History Series / TheLeftovers

* PoliceAreUseless: The shit hits the fan in similar fashion as in the season 1 finale, when [[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. Jarden police are simply hopelessly ill-equipped to deal with the calamity. [[spoiler:That is until [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill the season 3 premiere]]]].

* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler: When Susan deliberately drives into oncoming traffic in "Off Ramp," she has her husband and son with her at the time.]]

* CountryMatters: Kill refers to that team mate she punched out on the field as a cunt.

* BackForTheDead: The third season premiere has [[spoiler: Dean the dog-hunter]] return only to die trying to murder Kevin and Tommy.

* RealityEnsues: The MASSIVE invasion of the town of Jarden, Texas by the Guilty Remnant led to serious civil unrest as droves of unsanctioned civilians came in with them and proceeded to loot and commit general anarchy. In response to this domestic terrorism, [[spoiler:ATFEC launches a drone strike on the visitor's center where the GR is holed up, wiping them all out in an instant]].

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: A SpyFiction episode in a mystery drama series.

* ButForMeItWasTuesday: When Kevin and Laurie come clean with another about their relationship, Kevin says he still feels remorse over having being a dick when Laurie wanted a puppy. But Laurie had already forgotten about that incident.

* BookEnds: The episode begins with Nora angrily throwing a rock through the Murphys' window. At episode's end - after [[spoiler:Nora has confronted Erika with the new DSD questionnaire, and as Kevin admits to Nora that he's being haunted by the ghost of Patti Levin]], Erika returns the favor.

* WhamShot: The last scene. As Kevin [[spoiler: lies dying on the floor, Virgil empties the syringe of adrenaline he promised to rescucitate Kevin with and then blows his own brains out.]]
* AteHisGun: Virgil.

* ThisIsThePartWhere: Kevin says it to Dennis.

* ShoutOut: The title of this episode is based on a [[https://gittefalkenberg.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/i-sent-you-two-boats-and-a-helicopter/ joke about religious faith.]]

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Because Matt stopped to help a member of the GR who is hit with a rock, he ended up losing his church [[spoiler: to the very GR]]

* BriarPatching: A library fundraiser is held. Garvey asks Patti nicely to leave the event alone, believing that this would make the GR ''more'' likely to show up and give him an excuse to jail them all during the Christmas season. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for him, they see through the gambit and plan accordingly]].

* PartingWordsRegret: We discover that Nora's last interaction with her family was yelling at her daughter for spilling her juice over the cellphone. She's never gotten over that fact.

* CallBack: In the pilot, Garvey says that people are ready to explode when Lucy says Memorial Day is meant to help them move on. In the season finale, set a year later on the same holiday, a riot breaks out in response to the GR's latest stunt and Lucy admits that he was right.

* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: In the first scene of the pilot, our attention is focused on the woman losing her child and the boy calling out for his father. This is the great Departure. In the background, a car screeches to a halt and a moment later a second one plows into it. It isn't until two episodes later we learn that [[spoiler:Matt Jamison and his wife, Mary, are in the first car. Further, Mary is injured so badly that three years later she is catatonic.]]

* ThisIsThePartWhere: Episode 2 of the first season, Kevin says it to Dennis.

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

* WholeEpisodeFlashback: "The Garveys at Their Best" is set in the days before the Great Departure, ending at the moment it happened.

* PoliceAreUseless: 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.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the first episode of season 2, Evie and her friends drive home from a swimming excursion in stony silence. This foreshadows that [[spoiler:they've secretly joined the Guilty Remnant]].

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

* BackForTheDead: [[spoiler: Dean the dog-hunter returns in the third season premiere, and dies trying to murder Kevin and Tommy.]]

!!This series provides examples of:
* AdamWesting: [[Series/PerfectStrangers Mark Linn-Baker]] appears as a post-departure version of himself in "Don't Be Ridiculous".

