I should pause here. Damon Lindelof, who created the series with Tom Perrotta (the author of the novel on which it’s based), wrote to critics when HBO sent out seven of the season’s eight episodes, asking that they avoid spoilers.

Fair enough: One of the wonders of this series is its sense of surprise. But it’s also fair to say that not much I could tell you about the new season would make much sense on paper.

When “The Leftovers” works best — wondrously, transportingly — it works beyond logic, through image and parable, like a kind of dirty-realist gospel. It doesn’t expect to persuade you through reason; it aspires to move you to believe.

I can say that much of the final season’s is-it-the-endgame plays out in Australia, which provides a stunning backdrop for the directors, including the series regular Mimi Leder. (Between this and “The Young Pope,” it is a big year for kangaroos in prestige TV.)

The first season was an often gloomy exploration of survivors’ remorse, the second a more hopeful portrait of community. This season is simultaneously mournful and playful, full of dramatic showpieces and inspired absurdities. The clever soundtrack choices may be bigger spoilers than any particular plot point. To paraphrase Depeche Mode, the show’s God — or lack thereof — has a sick sense of humor.

In a metafictional sense, “The Leftovers” is about what it does to people when life writes them a story with no proper ending. “Death is easy,” says Kevin’s ex-wife Laurie (Amy Brenneman). “People just want finality, an end to their grief.” The Departure has left humanity adrift, because with it, “there is no end.”