There isn’t much to say about the Garveys at this point other than that everyone looks blissfully happy apart from Kevin, with his unexplained head injury and his habit of staring at things no one else can see. But why was Matt so abruptly interrupted by the pastor? Where are Laurie and Tommy? Maybe some of the questions posed by “Axis Mundi” will be answered as the season unfolds, but as we saw last season, with this show, answers aren’t really the point.

Kornhaber: The opening sequence indeed inflicted a major “WTF?” on the audience, but it’s worth noting the way it resembles the “WTF?” that the universe of the show has inflicted on its characters. When two percent of the population vanishes, the cause-and-effect rules previously established both by science and religion vanish, too; into the gap flood wild theories, inexplicable superstitions, and unnameable gut feelings. The same principal holds for when a TV show’s new season opens with a prehistoric vignette that has no clear relation to the previously established narrative. At the moment—and maybe forever—we can only ask, not answer, the question of why we were shown this cave lady, and no particular guess is really more outlandish than any other.

Maybe you’re right, Sophie, that the theme of survivalism in the face of random tragedy is the point. Or maybe we’ll eventually find out that the crying infant grew up to be the Miracle-watchtower Methuselah eating the Murphys’ leftovers (!!) from a bucket. Why not?

There’s a clearer meaning to some of the other new developments in season two, though. With the Texas sun and the newly twee title sequence, The Leftovers now stands less susceptible to the criticism that it’s simply too depressing to enjoy. Damon Lindelof recently admitted he made the original 10 episodes during a bout of depression, after visiting post-massacre Sandy Hook for inspiration. The results, appropriately, went deep into the question of how grief works, largely through Nora’s character. When she met with Holy Wayne and basically decided not to be so sad anymore, it was either a profound statement about the power of will or a convenient escape route for a show mired by its own heaviness. Either way, I’m glad that season two, set in a place without Departures, may move on from mourning as well.

But I will miss the old title sequence, a cartoon of anguish in a nu-Sistine Chapel. Its outrageousness made plain that this show was fundamentally a comedy, meant to poke fun at all of humankind. The joke does continue into the new season, with the premiere repeatedly evoking the gag that hooked me on this show in the first place: the saga of Kevin’s missing bagel, a breakfast carb that became the means by which our hero decided whether or not he’d lost his sanity. Now, we see John Murphy playing similar mind games with himself, but about an elusive chirping bug and an InSinkErator. (Contender for shot of the year: the camera tilting from sideways to level as he lowered his hand into the maw.) This guy clearly thinks he’s too smart for religion and is possibly paid to prevent cult formation, and yet even he battles twinges of irrationality. Meanwhile, his son preaches Christianity, his wife keeps a secret bird box, and his daughter runs Pagan-like through the forest and has now either been Raptured or swallowed by the Earth—making good on Isaac’s unfalsifiable prophecy that something bad was about to happen. LOL, right?