The Leftovers parents guide: Why you shouldn't let your kids watch the HBO supernatural drama, explained

A stiil from The Leftovers Season 3 Trailer (Via: HBO)
A stiil from The Leftovers Season 3 Trailer (Via: HBO)

The Leftovers is a masterpiece that will wreck your soul in the best way possible, but it is definitely not for you kids to watch. The HBO supernatural drama looks at a world where 2% of people vanish, leaving everyone else behind to deal with all of the trauma.

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While the show can be seen as a masterpiece, it is filled with somber themes and to be honest, it is so scary and traumatizing that it is really not fit for a child to watch.


The Leftovers has graphic moments and intense scenes that are too much to handle

If you are considering allowing your children to watch The Leftovers, it is important that you know about the violent nature and visuals of the show. The show is filled with unsettling scenes that might haunt even an adult for a very long time.

A still from The Leftovers Season 3 Trailer (via HBO)
A still from The Leftovers Season 3 Trailer (via HBO)

You also see dogs being shot and even a pack of dogs tearing a deer apart. The action here isn't just action for action's sake; it is stuff that feels overbearing and real.

The Leftovers does not hold back with full frontal nudity either, and there is one scene in the final season with a naked guy walking around for a long time and it makes sense for the show to receive a TV-MA rating.

The show also handles grief by highlighting the pretty raw aspects about it, including the uglier sides, some of which also include graphic scenes of people taking their own lives.


Deep themes and adult language every five minutes

The nature of The Leftovers is yet another reason to keep the TV remote away from your little ones. The show deals with some really scary concepts like cults and hopelessness. For instance, one group in the show, a cult, basically requires its members to smoke cigarettes all day long as part of their rules.

A still from The Leftovers Season 3 Trailer (via HBO)
A still from The Leftovers Season 3 Trailer (via HBO)

You will also see the main characters drinking a ton or using drugs like c*caine and pills to numb their pain. And since the characters are indeed experiencing in real time the literal end of the world, they also use a whole lot of foul language. I mean, we're talking about the word "f*ck" being used in almost every single episode.

The show is definitely amazing because it indeed asks us questions about what life is and touches upon themes of loss, which is great for adults who want something far deeper than a cookie-cutter superhero movie, but for a kid? The HBO show might just be too much to process.


The Leftovers is a show you should 100% watch if you want a series that actually might make you feel something from the inside. No doubt, it is a brilliant look at how humans try to make sense of things that...just don't make any sense.

The show isn't really a good family-friendly option to be watched on Saturday movie nights with your kids due to the frequent use of foul language, nudity, heavy drug use, and extreme graphic violence.

On the other hand, you can keep this for later viewing, and it would be a good idea to keep your kids away from the screen at that time!


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Edited by Deebakar