'The Leftovers' [SPOILERS] Season 1 Episode 6 'Guest' RECAP [PHOTOS] Nora Durst Goes To NYC, Holy Wayne & More!
Episode 6 of HBO's new summer series, The Leftovers, is entitled "Guest." After watching the episode, we understood the title, and found out a lot more about the show's most interesting character, Nora Durst (Carrie Coon). Plus, we even got some Holy Wayne (Paterson Joseph) action when we least expected it! Clearly, this was the turning point of The Leftovers and weary fans were most likely brought back to the series after this. (SPOILERS to follow)
Check out our interview with Carrie Coon right here!
Check out our episode 6 preview right here!
Just like her brother Matt Jamison (Christopher Eccleston), Nora Durst gets her own episode. Just like episode three and its focus on the reverend, we see Nora in her habitat - working, stalking her husband's mistress/her kids' preschool teacher, and hiring a prostitute ... wait, what?
Yes - she hires a call girl to shoot her. It's insane, you guys! Nora puts on a bulletproof vest and instructs the lady of the night to shoot her in the chest. So, she throws on some heavy metal and gets her wish.
This leads into the title sequence!
Before all of this, "Guest" opens with another one of Nora's claim questionnaires that is just as depressing as you can imagine. While some of us thought that this might have been a gimmick, we learn that this is, in fact, her job and that she heads to New York City for a convention for Departure-related professions.
Before heading to NYC, she gets divorced from her departed husband, Doug. Leaving the courtroom, she runs into Kevin (Justin Theroux) who also got his divorce from Laura (Amy Brennenman) finalized. She invites him to Miami (!), but he declines in an awkward moment.
Nora heads to New York for her conference, and is actually a featured panelist at the event. Unfortunately, somebody took Nora's badge, leaving her with the label "Guest" on her badge. We see her become uncomfortable with this, probably because she's used to having this sort of celebrity in Mapleton attached to her name, but she has to deal with it. This, of course, leads to the main events of the episode - also, who stole her badge?
Her search for her badge gets "detoured by an amorous salesman, a bestselling author and a rogue attendee," HBO summarized. Basically, she parties!
Adding insult to injury, Nora's impersonator gets her kicked out of the hotel - she eventually gets back into the hotel and tracks down her impersonator, who is sitting in on her panel. It turns out this woman is some sort of extremist that didn't even want to impersonate her - she just wanted a platform to get her message across.
After yelling at the author of "What's Next," Nora runs into guest star Tom Noonan who leads her to Holy Wayne. This is easily the biggest moment of the series.
Wayne takes Nora's pain in the show's most moving scene. She stops stalking Doug's mistress. She stops buying food for her kids. Is her pain truly gone?
Kevin asks her out on a date, too!
This episode was huge turning point that The Leftovers needed - for a number of reasons. We have some answers, but, as usual, even more questions - but these questions are of a whole new level of interest. Also - to be blunt - viewers were just confused in the weeks prior and this gave us a huge boost of intrigue to continue watching. Plus Holy Wayne is starting to come into play in a huge way, overshadowing the importance of Nora Durst in the grand scheme of things.
What did you think of "Guest," the sixth episode of The Leftover's freshman season? Let us know in the comments section below!