Damon Lindelof Explains Why THE LEFTOVERS Season 2 Almost Didn't Happen

HBO's controversial series The Leftovers is set to start its second season this Sunday. I say controversial, because the series had a very "love/hate" relationship with critics and viewers alike. Those who followed the series primarily due to the involvement of Damon Lindelof were worried they were being baited into another LOST scenario, and critics widely panned the series as too glum.

Lindelof spoke candidly about the show's issues with Buzzfeed, and flat out said there was a point where he didn't think a second season of the show could happen:

Let’s start to talk about what life looks like in Mapleton a week or a year or five years later in the way that, you know, most television dramas would continue, whether it’s Desperate Housewives or Friday Night Lights or even Lost. And we started to talk about that, and I started feeling just like, You know what? Maybe we’re done. Maybe there shouldn’t be a second season of The Leftovers. This is just feeling like we’re continuing for a continuation’s sake.

This explains why the show will see our characters traveling to a city which claims to have no people departed. Right now you may be asking, aren't they going away from the book? Yes... In fact, there WAS only one book titled The Leftovers, so whatever happens from the end of that story onward is all creative license.

Lindelof tells Lost fans not to worry, though, there will never be an answer to the disappearance of 2% of the world's population. Many of you probably are asking the same question I am...why?!

That’s a really fair question, and I think that as frustrating as it may be, it’s also one that I don’t want to answer. To answer your question is to basically answer a much more specific question, which is: There is a disappearance in the second season of the show that seems to be a much more specific mystery than the overarching mystery of The Departure. So are we going to answer where those girls went?

And the answer is: We’re not if they departed!

I was one of the people who really liked the first season and was super bummed when I found out it may not come back, so I'm psyched for this Sunday. Catch it on HBO at 9 pm EST.

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