicycle throughout the episode. Nora’s bicycle riding, first introduced to the show in “The Book of Kevin,” was a major aspect of her character in the book, where she cycles for miles every day.
Kevin says if Nora had asked him to go to Miami with her he definitely would have gone, perhaps referencing the book’s version of events, wherein Kevin accepts her invitation and goes, in contrast to the show. Likewise, Kevin says he wishes he had asked Nora to dance, which he does in the corresponding chapter in the book.
Although the book never offers an explanation as to where the Departed went, Kevin at one point (in the chapter "Heroes' Day") suggests an idea somewhat similar to the solution Nora gives in this episode: he asks Jill, "What if [Jill's best friend Jen] is still there and we just can't see her?"
Music[]
"Let the Mystery Be" by Iris Dement (the season 2 main title theme makes its return)
"The Man I Love" by Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra (Nora rides her bike home, makes breakfast, and packs to flee)
"Back in Your Own Backyard" by Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra (Nora locks all her doors and windows)
"I'm Out to Get You" by Robin Trower (Nora arrives at the wedding)
"Take It from One Who Knows" by the Ovations (Kevin and Nora talk at the wedding)
"Moonlight Dancin'" by Rokotto (Kevin and Nora continue talking at the wedding)
Bridal Chorus (from Act 3 - 'Lonhengrin') composed by Wilhelm Wagner; unknown performance (Aggie begins her speech)
Canon and Gigue in D, composed by Joann Pachelbel, unknown performer, version from Bedtime Beethoven: Classical Lullabies (the pigeons are released, Eddie's speech; reprised over end credits)
"I've Got Dreams to Remember" (alternate take) by Otis Redding (Kevin and Nora dance) (the more familiar originally released recording was previously used in "Cairo," playing during Nora's first dinner at home with Kevin, Jill and Aimee)
"Me, Myself and I" by Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra (Nora rides her bike home after questioning the nun)
"November" by Max Richter (Nora climbs the hill and rescues the goat)
"Departure (Reflection)" by Max Richter (the pigeons return)