* TheAlcoholic: Kevin Garvey does a lot of drinking in the early episodes.
* AdultFear:
** Best exemplified by the opening scene in which a woman loses her baby to the Great Departure. Taken to a more horrifying level in "The Garveys At Their Best", as it's heavily implied that [[spoiler: Laurie, who was receiving a pregnancy ultrasound at the time of the departure, saw her baby disappear in utero. She reveals this to Kevin in Season 3]].
** Also in this episode , we discover that Nora's last interaction with her family was yelling at her daughter for spilling her juice over the cellphone.
* AlternateUniverse:
** Whenever Kevin dies, he goes to an alternate reality where he's an assassin [[spoiler:as well as the President of the United States in a world where the GR has become a global power]].
** In the series finale, Nora claims that [[spoiler:the Departure split the human population between two otherwise identical dimensions, one with 98% of the population and the other with 2% of the population]].
* AluminumChristmasTrees: The real Mark Linn-Baker really does have two degrees from Yale.

* ArcWords: "Are you a good man?" or variants, directed at Kevin Garvey.
* ArmorPiercingQuestion: In "Lens", Erika gets reprimanded by Nora for associating her actions with the disappearance of her daughter. In turn, Erika asks about Nora's kids, and whether they died or departed. Her follow-up is enough to cause Nora to break down in tears.
-->'''Erika''': What were the last words they said to you, to the best of your recollection?
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: In [=S2E02=] "A Matter of Geography," Nora suggests that she and Kevin open up to each other if they're going to be a family unit. Kevin recounts his sleepwalking episodes - which leads into him kidnapping Patti, watching her commit suicide, and recruiting Matt to help bury her. He finishes his story with "And I smoke."
* AsHimself: Mark Linn-Baker, revealed on the news to have faked his Departure, shows up as himself in Season 3, delivering a message to Nora. In the process, he references his actual degrees from Yale.
* AsleepForDays: Matt Jamison after getting hit with a rock. [[spoiler: Rule Of Drama 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.]]
* TheAtoner: Virgil considers himself this. He wants to atone for horrific acts he committed as a younger man by helping an increasingly unhinged Kevin find peace.
* BackForTheDead: [[spoiler: Dean the dog-hunter returns in the third season premiere, and dies trying to murder Kevin and Tommy.]]
* 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.
** In the season 2 finale "I Live Here Now", [[spoiler:Kevin once again finds himself back at the hotel after being shot by John Murphy. This time he gets out of it by doing a karaoke performance of Simon & Garfunkel's "Homeward Bound" in the hotel bar]].
* BadassGrandpa: The elder Garvey is a muscular old man and a former police chief. He's still considered very dangerous at his age and even beats up a younger police officer.
* BatmanGambit: In "B.J. and the A.C.", a library fundraiser is held. Garvey asks Patti nicely to leave the event alone, believing that this would make the GR ''more'' likely to show up and give him an excuse to jail them all during the Christmas season. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for him, they see through the gambit and plan accordingly]].
* BeardOfSorrow:
** Kevin in the first season, 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.
** Kevin grows a beard in the third season, and he's just as damaged as ever, though a flashback reveals that he did so on Nora's request.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: When a mugger tries to steal Matt's casino winnings, which he needs to save his church, Matt flips out and smashes the guy's head into the ground until he stops moving.
* BigBad: Patti in season one. Meg in season two.
* BigScrewedUpFamily: Garvey's father is crazy, his wife is in a cult, his step-son is off the grid with another cult, and he's raising his BrattyTeenageDaughter alone. On top of that, he has to deal with the pressures of the Guilty Remnant and his own possible insanity.
* BlatantLies: "Not a cult," Laurie says of the Guilty Remnant. This while using textbook brainwashing methods on Meg to recruit her.
* {{Bookends}}:

** Episode 2.06 ("Lens") begins with Nora angrily throwing a rock through the Murphys' window. At episode's end - after [[spoiler:Nora has confronted Erika with the new DSD questionnaire, and as Kevin admits to Nora that he's being haunted by the ghost of Patti Levin]], Erika returns the favor.
** "International Assassin" begins with [[spoiler:Kevin breaking the surface of water]] and ends with [[spoiler:Kevin breaking the surface of soil]].

