Wrath of the Showrunners

The all-powerful gods behind Fargo and The Leftovers inflict their worst.

- Matt Zoller Seitz

NOT FOR NOTHING is the modern TV showrunner called a “creator.” On the more freewheeling and stubbornly independent shows, the artist truly is God, or, at the very least, a god, creating universes that can be at once compassionate and cruel, like HBO’s post-Rapture drama The Leftovers, or fundamentally unknowable yet still faintly mocking, like FX’s Fargo. As these two superior dramas unfurl their third seasons (also the final one for The Leftovers), they tease out philosophical and theological questions along with their personal dramas. Both series continually wonder aloud if there’s a supreme being enacting a plan that we’re not evolved enough to grasp, or if God is more along the lines of a fairy tale, a literary device, or something akin to John Lennon’s formulation: a concept by which we measure our pain.