Giantrobo

Agreed. They let on that his wife was gone; and it was natural to assume she was Taken...not that she willingly abandoned her family for the cult.

DJariya

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It was a blink and you'll miss it moment. Obviously after the fact, I can see it's Amy Brenneman, but when I watched it initially, I wasn't looking for it.

dino88

They showed the picture.

Yeah, I might have missed it as well had it been a lesser known actress.

flashburn

Nope, I actually loved JFC.

slop101

My point was you can't tell who it was supposed to be, and the actual reveal was when he's at that house asking to speak to his wife.

Coral

I'll continue to watch. I thought the book was decent, so I knew who the characters were in relation to each other.

I can see some being turned off by this though - as it was kinda slow and depressing. I can understand them taking their time in the pilot to set things up, but I hope it's not just the book spread across a few seasons because that would be dragging it out way too long.

One thing that bothered me from the book and the show (so far) is that this central family lost no one on Oct. 14th, but they're acting much more affected than others it seems. When reading the book I wanted to scream at the characters "quit your fucking whining - you family is still together!".

I liked the ending. Primal, realistic and depressing.

JTH182

^ Well there goes the theory that maybe she lost an unborn baby.

actionjackson29

I looked up the spoilers and it seems like its probably an okay book but I don't know how this last more than a season. I think it would've been better as a movie.

SteelWill

I hope this series goes on for a decade and keeps Damon Lindelof so busy he doesn't have time to work on anything else.

Shannon Nutt

I'm going to guess it will get renewed because it looks like it's a pretty cheap show to make...compared to other HBO dramas, at least.

Back to the pilot, did it bother anyone else that only 2 percent of the population was lost, yet the area where the baby went missing it seemed like there were 3 or 4 disappearances within 50 yards of everyone. If it was only 2 percent, you'd think only the baby would have gone missing in that area.

Nausicaa

I thought this was okay. A little heavy handed on the emotional piano music. I'm curious to see where it's going. How much material can they mine from what appears to be a small town? I feel like this could be either a really good show or really bad. Bad would be going down the road of The Killing where it's just an hour of watching people cry. What is going to be the central narrative drive for this show?

slop101

I'm still struggling with the concept of the show. 2% of all people gone at once is a lot, but overall, it kinda' isn't. Not enough to hit people like this show would have you believe anyways. Now I know that 2% isn't evenly spread out, but for perspective, it's only about 5 or 6 people out of all my facebook friends. And in my immediate group of friends/family, it would be just one or two. A bummer, certainly, but really not as Earth-shattering as this show would make you believe. The big hurdle would be the mystery of the disappearance, not the disappearance itself, as evidenced by the Malaysian airliner. But, conveniently for them, the show doesn't want to look at the mystery, rather on the people, the bland, boring people...

Giantrobo

I'm guessing lotsa folks were also killed when people vanished while driving, flying, controlling dangerous machinery....dead babies and children after being left unattended...but I doubt they account for that in those numbers.

Cellar Door

Yeah, I was really disappointed when I saw "Three Years Later" show up on the screen after the opening scene. I knew that meant the show was going to skip a lot of the stuff I wanted to see.

PhantomStranger

It's always a cheat when a show won't answer the central mystery of the concept. It means the writers and showrunner are admitting they aren't clever enough to come up with a solid answer.

JTH182

Yeah, 2% seems low. I thought the show was going to make it 25% or more. I guess 2 out of 100 is enough to make it a "wtf?" occurrence rather than an end of times type deal though.

Crocker Jarmen

That's unfair to say about a show like this. Whether or not it is any good, it is not a story about something weird that happened, it is a story about people who had something weird happen to them. The "mystery" is a macguffin.

Shannon Nutt

You understand that and the producers understand that, but try telling that to the average viewer who watches the series. Let's face it, any show that sets up a premise like THE LEFTOVERS and doesn't answer questions is going to lose viewers and anger the ones who stick around - at least as far as American audiences are concerned.

slop101

In fiction, anyone presenting a mystery and not solving it, regardless of what it's "supposed" to be about, is just being an asshole.

Dave99

I'd think it has to be a fairly small number to avoid social calamity. 25% go away and society collapses, we already have that with the walking dead. 3 or 4% might have made it a little better, but 2% is enough that virtually everybody who isn't a shut-in is effected or knows someone who disappeared. Certainly it's a big enough number to make almost anyone question science, religion, their existence or whatever..

Cellar Door

Right. 2% of the population disappearing isn't enough to cause a huge problem just because of their physical absence. But it's the effect of the disappearance on the psyche of the remaining 98% that is causing all the problems.

johnnysd

you are 100% correct. However, it is too BIG of a MacGuffin to completely ignore from an explanation point. Ignoring it in my view did not work in the books either. It made the book just too existential and weirdly detached from the event and the Camus' like indifference so many apply to the situation resonates in a hollow manner to be honest. But it is perfect for someone LOST, because he doesn't want to explain anything anyhow...just throw more plot and cool stuff in and logic be fucked

Raul3

You guys don't get it. Talking about the 2%.

The show, and the book, would never explain why that happened. They are not about that.

The show is in America. Most is based in a small town in America. Most American towns are kind of religious. America believes in God, in general. So, you were following a religion, and it seems one of the most important things that can happen for anyone that follows a religion just happened. And you were not chosen. Of course that would affect you greatly. The show and the book are about that.

There more things of course, and if the show tries to follow the book, there will be some events happening, but nothing really huge like the disappearance of the 2%.

slop101

We get it just fine, we're just saying it's a gyp. They can have it be about something all they want. When a it turns out that majority of people are interested in something else, something that they're not going to cover, then they fucked up. Then they needed to present what they wanted in a manner that won't make people harp on this other thing.

And I brought up the 2% meaning that it's not a high enough number for these people to be going through this. I understand they're not going to address the mystery of it. But then why present that mystery at all?

Gunde

I'm sure the show will at some point call it the Rapture and then boom!...it's been answered and explained.