Newsletters

This page functions as an archive of newsletters I wrote on behalf of publications like the Daily Dot. Many of the newsletters are only available in my inbox and are reproduced as PDF files. This is a living document and will be updated in due time.

Streaming TV Party: The Leftovers (Summer 2020; Daily Dot)

In the summer of 2020 (and the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic), I took The Leftovers, one of my TV white whales, head-on by launching a watch-along in the Daily Dot’s streaming newsletter. Each week, I watched two episodes and wrote about them. In those newsletters, I looked at old theories and came up with my own, looked back on contemporaneous interviews, and examined how the series’ unintentional prescience landed several years after it ended.

These newsletters mainly exist in email form (and sans the photos they were originally paired with), so they’re presented as PDF files. In two instances, I grabbed the PDF from my Authory page’s archive of that newsletter from the Daily Dot website.

Season 1:

  1. The Streaming TV Party is on—here’s what we’re watching 📺 (introduction)
  2. ‘The Leftovers’ is more relevant now than ever 🚔 (1×01 and 1×02)
  3. How ‘The Leftovers’ teaches us to mourn 📺 (1×03 and 1×04)
  4. What’s the deal with the Guilty Remnant? 🚬 (1×05 and 1×06)
  5. May ’72: A Mysterious 48-Year-Old Magazine Appears 📖 (1×07 and 1×08)
  6. Making Sense of That Deer In Kevin’s Dream 🦌 (1×09 and 1×10)

Season 2:

  1. Streaming TV Party: The Book vs. the Show 📚 (post-season 1/pre-season 2)
  2. About That ‘Miracle’ in Jarden, Texas 🚘 (2×01 and 2×02)
  3. A Tale of 2 Cities—And Departures 👻 (2×03 and 2×04)
  4. Diving into Greek myths and fairy tales 🐦 (2×05 and 2×06)
  5. Did We Just Visit Hotel Purgatory? 🏨 (2×07 and 2×08)
  6. Sing For Your Life To Escape the Afterlife 🎤 (2×09 and 2×10)

Season 3:

  1. Streaming TV Party: The miracle of ‘The Leftovers’ season 3 🙏🏻 (post-season 2/pre-season 3)
  2. New Mysteries Emerge In the Land Down Under ✈ (3×01 and 3×02)
  3. ‘The Leftovers’ takes us to church—and tests our faith ⛪ (3×03 and 3×04)
  4. Revisiting ‘The Leftovers’ Infamous Lion Orgy Scene 🦁 (3×05 and 3×06)
  5. How ‘The Leftovers’ crafted the perfect ending 💑 (3×07 and 3×08)
  6. The lasting legacy of ‘The Leftovers’ 📺 (post-series finale)