** [[spoiler:Season 3 opens with a sequence set in the 1800s, which ends with a man sitting on a roof, confused as to why the world hasn't ended. 6 episodes later, Kevin Sr. does the same thing.]]

* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Jill, Chief Garvey's daughter, has been acting out ever since her mother abandoned the family to join the Guilty Remnant cult. She gets a lot better in season two.
* BrickJoke:
** In "Gladys", Patti reminds Laurie of a conversation they had before the Great Departure, illustrated by a white bag with a name on it which she leaves at the doorstop of a house. "The Garveys at Their Best" shows this was Laurie's idea: the bag represents all of her repressed feelings, and the house belongs to her husband.
** One of the Series 1 gags was that the entire cast of ''Series/PerfectStrangers'' vanished in the Departure. In the Season 2 opener, "Axis Mundi," it's revealed that [[spoiler: Mark Linn-Baker faked his disappearance, and has been found alive in South America.]] In Season 3, [[spoiler:he makes an appearance as a messenger for the group purporting to send people to the destination of the Departures]].
** The title of the episode "Two Boats and a Helicopter" is based on a [[https://gittefalkenberg.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/i-sent-you-two-boats-and-a-helicopter/ joke about religious faith.]]
* BuryingASubstitute: At the beginning of the series, about 2% of the world's population just suddenly vanishes, with no apparent cause and NoBodyLeftBehind. After a little while a company comes around that will build expensive, lifelike dolls that look like the deceased for a mock burial.
* CallBack: In the pilot, Garvey says that people are ready to explode when Lucy says Memorial Day is meant to help them move on. In the season finale, set a year later on the same holiday, a riot breaks out in response to the GR's latest stunt and Lucy admits that he was right.
* TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive: Literally for Chief Garvey, as the Call comes in the form of his father who knows his home address.

* CreatorCameo: Peter Berg, an executive producer on the show and director of the first two episodes, appears in a small role as one of Wayne's guards.
* 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.
** Also the attitude of the government cult agent towards the Guilty Remnant. The Guilty Remnant is far more destructive and sinister than they initially appear.
** Kevin's father seems less crazy as the show goes on, particularly in light of the events of "International Assassin".

* DeadlyEuphemism: In "Gladys", while speaking with Chief Garvey on the phone, ATFEC Agent Calaney offers to make the Guilty Remnant 'disappear' from Mapleton, permanently. [[spoiler: Kevin refuses the offer, which he later regrets.]]
* DiedInYourArmsTonight: [[spoiler: Patti died in Kevin's arms. Twice.]]
* DistantFinale: [[spoiler: The majority of "The Book of Nora" takes place at least two decades into the future, with Nora now living in Australia under the alias of "Sarah".]]
* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: Disturbingly averted in "Off Ramp" with [[spoiler: Meg and Tom]].
* DownerBeginning: It doesn't get any more depressing than the sudden disappearance of 2% of the world's population, as highlighted by a mother losing her child.

