The Leftovers

Set several years after the unexplained disappearance of 2 percent of the world’s population, The Leftovers powerfully mines complex emotional states that are rarely so central to television. A show about loss, recovery and how we live with raw pain, and about faith and the loss of belief, it boldly shies away from easy answers or resolutions. If television often excels by offering us visions of security and comfort, The Leftovers walks a different path into a world of insecurity, indeterminacy and absence, regularly asking what we know about life and exploring how we cope with the unknown. Creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta have crafted an inspiring, unpredictable tale that artfully moves from character to character, present to past, grand narrative to intimate family drama. Led by Justin Theroux, Carrie Coon, Ann Dowd and Regina King, the cast regularly takes challenging scripts and punctuates them with dazzling yet careful performances, allowing moments of connection and even humor to shine through. For telling a well-wrought story that is inventive, metaphysical, symbolic and compelling, The Leftovers earns a Peabody Award.