Damon Lindelof Says ‘The Leftovers’ Season 3 Will Do Away With Crazy Dream Sequences

Fans of HBO’s The Leftovers found themselves both relieved and disheartened to learn that the critical favorite rapture drama would return for a third and final season, wrapping up a wealth of character arcs and potentially unraveling at least some of the series’ mystery. Planning for The Leftovers Season 3 is early yet, though creator Damon Lindelof at least believes the series will move away from questions of Kevin Garvey’s sanity.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Living Reminders podcast, Lindelof acknowledged that The Leftovers Season 3 has entered only nascent stages, though he doubts the likelihood of series lead Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux) continuing to question his spiritual experiences. The second season in particular saw Kevin making a choice to embrace a supernatural means of ridding his visions of the late Patti Levin, subsequently dying and resurrecting twice from a limbo-like hotel, an uncertainty Lindelof isn’t interested in writing toward anymore:

I’m not particularly interested in continuing to revisit the “Is Kevin crazy?” idea. In terms of, unless we can find a different permutation of it, I feel like we really explored that idea in depth, this season and next season, especially because it’s the final season of the series....trying to find something new, that is not new but just for the arbitrary sake of being new, but it’s the next step in the evolution in that idea … Moving into the next year, I’d be much more interested in writing the Kevin who’s decided that he is not crazy. Or that he is crazy and that he acts accordingly. […]

I kind of feel that the more interesting show at this point is that…we’re no longer, we’re done with…the sleepwalking was a manifestation of Kevin’s inability to come to terms with all of the trauma that he was dealing with both prior to the departure and post departure. His unwillingness to acknowledge that this massive life-changing event, a spiritual event had occurred resulting in the loss of 140 million individuals. He just didn’t even want to acknowledge it. Now, he’s acknowledging it, and I feel like as a reward, he doesn’t have to sleepwalk and have weird, off-butting dream sequences anymore. We’re passed that.

It isn’t clear exactly when The Leftovers Season 3 will air, given that the series first premiered in summer 2014, while Season 2's soft reboot move to Texas didn’t debut until October of 2015. Also unclear is if the final season will remain in its Texas setting, an idea beyond the scope of author Tom Perrotta’s original novel, especially as Season 2 heavily hinted toward some important goings-on in Australia.

The Leftovers may never be a breakout hit with viewers, but will the final run fare better with Kevin Garvey embracing his spiritual side? Will the series trade in any more, or less surrealism, without crazy sleepwalks?