HBO has given a second season to The Leftovers, its ribald bedroom farce in which characters stumble around the rambling country manor that is Earth looking for their partners, only to be told that they “just missed them,” because they were raptured or whatever. The renewal is the most official, yet hardly the first pronouncement to be made about whether someone is or isn’t giving up on the show—and in this case HBO is declaring that it’s sticking with it, believing that it will only get better: “We are thrilled to bring back The Leftovers for a second season with the exceptional talents of Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta… It has been truly exciting to see the overwhelming response to their provocative and original storytelling,” HBO said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing the journey as the show delves deeper into the lives of those who remain.”
Hopefully that last part is a hint that the second season will spend more time on chapters focusing on individual characters, which—like the Lost episodes they resemble—have been the richest in storytelling, and the most adept at not wasting time on any of the terrible teenagers. Or possibly it’s a hint that the finale involves the discovery of a secret hatch inside Justin Theroux, allowing him to climb down to previously unimagined depths of wallowing.