Television: What Happened to Gladys in ‘The Leftovers’ Recap?

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Daniel McDermon

Marceline Hugot as Gladys, left, with Ann Dowd as Patti in
Sunday Episode 5 of “The Leftovers.”Credit Paul Schiraldi/HBO

Season 1, Episode 5: “Gladys.” In serial television, the showrunner is God. And one indisputable theme of “The Leftovers” so far is that God is capricious. Horrible things happen all the time, with no explanation: A man loses his grip on reality; a plastic baby Jesus is stolen; or there’s a supernatural culling of 140 million people. A moment of silence, please, for Gladys, one of the Guilty Remnant’s most effectively irritating scolds, whose squinty glower could disturb a kitten sleeping alongside an altar boy. Her abduction and murder by stoning was tough to witness, perhaps most of all because her final act was to violate the Remnant’s vow and beg her killers for mercy. Even the dogs killed in the show’s first few episodes have mostly suffered offscreen. What kind of creator would subject the faithful to this? [link]