Josh recaps Season 1 Episode 4 of The Leftovers, where it is Christmas time and the baby Jesus has gone missing from its manger, so Chief Garvey is on the hunt for the missing baby! Meanwhile, the Guilty Remnant seemingly are up to no good. Let’s see what else is going on in this week’s episode of The Leftovers recap.
Don’t need the The Leftovers episode recap for B.J. and the A.C.? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
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Episode Recap of The Leftovers, Season 1 Episode 4: B.J. and the A.C.
This episode of The Leftovers opens in some sort of manufacturing facility. A doll manufacturing facility to be exact. We see dolls manufactured from start to finish, until they are put on the shelf at the toy store. An odd beginning, to be sure. Then we see the doll put in a manger for a Christmas manger scene. Jesus has been born! Then later, Jesus goes missing.
Chief Garvey talks with Patti Levin, or at least talks to her while she listens. Garvey tells Patti to stay away from the dance coming up, to keep the peace. Levin’s written response is, “There is no family.” She also hands Garvey a photo of his wife.
Officer Luckey comes in, and Garvey and he make preparations for the dance. Meanwhile Luckey mentions the baby Jesus was stolen. Garvey’s response is, “Am I supposed to give a sh*t?” Outside, Garvey tries to call Tommy, whose number no longer works.
Speaking of Tommy, he and Christine have a run in with a crazy pants-less man who accuses Christine of being in his dreams. Tommy gets in a confrontation and both Christine and Tommy have to flee. The man ominously says, “I know what is inside you!” as they flee.
Tommy takes Christine to the hospital, who meets different cult member, that keeps a bull’s-eye on their heads. Meanwhile, Tommy and Christine fight, as Tommy tells Christine to keep her mouth shut around other people.
They see the doctor, who does an ultrasound. She has a bruise on her belly, and the doctor begins asking questions. The doctor heads out, and Tommy gets spooked and flees the hospital. About to leave town, Tommy looks for a sign to stay. He gets a call on his phone, and a recording is on the phone. He seems to take as a sign from Wayne, and stays to help Christine.
Tommy walks into the hospital with a masterful disguise–a bull’s-eye on his forehead. He gets Christine, draws a bull’s-eye on her head, and they sneak out. Later on a Greyhound bus, Christine is making more friends, when the bus suddenly breaks. It seems a freight truck has toppled over–and dozens of dead bodies have poured out. Christine seems excited–“they’re all in white just like the dream”, she exclaims.
Aimee asks Garvey about the baby being missing, and Jill says it is cheating to buy a new baby Jesus. Garvey says it is a misuse of police resources to find the Jesus thief. Jill seems annoyed by her father’s response.
Garvey heads to the dance location, to prepare for the Guilty Remnant’s protest. Meanwhile, the Mayor demands that Garvey buys a new baby Jesus himself, and to claim he found the missing one because he, “needs a win”. Garvey heads to the store, but decides to find the original one. He calls Luckey to have him look at some camera footage. While talking to him, Garvey says, “God damn baby F***ing Jesus”, at which point Garvey loses control of his car. Coincidence…?
Garvey is out in his new truck, and pulls over the Frost brothers. Garvey asks them if Jill stole the baby. Garvey tells them to return the baby and no questions will be asked.
At a beach party, Jill, Aimee, and the Frost brothers are getting high and messing with baby Jesus. Jill decides to send the baby out to sea, and shoot it with a flaming arrow. But when it comes down to it, she decides against it.
Kevin comes home that evening, to find his wife and Meg on his porch. She wants a divorce. Meg reads him a speech written by Laurie. Kevin refuses, and Jill walks in to their one-sided yelling argument. Jill gives her mother a Christmas present, and then Kevin asks Laurie to leave. Outside, Laurie opens the gift–a Zippo engraved with “Don’t forget me”. Meg tells her to keep it, but Laurie drops it down into a metal grating.
The next day, Garvey heads out to the dance, and sees the Frost brothers clumsily fleeing, and Baby Jesus was left on his porch. At the dance, Garvey makes a big speech, and announces that he found the baby Jesus. What seemed like a big deal at the beginning of the episode seems to have fallen by the wayside–nobody cares that the baby was found.
Heading back out, he runs into Nora, who is taking a break from the dance. They chitchat, and Garvey learns that all of Nora’s family was, “taken” and that her husband cheated on her.
Outside, the Guilty Remnant are standing five feet from school property. Garvey decides it is close enough to arrest them, and does so. Patti laughs quietly while starring at Garvey–something else is up.