* DrivenToSuicide:
** [[spoiler: Patti]] in "Cairo."
** [[spoiler: Kevin]] in "A Matter Of Geography," [[spoiler: although he survives thanks to the lake having vanished after he somnambulantly tied a brick to himself and jumped in. In "Orange Sticker" he admits to Patti that, like her, he really wants to kill himself.]]
** A horrifyingly ''literal'' example in "Off Ramp" [[spoiler: by Susan, a rescued former Guilty Remnant member, due to the trauma of her experience among them and knowing they'll go after her. She shuts her eyes and swerves her car into oncoming traffic, taking her family along with her.]]
* 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. [[spoiler: She wakes up again in "I Live Here Now," and confirms what happened.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: The Guilty Remnant's policy is to never target children (and they never attack people physically unless the others attack first). Meg has no such scruples.
* EverybodyKnewAlready: Kevin Garvey Sr. assumed Matt would eventually be going after the stash of money in his yard, hence when Matt sneaks in and digs it up, there's already a note inside saying Matt probably really needed it and is welcome to it.
* {{Expy}}: The Guilty Remnant appear to be one for the Westboro Baptist Church: showing up uninvited to sensitive group events to provoke people through offensive protests.
* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath:
** Gladys, a member of the Guilty Remnant, is brutally stoned to death.
** [[spoiler:Patti Levin]] stabs herself in the neck with a shard of glass.
* FanDisservice: "No Room at the Inn" ends with Matt stripping naked before being put in the stocks. Let's just say it isn't only the [[Characters/DoctorWhoRevivalSeriesDoctorsNineAndTen Ninth Doctor's]] ''ears'' [[LampshadedDoubleEntendre that are big...]]
** In "I Live Here Now," [[spoiler: the Guilty Remnant members who've been hiding in plain sight in the park disrobe to change into their white uniforms. Suffice to say not all of them are as attractive as Liv Tyler or Margaret Qualley]].
* {{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.]]
** Jill herself has a brief underwear scene in "The Prodigal Son Returns" [[spoiler: but she's changing to put on a Guilty Remnant uniform at the time]].
** "Axis Mundi," the season two premiere, has Evie and her friend Taylor streaking in the forest outside Jarden.
** Kevin makes a NakedFirstImpression in the very first scene of "International Assassin."
* {{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]].
** In the first episode of season 2, Evie and her friends drive home from a swimming excursion in stony silence. This foreshadows that [[spoiler:they've secretly joined the Guilty Remnant]].
* {{Flashforward}}: From [=S3E7=] "The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother)" to [=S3E8=] "The Book of Nora", the story line jumps ahead [[spoiler:decades]] while still remaining in Australia.
* ForWantOfANail: In the second season, an MIT research group buys Nora's house because they're been studying anomalous Departures (specifically, large groups like her family). Through their research, they've come to the conclusion that the event was geographic in nature, and the act of walking over to use the sink because her kids spilled something on her phone spared Nora from being Departed as they were.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: The antagonists. Wayne was an {{ephebophile}} street preacher who somehow moved up to cult leader having meetings with U.S. senators. Patti was one of Laurie's patients who wound up as the leader of the local Guilty Remnant chapter. Meg has the starkest change, from a depressed wife to a borderline psychotic member of the Guilty Remnant who is willing to throw fake grenades onto school buses to scare kids. Even other members of the cult find her methods repulsive.
* GasLeakCoverup: The [[spoiler:drone strike on the Guilty Remnant members]] in Miracle is officially spun as a gas leak ignited by a cigarette, even though it happened in broad daylight and is well-known enough that pretty much anyone can look up the truth.
* GiveMeASign: Tom nearly gives up on Wayne's cult in "B.J. and the A.C.", insisting that Wayne call the phone he was given with some kind of explanation. The phone rings... but it's just a telephone ad. He sticks around anyway.
* 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, realizing that they'll still be coming for her, she drives their car into oncoming traffic and [[TakingYouWithMe kills herself and her family]].]]
* 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. He is, however, in all other respects a very nice man.
* GoodShepherd: Jamison. In spite of all of his trials and hardships, is still deeply committed to being a righteous man and doing well by his community.
* 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. Sympathetic characters who smoke, like Kevin and Nora, do so because they subconsciously want to die.

