There’s never a bad time to decide you need to watch The Leftovers, the best mystery box sci-fi series on HBO. HBO has several fantastic TV shows, so it’s not totally unbelievable that you would miss even the most acclaimed series on the network. It was amazing to realize how many people didn’t see The Sopranos until the COVID pandemic.
While HBO certainly seems to trade in crime thrillers more than any other genre, there’s a good amount of sci-fi, mystery, and fantasy on HBO Max as well. One of the best mystery box sci-fi series of all time, for instance, is on the streamer, and despite being a masterpiece, it still does not receive the cultural recognition it deserves.
The Leftovers Is An Underrated Masterpiece That’s Finally Getting Its Due
The Leftovers, based on Tom Perrotta’s 2011 novel, is set in a world that has experienced the most puzzling of global catastrophes. On October 14, 2011, 2% of the world’s population disappeared. It did not matter if they were sleeping in a bed, driving a car, or nursing from their mother; one moment they were there, the next they weren’t.
This “Departure”, as it comes to be known, changes the world and how people see it. Not only was the event a tragic loss of life, but the leftovers can’t even be sure if there was any loss of life. Through the eyes of police chief Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), we come to understand this new world.
The Leftovers is a beautiful, striking series that hands you question after question, episode after episode, but it also solves the puzzles it offers. There are few mystery series as satisfying and comprehensive as The Leftovers, and the world-building, characters, and direction elevate it to masterpiece status.
The Leftovers Succeeds By Not Overexplaining The Departure
The Leftovers explores a wealth of questions about humanity, grief, the afterlife, depression, and how we choose to keep going forward, and with every question, we receive creator Damon Lindelof’s carefully considered answers. Right or wrong, whether you agree or not, Lindelof and The Leftovers say clearly what they think.
One question they never answer, however, is why 2% of the population disappeared. It’s the entire inciting incident of the show, and everything that happens in The Leftovers stems from the Departure, yet we never get a clear resolution as to why that event happened, though we are offered a satisfying peek into a possible explanation.
It’s that decision not to explore the mechanics behind the Departure that is The Leftovers‘ secret power. What the series sets out to explain is not why something happened, but what comes after. By ignoring that first question, The Leftovers has free rein to explore a host of far more interesting questions.
- Release Date
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2014 – 2017-00-00
- Showrunner
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Damon Lindelof
- Writers
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Damon Lindelof, Tom Perrotta
