HBO: Don't Be Left Behind

While it may sound like a new cooking show, HBO's new series The Leftovers is deadly serious.  We have moved from an age that fears nuclear war to one that fears two things - environmental disaster and the wrath of God.  Of course, the recent movie Noah blended both in its telling, but generally they are told separately.  

Well, the religious masses are getting their own show on HBO tomorrow night (June 29).  The Leftovers begins three years after 2 percent of the world's population simply vanished.  Was it the "rapture" and, if so, what does it mean for those left behind?  The series will discuss this and more.  If you want to read ahead, you can review Tom Perrotta's book of the same name that formed the nucleus of this new show.  Here is a summary of the situation from Mr. Perrotta's website:

What if the Rapture happened and you got left behind? Or what if it wasn't the Rapture at all, but something murkier, a burst of mysterious, apparently random disappearances that shattered the world in a single moment, dividing history into Before and After, leaving no one unscathed? How would you rebuild your life in the wake of such a devastating event?

This is the question confronting the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, a formerly comfortable suburban community that lost over a hundred people in the Sudden Departure. Kevin Garvey, the new mayor, wants to speed up the healing process, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized neighbors, even as his own family falls apart. His wife, Laurie, has left him to enlist in the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence but haunt the streets of town as "living reminders" of God's judgment. His son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a sketchy prophet by the name of Holy Wayne. Only his teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she's definitely not the sweet A student she used to be.

Through the prism of a single family, Perrotta illuminates a familiar America made strange by grief and apocalyptic anxiety. The Leftovers is a powerful and deeply moving book about people struggling to hold onto a belief in their own futures.

I believe the mayor is now the chief of police in the HBO series, but much of the story remains the same.  In discussing his book on NPR, Mr. Perrotta noted:

"I spent a lot of time thinking about contemporary Christianity, and obviously the rapture kept coming up," he says. "My first impulse was ... to laugh it off — it's sort of a funny idea, people just floating away. But I kept thinking: What if it did happen? ... I thought, I'm such a skeptic that even if it did happen, I would resist the implications of it, and I also thought that three years later, everyone would have forgotten about it. No matter what horrible thing happens in the world, the culture seems to move on."

And what do the critics say?  Salon called it "stagnant" in a recent review:

The whole plot of “The Leftovers,” in fact, despite being a plot-driven show, feels stagnant. Not only do all of the reasons for everything occur in the past, but none of it makes sense or follows from the facts on the ground. A bunch of people disappeared without a trace, so now… everyone is running wild and doing crazy self-destructive stuff? So it’s just like the whole globe got sent to an elite prep school, in other words? No, some people are still trying, but desperation and despair reign supreme. All of this because an event no one could explain occurred three years ago? I’m not sure I buy that most people wouldn’t have employed their usual modes of denial (Hello, global warming!) and moved on with their blindly optimistic humdrum lives by now.

The Chicago Tribune's review was more nuanced:

There's nothing warm or welcoming about it, nor is there meant to be..."The Leftovers" grafts more unhappiness onto unhappiness. Where "Game of Thrones" revels in even its most gruesome developments, it exists safely within the bounds of fantasy, so slay away. "The Leftovers" mainly acts as a means to deliver the worst news about human nature.  Yet, despite the downer language of this review, the show delivers on an exceedingly intriguing premise, with some of the most beguilingly morose performances delivered this year. It's a strange but good wallow.

Plenty to ponder.  So see for yourself if you are depressed or fascinated with HBO's latest program.  If it turns out to be one of the best new shows this season, you don't want to be left behind.