Season Three of The Leftovers premiered on Easter Sunday and will have its finale on Pentecost, the Christian holiday that celebrates when the Holy Spirit descended onto his disciples and followers. This is also recognized as the birth of the Christian church.

With those holidays as a guide, it seems like the series finale next Sunday will mark the beginning of the Church of Kevin. Or maybe that's just a brilliant red herring.

The Leftovers' penultimate episode, "The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother)," was an insane hour of television. And there's so much to dissect.

The inner struggle between Kevin the President and Kevin the Assassin.

The touching scenes between Kevin and his father, first when Kevin Sr. drowns his son, and then when they meet on the roof (with a not-to-subtle nod to the opening of this season).

The thud sound when Kevin's dick lands on the little platform outside the secure bunker.

The identical twin trope harkening back to Episode Five, when the man claiming to be God said Jesus's resurrection was actually just people seeing his identical twin brother.

But instead of diving into any of those topics, let's try on an insane theory: Kevin Garvey actually died in the first episode of Season Three. Everything since then has been a mix of Kevin's afterlife and the actual events in the lives of the characters.

HBO/Ben King

Please, bear with me.

Kevin died 40 minutes into the first episode, "Book of Kevin," when he put the dry-cleaning bag over his head, wrapped the duct tape tightly around his neck, and suffocated himself. It's a significant scene that the show delivers with a brutal close up of Kevin's face as he sucks in his final breaths, lingering for one final moment until it abruptly cuts to Kevin, clad in his police uniform, heading out his front door. The rest of the episode plays out like a fever dream, and it's after the suffocation that we learn that Matt, John, and Michael believe Kevin is the Messiah.

There are moments in Episode Seven that hint at this idea of Kevin's death in Episode One. On two occasions, Kevin's suffocation is shown: first when he begins coughing up water in the limo and again when he's reading the last page of his Untitled Romance Novel. In fact, the final page of that book is the key that unlocks all of this for the viewer, namely this passage:

He imagined her alone. By now she would have searched the house and found it empty. She had suspected it all along and now she knew, he was a coward, a coward dressed in the uniform of a brave man, brave enough to cross two oceans, and a continent to find her, to fight countless enemies, and yet, in the end, he was terrified. He was terrified of her, to lie beside her, to be comforted by her as he wept, to show her he was small, for her to know that and touch is cheek and whisper words softly into his ear. All of that was a nightmare. All he knew to do was run. He took a deep breath of the air, tasting the salt on his tongue and closed his eyes, leaning into the spray as the Merciful picked up speed and sailed for the horizon. He was alone and all was well.

Think back to Episode One, particularly to the scenes just prior to Kevin suffocating himself. There's a party at his house, where all of the people important to him—with the possible exception of his father, who isn't in attendance—are gathered for his son Tommy's birthday party. It's a joyful occasion. His daughter makes an appearance. While sitting on his front porch with his friends and his son, Kevin looks through the window and sees Nora playing with Matt and Mary's baby Noah. It's a nice moment. Just before the party ends, Kevin says goodbye to his daughter Jill, whom he clutches tightly and watches drive away.

Once everyone has gone, he and Nora make love. Afterwards, with Nora sleeping soundly beside him, Kevin lays awake thinking—he looks terrified to lie beside her—then he wakes up with a start on Sunday morning. Nora is lacing up her shoes for a bike ride. After she kisses him goodbye, he steps out onto the balcony to watch her pedal away. Then Kevin goes to his closet and looks at his shirts. He unwraps a uniform from a plastic dry cleaning bag, throws it on the bed, and sits down and suffocates himself.

We fucked up with Nora.

It's an incredibly moving, cinematic ending to Kevin's life that was perfectly camouflaged until now. The only possible hint at the time was the music that played while Kevin watched Nora leave and perused his shirts (or, put another way, the tools he would use to commit suicide). It's Simon and Garfunkel's "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)," which felt like an amusing, if ironic choice ahead of such a violent scene. But in the Season Two finale, Kevin sings another Simon and Garfunkel song, "Homeward Bound," to return from the afterlife. Ahead of his journey to death, the show gives us another song from their catalogue.

Now imagine what happens next from Nora's perspective. She returns home from her bike ride to find the house empty—except for Kevin's lifeless body next to his police uniform. From the Untitled Romance Novel:

By now she would have searched the house and found it empty. She had suspected it all along and now she knew, he was a coward, a coward dressed in the uniform of a brave man…

In Episode Seven, Kevin the Assassin says to Kevin the President, moments after he's removing a key from his heart, "We fucked up with Nora." There's a flash of Nora's face, and it's from the final seconds of the Season Two finale, when Kevin returns home to find his house full of his loved ones, including Nora, who looks at him and says, "You're home."

HBO

Now just once more return to that scene in Episode One, when Kevin suffocates himself, with narration from Untitled Romance Novel (and remember Merciful is the name of a ship):

He took a deep breath of the air, tasting the salt on his tongue and closed his eyes, leaning into the spray as the Merciful picked up speed and sailed for the horizon. He was alone and all was well.

That's Kevin sailing into death, alone, without Nora with him. But he left one thing behind, an unborn baby, the result of their final night together before his suicide.

Episode Seven opens with a flashback of Kevin and Nora in a bathtub. Nora is telling Kevin she wants to be cremated after she's dead; Kevin tells her he wants to be stuffed. She agrees, if she can put a beard on him. When Kevin suffocates himself, he has a beard, fulfilling his promise to Nora.

Yes, this theory of the show is far from foolproof, and it might be too close to Lost (gasp, he was the dead the whole time). But as we wait the long seven days until the series' conclusion, throw this on the pile of what ifs for how this remarkable television show will end. If I'm right, it will certainly give this season some repeat value.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said Pentecost celebrated both the Holy Spirit descending onto Jesus's disciples and followers and Jesus's ascension to heaven. According to Christian tradition, Jesus ascended to heaven on Ascension Thursday, which is 10 days prior to Pentecost. We regret the error.

Michael Sebastian Michael Sebastian was named editor-in-chief of Esquire in June 2019 where he oversees print and digital content, strategy and operations.

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