Tom Perrotta Talks ‘Leftovers’ Video Game and Fan Fiction after “International Assassin”

While watching last weekend’s episode of The Leftovers, ”International Assassin.” we couldn’t help think that Kevin’s (Justin Theroux) outfit choices felt like something out of a video game. It turns it is there was a good reason for that, and that it because it was meant to. Leftovers novel author and co-showrunner of the TV series, Tom Perrotta, recently revealed that Kevin’s choices and how they dictated the events that followed, were inspired by video games. That is not all. Perrotta is encouraging others to fan fiction about the leftover outfits.

Following last week’s episode of The Leftovers, Tom Perrotta opened up to Indiewire about what inspired the episode:

“Well, we did and in a funny way there are a lot of different influences on a show like this. So obviously there's Greek mythology, there's Dante, there's Christian theology, but then there's spy thrillers and ‘The Godfather’ and I think the other one you can think of is video games narrative. You put on this outfit and these things happen. You put on that outfit and other things happen. We didn't write a video game, but I think it's implicit there.”

Perrotta went on to encourage fan fiction in order to tell the stories of the other outfits that Kevin could have chosen:

“You know if somebody wants to write fan fiction, tell me what happens when he puts on the G.R. outfit. Tell me what happens when he puts on the priest outfit. I think that is definitely implicit. And the other fun detail, of course, is that once he chooses the assassin's outfit and he gets it wet and he goes to look back in there's no going back. It wasn't like he could suddenly become a cop. That's gone. The choice is gone now.”

What did you think about the episode? What outfit would you have picked? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of the page.