The Leftovers star Justin Theroux recently discussed why he thought the death and revival of Kevin Garvey was so successful compared to similar plot lines in other shows.

The seventh episode of season 2 of The Leftovers ended in dramatic fashion, with Kevin, the show's main character, lying dead on the ground. The next episode, "International Assassin," centered almost entirely on Kevin's experience in limbo and ended with him getting rid of Patti's ghost (Ann Dowd) for good and being revived.

The bold storyline was largely applauded by fans, which is quite different from how fans of other shows reacted to similar plots (like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead).

Theroux spoke with Indiewire about this storyline in a new interview about why he thinks it worked so well.

"I think audiences are obviously very savvy and they know when they're being 'Who shot J.R.?'-ed in a show," Theroux said. "So they know when they're basically being tricked into tuning in again. And I don't think this was that at all. Most of the time when people die, you don't go to the other side with them. They sort of just die, and then you realize, 'Oh, they fell down the staircase but they didn't break their neck.' - whatever it is. This was not a soap opera death. You actually travel with him to the next place. I'm sure it's been done before, but not the way we did it."

Discussing the treatment of Patti, Theroux praised the show's writers for taking her arc in a surprising direction.

"The real feat, I thought, was the way they made such a great villain relatable. It's kind of reverse storytelling," he said. "If it was a comic book, they'd be like, 'Here's the horrible thing that happened to the bad guy when he was a kid and that's why he wants to kill people.' They did it in an incredibly original way - basically establishing her as bad made people accept that and then, in the last moments, she tells this story about Jeopardy! of all things. Immediately, you just have this flood of compassion for her - at least I did. Her, as a person, saying, 'I won all this money, but I couldn't leave my abusive husband' - how she wasted her life. It's just a beautiful piece of writing."

The Leftovers season 3 does not yet have a premiere date on HBO.

Tags: The Leftovers television hbo