History Series / TheLeftovers

* AbsenteeActor:
** Season two's "Off Ramp" is the first one in which Christopher Eccleston and Carrie Coon don't take part, while Justin Theroux only appears in footage from the season one finale (they're the only ones to have been in every episode up to that point).
** "Ten Thirteen" is the first one where Theroux doesn't appear at all.
** In "International Assassin," Theroux, Ann Dowd and Jovan Adepo are the only regulars to appear.
** The extent of this trope on the series is summed up by Creator/LivTyler, who's listed as a regular - she appears in seven season one episodes, but only three episodes of season two (and one of them is a cameo).

* ShooOutTheClowns: The Frost twins, often used to provide some comic relief, are absent from the last few episodes. Aimee, too, after a fight with Jill.

** Near the start of the series, a man shoots a dog out of nowhere. [[spoiler:{{Subverted}} at the end of the episode where he appears again when a pack of wild dogs mauls a deer, telling Garvey "they're not our dogs" before starting to shoot them.]]

** No one knows why people were disappeared, so no one knows whether it has a scientific or supernatural/religious explanation (the world's scientists cannot come up with any). And WordOfGod has it that the series is ''never'' going to tell you what happened - it's telling that the song over the season two opening titles is Iris [=DeMent=]'s "Let The Mystery Be."

** No one knows why people were disappeared, so no one knows whether it has a scientific or supernatural/religious explanation. And WordOfGod has it that the series is ''never'' going to tell you what happened - it's telling that the song over the season two opening titles is Iris [=DeMent=]'s "Let The Mystery Be."

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Because Matt stopped to help a member of the GR victim of agression, he ended up losing his church [[spoiler: to the very GR]]

* SwissCheeseSecurity: At the conference Nora goes to, her name badge is taken by someone else, apparently without having to offer so much as an ID to get it. The thief is then able to break a bar mirror, somehow avoid getting immediately caught so the real Nora is blamed, and then join the conference posing as Nora without security ever noticing. Hotel security is also thoroughly unhelpful, kicking Nora out immediately even though she clearly outlines how someone stole her badge and could easily impersonate her. They do eventually check her story and realize their mistake, and to make up for it by comping all her hotel expenses.

** No one knows why people were disappeared, so no one knows whether it has a scientific or supernatural/religious explanation (though in the show, the world's scientists admitted they were stumped). And WordOfGod has it that the series is ''never'' going to tell you what happened - it's telling that the song over the season two opening titles is Iris [=DeMent=]'s "Let The Mystery Be."

** No one knows why people were disappeared, so no one knows whether it has a scientific or supernatural/religious explanation. And WordOfGod has it that the series is ''never'' going to tell you what happened - it's telling that the song over the season two opening titles is Iris [=DeMent=]'s "Let The Mystery Be."

** Is the hotel that Kevin finds himself in really some sort of afterlife, or is it just a near-death hallucination? [[spoiler:While a hallucination would be the simpler answer, there are a number of hints that it might be real, such as the fact that Kevin finds Virgil in the hotel despite being unconscious when Virgil commits suicide. His gunshot wound also seems to becomes much less serious after he escapes the hotel the second time]].

''The Leftovers'' is an {{Creator/HBO}} series (the channel's first drama produced by an outside company[[labelnote:Although...]]Warner Bros. Television is owned by Time Warner - the same company that owns {{Creator/HBO}}, so...[[/labelnote]] - [[Creator/WarnerBros Warner Bros. Television]] - rather than in-house) created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta (based on the latter's [[TheFilmOfTheBook novel of the same name]]) which debuted in 2014.

A mass disappearance of people totalling two percent of the world's population has wreaked havoc among the disappeared people's family and friends. After three years, the world's religious and scientific communities have no concrete answers as to what happened.

** In the season 2 finale [[spoiler:the Guilty Remnant lead a raid into the fortified town of Jarden. The non-members rampage through the city into the night, while the GR establish a base in the town's museum. There seems to be little resistance and no government crackdown in response, although in fairness the season ends only hours after after this all began]].

** In the season 3 finale [[spoiler:the Guilty Remnant lead a raid into the fortified town of Jarden. The non-members rampage through the city into the night, while the GR establish a base in the town's museum. There seems to be little resistance and no apparent government crackdown]].

''The Leftovers'' is an {{Creator/HBO}} series (the channel's first drama produced by an outside company - [[Creator/WarnerBros Warner Bros. Television]] - rather than in-house) created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta (based on the latter's [[TheFilmOfTheBook novel of the same name]]) which debuted in 2014.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: The Guilty Remnant's policy is to never target children. Meg has no such scruples.

** Season two's "Off Ramp" is the first one in which Christopher Eccleston and Carrie Coon don't take part, while Justin Theroux only appears in footage from the season one finale;

* GoneHorriblyWrong: Susan, the cult member who Tom and Laurie rescue at the beginning of "Off Ramp," is still haunted by the Guilty Remnant - but she's reunited with her husband and son, who are happy to have her back. [[spoiler: Then, realising that they'll still be coming for her, she drives their car into oncoming traffic and [[TakingYouWithMe kills herself and her family]].]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: As Matt drives Kevin back to Mapleton there's a news story about a manhunt on the radio. [[spoiler: It's Holy Wayne, who is dying in the restroom where Matt and Kevin stop for lunch]].

* GoodIsNotNice: Jamison actually is a nice, caring man, but his commitment to proving that the disappearance wasn't the Rapture has him digging up dirt on people who have Departed and airing them out in public. This greatly upsets many people, to the point that he regularly gets beaten up by relatives of those he's targeted.
* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking: The Guilty Remnant are required to smoke as part of their very cynical philosophy. It helps characterize them as seedy and vaguely threatening even when they're just standing around.
* GovernmentAgencyOfFiction: The ATF has become ATFEC; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives and Cults. Post-Departure, their primary focus is on wiping out said cults with extreme prejudice.

* MercyKill: In "The Garveys at Their Best", Garvey shoots a deer which was still alive after being run down by a car.

* PermaStubble: Kevin maintains a week's worth of stubble at all times, even though he's a cop. It's a BeardOfSorrow rather than a fashion statement, since his family life has left him a real mess.

* RealityEnsues: Matt leaving the casino with a large bag of rather publicly won money-of course someone with few scruples notices. [[spoiler: Unfortunately for the guy, this firmly pressed Matt's BerserkButton.]]
* RecklessGunUsage: Nora's method of dealing with the grief and guilt over losing her entire family to the Sudden Departure...is to hire prostitutes to shoot her in the chest. Granted, she's wearing a bulletproof vest and lands on a mattress, but it's implied that most, if not all, of the hookers refuse to come back for a second go-round.

** Meg in season two. She goes from a meek and unsure woman to a zealous GR member whose methods are extreme by GR standards.
* TownWithADarkSecret: Jarden, Texas, is a town that had zero departures. It's since been declared a national park (Miracle National Park) and is a tourist trap. Its permanent residents are kinda odd. Like John Murphy, who burns down the home of a man he thinks was a phony psychic, with a record for attempted murder in the past, saying he "just didn't try hard enough" to kill the victim. Or the guy who slaughters a goat in the diner. Or the homeless guy camped on the pillar outside city hall.

* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:Kevin]] is given a fatal amount of poison and buried, only to come back to life of his own volition after a spiritual journey at the end of "International Assassin". Michael, who witnesses this, gives an entirely understandable "Holy shit!" in response.

* AbsenteeActor: Endemic - season two's "Off Ramp" is the first one in which Christopher Eccleston and Carrie Coon don't take part, while Justin Theroux only appears in footage from the season one finale; "Ten Thirteen" is the first one where Theroux doesn't appear at all.

* AsleepForDays: Matt Jameson after getting hit with a rock. [[spoiler: RuleOfDrama applies to him rushing to the bank assuming it's still the day he got hit with the rock. After three days in bed without food he probably would have been tired out by the time he got out of the hospital and a half a block down the road, if not sooner, and the hospital staff would have absolutely stopped him from leaving.]]

* BeardOfSorrow: Kevin, who is suffering from a broken family, always has about a week's worth of PermaStubble in spite of being a police officer. He apparently gets away with it because he's the Chief.

* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: The Mayor, who began to question Kevin's obsession with the Guilty Remnant, sees him on the street in the finale and tells him he was right.

* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler: Averted in "Off Ramp" - Tom has infiltrated the Guilty Remnant to weed out troubled members and get them to Laurie, who's left the cult and is helping ex-members as well as writing a book. He's unmasked, and taken to the middle of nowhere where Meg basically rapes him, in a scene not designed for titillation. Especially since they soak him with gasoline and Meg makes to set him on fire... before lighting a cigarette, telling him to tell Laurie she said hi, and driving off.]]

* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: Gladys, a member of the Guilty Remnant, is brutally stoned to death.

* {{Fanservice}}: The series hardly runs on this, but there is both male and female nudity - Kevin in particular shows several times that Aimee (Jill's best friend) is correct about him being ripped. [[spoiler: The woman who Kevin is cheating on Laurie with is also very attractive and naked when she vanishes.]]

** Tom is able to walk back into a hospital he ran out of while pursued by cops by disguising himself as a member of the Barefoot People. People pay more attention to the target and the lack of shoes than their faces.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Instances of the Guilty Remnant being creepy and obnoxious are interspersed with them being harassed and attacked. When one of the members is [[spoiler:murdered]], the scene immediately follows a sequence of her and her partner being assholes, such as ignoring an old man who has fallen down right in front of them. The ATFEC even (it's implied routinely) wipes out chapters of their organization on-demand for towns that are tired of dealing with their crap. Taken UpToEleven in the first season finale. After the GR [[spoiler:set up a bunch of corpse dolls of everyone who was Departed]], the town just completely loses it, [[spoiler:wantonly beating them, murdering them, and burning down their homes]]. And again it's hard to feel sorry for them, because that was a truly dickish stunt. In the second season, [[spoiler:Kevin]] outright admits to kidnapping [[spoiler:Patti]] and burying her post-suicide, and the ATFEC's response boils down to "Good riddance." He gets to walk out without so much as filing a form.

