How Blackness Helped The Leftovers Become Great in Season Two

I really can’t talk to you if you don’t notice HBO. Not even back in the day HBO; right here, right now. If you don’t know what they’re doing, you give no fucks about television. How nice for you. Make it count. Plant a garden, raise a child, run for president for fuck’s sake. This post is for the rest of us. The… “leftovers,” if you will. For everybody who complains about shows like Firefly and Carnivale being interrupted mid-thrust—and all y’all who celebrated the news that it looks like we’ll finally be getting that Deadwood movie—HBO has proved its commitment to good writing over shitty ratings, and has renewed The Leftovers for a third and final season. Which means you still have a chance to watch it while it’s on air. We all know Lost gave a generation of speculative fiction lovers PTSD. The supposed method to the show’s ongoing madness never existed, and a lot of people got hurt. When they realized they’d spent years of their life on a series of mediocre kindergartner’s doodles, the trauma was real. But it’s time to move on, friends. Lost is in the past. This is not that show. Let the healing begin. [quote_left]Magic will happen: It doesn’t all need to be explained to be enjoyed.[/quote_left]The Leftovers has superficial commonalities with Lost, of course, in that the central happening, a kind of Rapture, is truly weird. It’s unexplained by either science or faith; although the various characters find, at times, moments when they seem to be doing the “right” thing, i…