* HeroicBSOD: When Nora is awoken and Kevin is gone, she fears that another Departure has occurred and taken yet another person she loves. She breaks down and ultimately passes out.
* HeroicSuicide: Virgil shoots himself to enter the afterlife and be Kevin's guide there.
* HiddenInPlainSight:
** 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 on his forehead and lack of shoes than his face.
** After cleaning herself up, Nora attempts to walk right back into the hotel where she's been banned, but is quickly stopped by security.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: After the Guilty Remnant buys his church, Matt shifts his operation from exposing the departed to exposing the members of the Guilty Remnant, using the same tactics they do to remind them of the families they've abandoned. It succeeds in getting Meg to freak out and attack him, hypocritically decrying him for doing what they do. To a lesser extent, it also makes them spend energy trying to counter him, rather than sticking to their normal routine.
* HowWeGotHere:
** [=S3E1=] ends with Nora looking many years older, living in Australia under the name "Sarah," and denying ever having known a man named "Kevin." The rest of the season jumps back in time to show how we got here.
** "Certified" explains how Laurie showed up to the Ranch alone, in a stolen van with a black eye.
* IronicEcho: When Kevin confronts Meg in Jarden, Meg will only respond by singing the gospel theme song of Miracle, which [[spoiler:she has utterly destroyed]].
* IronicJuxtaposition: "Cairo" opens with Patti carefully laying out sets of clothing intercut with scenes of Garvey preparing for dinner with Nora.
* ItMayHelpYouOnYourQuest: When Chief Garvey's father decides it's time for his son to learn about his destiny, he breaks out of the psych ward and goes on a search to pick up... a 1970 National Geographic magazine, apparently because there's something important about that specific issue.
* JustAFleshWound: [[spoiler:John Murphy shoots Kevin in the torso, sending Kevin back to the afterlife-or-is-it hotel. When Kevin comes back, the gunshot is not life-threatening and he's able to wander around the town with apparently only moderate pain. There might be some magic going on]].
* KickTheDog:
** Matt Jamison has severe money troubles, is being followed by the Guilty Remnant, and his church has already been foreclosed on. Then the Guilty Remnant buys his church, guts it, and paints all the windows white.
** The Guilty Remnant tops themselves one episode later, stealing family photos from houses under cover of darkness. This is part of a larger plot to [[spoiler:make corpse dolls of the Departed individuals in the photos as part of some big operation]].

** 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]].
** In the second season, [[spoiler:Kevin confesses to kidnapping Patti and burying her body]]. The police refuse to even investigate, and he's allowed to walk away without a form being filed.
* LaserGuidedKarma: A man mugs Matt for his Jarden wristband, breaking his wrist and giving him a concussion. He's later hit by a truck and killed instantly.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: The show often teases people or circumstances to be supernatural. Sometimes it's later revealed that they are not. while other circumstances are never resolved completely.

* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: In the first scene of the pilot, our attention is focused on the woman losing her child and the boy calling out for his father. This is the great Departure. In the background, a car screeches to a halt and a moment later a second one plows into it. It isn't until two episodes later we learn that [[spoiler:Matt Jamison and his wife, Mary, are in the first car. Further, Mary is injured so badly that three years later she is catatonic.]]
* MercyKill: In "The Garveys at Their Best", Garvey shoots a deer that was still alive after being run down by a car.
* MissingMom: Garvey's wife joined the Guilty Remnant for whatever reason, giving their activities a personal edge for him.
* MoodDissonance: Called out in the pilot over the term "Heroes Day" for memorializing the departed.
-->'''Councillor:''' I still don't think they were heroes. My brother-in-law disappeared, and he was a dipshit.\\
(later)\\
'''Matt Jamison:''' It wasn't the Rapture! They were no better than us! I have proof! Free of charge! ''(waves papers)'' She beat her children! She beat her children! Does that sound like a good person to you?