** Holy Wayne's ability to hug a person's pain away. Is it a real supernatural gift or just a hug? [[spoiler:On the brink of death, he admits that even he doesn't know whether he's a fraud]].
*** It's suggested that [[spoiler: Tom inherited it from him before he passed on, but in "Ten Thirteen" it's established that unlike Holy Wayne, Tom ''knows'' he's a fraud.]]

* NotSoStoic: Members of the Guilty Remnant occasionally break their code of silence under extreme duress:

* OffscreenVillainDarkMatter: The Guilty Remnant devotes all its resources to their goal of reminding people of the Great Departure, yet are somehow able to bankroll their nationwide operations with little to no trouble, which includes buying up property whenever they can. In particular, they're able to afford [[spoiler:a truckload of corpse dolls made up to look like Mapleton's Departed residents. Each one of these things has a $40,000 price tag, and Mapleton has 100 Departed. Even if one charitably assumes the truck only has the two dozen or so shown, that's still nearly half a million dollars they blew on a stunt]]. Though it should be interesting to see how well they recover from [[spoiler:all their homes being burnt down and a fair portion of their membership killed]].

* OnlyTheKnowledgableMayPass: In "No Room At The Inn," when Matt beseeches a fellow devout Christian for money in the camp outside Jarden/Miracle, TX (to bribe a coyote to smuggle him back in), she quizzes him on his scripture:

* PoliceAreUseless: In the season 1 finale, the Guilty Remnant causes a riot throughout Mapleton by [[spoiler:placing mannequins of the Departed in their loved ones' homes]] and the entire town is laid to waste, as no law enforcement comes to its aid because they're all sick of dealing with Departure cults. The shit hits the fan in similar fashion in the season 2 finale, but this time the Jarden police are simply hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with the calamity.

* PoorCommunicationKills: The nurse doesn't out-and-out tell Matt he's been AsleepForDays, and is instead being vague because the plot demands it for RuleOfDrama.

** Also averted in the above example in the case of [[spoiler:Nora Durst]], who could reasonably be expected to completely lose their shit in that situation, but doesn't.

* ReplacedTheThemeTune: Unusually for an HBO series, season two has completely different opening music (and a completely different ''opening'') from season one.

* StepfordSmiler: "The Garveys at Their Best" reveals that Mapleton was full of them before the Departure.
** Kevin seems to have a perfect life, but he's dissatisfied and his marriage has no communication. He takes jogs to smoke cigarettes and brood. Laurie, meanwhile, is hiding her pregnancy from her husband and considering an abortion.
** Matt is a charismatic and casual figure in public, but he's plagued by health concerns that he cannot share with his wife. Laurie comments that they are very good at covering up their worries.
* SurvivorGuilt: Naturally, slews of people who lost loved ones are wracked with this. Most notably, Nora has never gotten over how her last words to her children before they vanished were in anger.
** It's also what drives the Guilty Remnant.
* SwissCheeseSecurity: At the conference Nora goes to, her name badge is taken by someone else, apparently without having to offer so much as an ID to get it. The thief is then able to break a bar mirror, somehow avoid getting immediately caught so the real Nora is blamed, and then join the conference posing as Nora without security ever noticing. Hotel security is also thoroughly unhelpful, kicking Nora out immediately even though she clearly outlines how someone stole her badge and could easily impersonate her. They do eventually check her story and realize their mistake, and to make up for it comp all her hotel expenses.

* TookALevelInJerkass: "B.J. and the A.C." has the Guilty Remnant move up from public harassment to breaking and entering into homes and stealing family photographs. This is the first time we see them do something overtly illegal. This is part of a larger operation to [[spoiler:make dolls of the Departed individuals in the photographs and set them up in the homes of their families, which causes the entire town to completely lose it and take out all their frustration on the GR]].

* TheVoiceless: The Guilty Remnant forswear speaking and communicate only through writing, though Patti speaks whenever she feels it appropriate.

* {{Fanservice}}: The series hardly runs on this, but there is both male and female nudity - Kevin in particular shows several times that Aimee (Jill's best friend) is correct about him being ripped. [[spoiler: And the woman who Kevin is cheating on Laurie with is naked when she vanishes.]]

* DudeShesLikeInAComa: {{Discussed}} when Mary becomes pregnant, with people suspecting Matt had sex with her in her comatose state. Saying she woke up briefly and they had sex isn't believable to many.

* GoneHorriblyWrong: Susan, the cult member who Tom and Laurie rescue at the beginning of "Off Ramp," is still haunted by the Guilty Remnant - but she's reunited with her husband and son, who are happy to have her back. [[spoiler: Then, realising that they'll still be coming for her, she drives their car into oncoming traffic and kills herself and her family.]]

* ViewersAreGoldfish: In the season finale, as the GR sets out to execute their latest stunt, there are several quick flashbacks showing the various set-up phases (picture theft, corpse dolls, clothes), the latter two being only two episodes ago.

The first season of the show loosely follows the plot of the book; it was picked up for a second and then third season; it was announced from the start that the third season would be the show's last.

The first season of the show loosely follows the plot of the book; it was picked up for a second season.