Many of the other Guilty Remnant have broken into people’s houses and stolen loved ones’ photos. Meanwhile, Garvey heads to put the Jesus back in the manger, and Matt Jamison shows up with an extra baby already in the manger. Also, Laurie tries to retrieve the Zippo her daughter gave her, but is unable to reach it. Finally, heading home Chief Garvey tosses the baby Jesus out the window in disgust.
Josh’s Thoughts: The Leftovers, Season 1 Episode 4: B.J. and the A.C.
There is something really compelling about The Leftovers, and it is hard to say exactly what it is. I guess it has to do with how people would react when something as crazy as this life altering event happens. How would people react? Would people all go crazy like this? Is this how the rest of the world The Leftovers has set up is? Are lesser religious communities taking a more scientific approach to what happened? So far nothing concrete says that the people taken were the ones admitted to Heaven.
But about this episode–I am curious to know more about Jill’s motives for stealing the baby. Was it just to get some attention from her father? The conversation they have towards the beginning when Garvey is asking Jill about the baby Jesus seem to indicate she wanted him to play her little game of hide-n-seek. Then in the end, she decides against destroying the baby–does that mean she still believes there is a God out there, and this probably isn’t the best idea if there is?
Then poor Garvey–who goes through the trouble of hunting this baby down, finally retrieves it as the community initially seemingly wanted him to do, but in the end the people don’t seem to care too much. Then on top of that, his estranged wife asks for a divorce, but won’t even verbally tell him herself.
I was a little confused by the phone call that Tommy received. Did Wayne actually send that recorded message to Tommy? Or was that just a freak coincidence that put Tommy back on his “path”? It didn’t seem to clear to me.
The ending was really heart breaking for those families that Guilty Remnant “attacked” by destroying their family photos. This cultist group is really aggravating, and I see why the rest of the town gives them a hard time. They are not just innocently minding their own business with their own beliefs, they are purposefully screwing with everyone who doesn’t follow their ways.
But man, is this show good! It along with The Last Ship are the two shows I am enjoying most this summer so far. I just hope we gets some answers down the road, learning where all of the taken people went!
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 1 Episode 4 of The Leftovers: B.J. and the A.C.
The first couple of episodes of The Leftovers, I was kind of on the fence. Then the third episode, I was really drawn in. That one seemed to be a little out of the norm, wholly focusing on Matt Jamison, though. Now it seems like this episode is back to business, so to speak, being mostly focused on Kevin Garvey and his family, and I am really starting to get into this show.
I felt so bad for Kevin. I didn’t understand what the big deal was about finding the Baby Jesus, or why he finally gave in and decided to find the original baby, rather than merely replace it with a new one. If it was such a big deal, then why did no one care about it in the end? He went through so much trouble, and to basically get “crickets” when he announced that he found the baby, was just really frustrating. Was the mayor just hyping it up to make a fool out of Kevin? Was the missing baby supposed to be some sort of metaphor for the missing loved ones? That it would be cheating to replace the missing loved ones with someone new? That if the missing loved ones were ever found, then no one would care? The whole situation seemed really weird to me, but I was still intrigued to watch it to see where it would go.
Oh, and I also feel bad for Kevin that his wife wants a divorce. After last episode, when Matt caught Laurie in Kevin’s back yard, I thought maybe Laurie was having second thoughts, and wanting to come home. My other guess was that she was saying goodbye in her own way, and it appears that’s what the case was. Will Jill’s present change Laurie’s mind at all? Jill is obviously missing her mother, and Laurie must be missing her daughter too, if she would secretly go back to try to get the present her daughter gave her, even though she’s not allowed to have any possessions.
I’m very curious to know what the deal is with Christine. It seems like she has some sort of powers, if people are seeing her in their dreams, and if things she is seeing in her dreams are coming true. Why is she so important? Why is she “everything”? Most of the time the show seems to be grounded in reality, but every so often we get just a hint, just a taste, of the supernatural. I hope we get to explore more of this aspect.
By the way, what do you think this title of this episode B.J. and the A.C. means? Baby Jesus and the Anti Christ? If so, who is the Anti Christ? Christine’s baby? The Guilty Remnant as a whole? Jill, because she’s the one who stole the Baby Jesus? Kevin, because he took Jesus’s name in vain? All of humanity that makes up the Leftovers??
Scenes from The Leftovers, Episode 5, Gladys
Here are scenes from next week’s The Leftovers episode titled Gladys:
