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The Leftovers Season 2 BluRay Availability Debacle

Note

We probably shouldn't trust free-to-be/do-evil-corporations to honor the consumers belief that digital media previously purchased should always be available for us to use stream.

I acknowledge the following scenario I present here is hyperbolic, arguably overly-dramatic, and, seemingly, a waste of time as, unfortunately, this hyperbolic-potentially-overly-dramatic-scenario typed below months ago are in fact currently playing out in our real everyday life, this very week. A lack of fair competition in the free-market, often, results in bad experiences featuring bad products, poor decisions, and a growing resentment a consumer will undoubtedly feel. Alas, capitalists are gonna capitalize, and this situation is precisely why I felt a sudden push to finish this post that’s been sitting unfinished for months. I recognize the irony, for the record.[1]

Here's a scenario

Let's say, you're enjoying a bit of down-time to doom-scroll your life away on Instagram, now, the algorithm decides to feed you another scene from a popular show as the all-mighty algo knows you enjoy dramatic scenes from prestige TV shows, specifically HBO.

Through this happenstance, you scroll past a video, with some random @ighandleforanaccountthatclipsshowsandthenputsthiswatermarkyourcurrentlyreadingforfuckssake plastered in the obvious, but tasteful, left corner of the screen with a slightly muted color.

No matter, you became invested in this clip as it's a scene showcasing the astonishing Carrie Coon sharing a scene with Justin Theroux, acting as if this show depended on their performances continuing to showcase their seemingly effortless & utterly magnetic chemistry they've grown into together.

The shots from the show are gorgeous, the writing is electric, the music gripping[2]and now your interests are fully piqued for either a first-time watching of this series[3], or revisit, because you can't recall watching it, but you watch everything that's on HBO as everyone else interested in premium programming, so there's no way you missed this show when it first aired, right?

The Leftovers, one of the more esoteric, yet criminally under-watched, but undeniably a cult-classic, released during HBO's Historic Peak TV run of producing some of the best shows of the 2000s-2010s, now your off to fire up the HBO MAX[4] app on your preferred streaming device and watch it from their diverse catalog of properties.

Now lets pretend, HBO Max[5]stopped having the rights to stream their own produced show[6] - No matter, you hop onto the JustWatch app or site, and search for where The Leftovers is streaming to save yourself the limited amount of time we have on this literal dying planet rather than flicking through the plethora streaming apps we all must subscribe to in order to watch all the best content these platforms have to offer, as they've fragmented further away from the ubiquitous-one-stop-shop-sold-to-us-as-a-better-alternative-than-cable, Netflix

The deeper into your research you dive, you've come to learn that The Leftovers isn't available anymore on any streaming platforms, and further-more, you've checked on Amazon Prime and Apples On-Demand catalog of digital licenses they can revoke at anytime,[7] and you've come to the realization that this series isn't available digitally, anywhere.

Again, no matter you say, now it's time to hop onto Amazon, and purchase these seasons on blu-rays, because thankfully, your room-ate has a PS5 and is able to play them.[8] - Yet you think to yourself, wow, how much you fucking miss Blockbuster and could really go for a stroll through a movie rental place right about now.

As your search results, the leftovers blueray, have now loaded from the prompt[9] you've put into Amazons search box., you briefly wonder to yourself.

"okay, I remember that there are 3 seasons so I need the complete series or each season separately to binge the whole thing throughout the weekend or over the next couple weeks and as I have access to Amazon Prime, and they often offer two-day shipping, but maybe this might have same-day, we'll see, I'm sure no atrocities are being undertaken against their workforce in order to move product more quickly than any other retail company across the world at such small cost to the consumer. I'm sure it's all above board at Amazon.com Inc.[10]

Alright, the search results, well, results in a mixed bag. Some less will-powered individuals might even call these options, bare with me, leftovers.[11]

Lets run through some of the options on page 1.

Okay the third season is in the cart, done.

Boom! 2 out of three spoken for. Let's goooo. Now we are only left with Season 2.

Welp, we have several options for North America disc players[12], all of which are not available, perfect, great. Awesome.

Lets see the other options

Welp, too rich for my blood, one, and two, I don't speak french, and even if I did, it most likely might not play on our device. Must keep searching.

More french, slightly cheaper, must pay for delivery. The search continues.

Italian! But still, $150.00. Way too much for me.

The other options I won't copy and paste are back at the region-locked discs for the full seasons and they've dvds.

This random hypothetical story presumes The Leftovers is taken off all streaming platforms and then mixes into the very real, current situation of not being able to buy Season 2 at a reasonable price in America combines perfectly into a storm of fuck with the seemingly out of print blu-ray pressings of a niche HBO show with a cult-following is just one story in the many, many, ways late-stage capitalism fits squarely inbetween a willing-to-purchase consumer and the companies, publishing houses, producers, studios, printers, agents, management, etc, etc.

I originally thought about writing this, whatever this is, a year ago, began a rough draft in February, and am finishing this is now July of 2026, and the situation hasn't changed.

You cannot purchase The Leftovers on any Digital platform, You cannot purchase the full disc sets in either Bluray or DVD in North America, and you can't get Season 2 of this, truthfully beautiful show at a reasonable price in North America.

Well, I should be thankful, I can steam it on HBO Max... for now.

  1. The stories being published seem to be affecting only Sony and their customers at the time of this writing. I imagine (pure speculative assumptions) that a mixture of licensing deals left to expire by either Sony, or the licensing holders, perhaps even both parties. I can’t imagine the sales for movies were large enough for the studio to accept poor compensation, and Sony, being a large multinational conglomerate corporation is not letting a tragedy go to waste by future proofing their future capitalizing capabilities. ↩︎

  2. Lets be honest, it would be a trending clip from Instagram that the 'creator' posts that is from a no-name 'artist' with an anime thumbnail who learned how to slow pitch a track and add reverb, knowing that this will skirt copyright claims from the litigious Big 3 record labels. I will elaborate this one day, on a different post, I promise. ↩︎

  3. The series you had to scroll through the comments on the Reel to find the name of the show since the poster didn't post any context of where the clip is from in hopes of farming engagement with people asking what or where this is from. ↩︎

  4. As of now, they might change it at any point again. ↩︎

  5. Owned by a conglomerate of media interests by Discovery/Warners that is working through a potential sale to Netflix. We live in hell. ↩︎

  6. Happens all the time, "You" - Is a Warner Bros. Production that streams exclusively on Netflix. ↩︎

  7. RTFM - Read the fucking manual - but in this case would be terms and agreements. ↩︎

  8. Anecdotally, over the years I increasingly see that many people don't have a way to watch a DVD, let alone a blu-ray, and often time if they do have the device, they might not have an HDMI cord. I can think of 3 people in my life I, disturbingly, found this out about. ↩︎

  9. Hopefully not through Amazons, or really any, AI Chatbot. ↩︎

  10. The Lie Detector determined... that was a lie ↩︎

  11. I hate myself more I promise. I ask for no forgiveness of this pun. ↩︎

  12. We don't have time to get into this, but yes, discs can be region locked, because, capitalism. ↩︎

  13. Not a typo. ↩︎

  14. Well that's nice of them to include the delivery after charging $130.82 more than getting the other two complete seasons, combined. ↩︎

  15. Gotta charge the $7.88 delivery. fuckers. ↩︎