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Because Matt stopped to help a member of the GR who is hit with a rock, he ended up losing his church [[spoiler: to the very GR]]
* NoNameGiven: The Dog Killer goes unnamed for many episodes and is implied to be a supernatural being for a while [[spoiler:but it's eventually established that he's just a crazy man named Dean]].
* NotSoStoic: In the first season, members of the Guilty Remnant occasionally break their code of silence under extreme duress:
** [[spoiler:Gladys pleads for mercy as she's stoned, even though Patti claims that she was "okay with" being killed]].
** It takes a few false starts before [[spoiler:Meg]] fully commits to remaining silent.
** Even Laurie breaks her iron silence when [[spoiler:Jill gets trapped in the burning GR headquarters. She whimpers while being dragged out of the house, then screams "Jill!" at her husband to get him to rescue her]].

* 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]].
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Nora to the partying convention-goers. They refer to her by her temporary name badge "Guest" and she never sets them straight.
* OnlyTheKnowledgableMayPass: In "No Room At The Inn," when Matt beseeches a fellow devout Christian for money in the camp outside Miracle (to bribe a coyote to smuggle him back in), she quizzes him on his scripture:
-->'''Woman:''' What's your favorite book? Of the Bible.\\
'''Matt:''' Job.\\
'''Woman:''' What's his wife's name?\\
'''Matt:''' She isn't named. And she speaks only once. "''Does thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and die.''"

* PermaStubble: Throughout the first season, 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.
* PlatonicProstitution: Nora hires prostitutes to shoot her while she's wearing a bullet-proof vest.
* 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.
** Early in season 2, [[spoiler:Kevin]] confesses his role in [[spoiler:Patti]]'s death. The police tell him they simply don't care whether or not it happened as he described for the same reason as above.
** 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. That is until the season 3 premiere (see ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill)]].
* 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.
** Season 2 notably averts the trope, with Kevin and Nora sitting down to air out all their darkest secrets to each other, which helps them cope, at least in the short term.
* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: Laurie knows enough about Judas to compare herself to him, but didn't know he killed himself.
* PrecisionFStrike: Even by the show's [[SirSwearsALot standards]], Meg's outburst to Matt in "Cairo" is notable. As is Jill replying to Michael asking her not to swear in the church they're in at the time ("A Most Powerful Adversary") by cursing even louder ("''Fuck! FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!''")... and then commenting on the lack of lightning bolts.
* ProfessionalKiller: Kevin plays the part in "International Assassin."

* RageBreakingPoint: In a CallBack all the way to the pilot, Garvey mentioned that people are ready to explode. The Guilty Remnant pull a stunt in the finale that finally pushes them over the edge, resulting in a full-blown riot against the GR.
* RealityEnsues:
** Matt leaving the casino alone with a large bag of cash. He's quickly accosted by a thug who watched him leave.
** In season 2, the Guilty Remnant staged a MASSIVE invasion of the town of Jarden, Texas. This led to serious civil unrest as droves of unsanctioned civilians came in with them and proceeded to loot and commit general anarchy. In response to this domestic terrorism, [[spoiler:ATFEC launches a drone strike on the visitor's center where the GR is holed up, wiping them all out in an instant]].
* 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.
* RedHerring: In the DistantFinale, [[spoiler:Nora goes into the device that is supposed to send her to where the Departed went. She's next seen many years later in Australia, where Kevin locates her and claims that they've spoken to each other once. All of this teases the idea that Nora has been sent to an alternate dimension where her relationship with Kevin is different. Later, it's revealed that no, they're in the same dimension and Kevin is just trying to "start over." Nora ''does,'' however,' claim to have returned from an alternate dimension]].

** Episodes 2 through 7 of Season three have a piece of music relevant to the episode playing over season two's intro sequence, including, in a twist on this trope, the ''original'' theme music.

* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: [[spoiler: Christine abandons Tommy and her newborn daughter when she learns that she is not Wayne's only 'Special' girl.]]
* ShaggyDogStory: A subplot in "B.J. and the A.C." has Garvey trying to find a stolen baby Jesus from a nativity scene. He is initially told to just buy a replacement and scruff it up a bit, but since his daughter called that cheating (and is responsible for stealing it), he instead intimidates her friends into returning it. When he tries to put it back, Matt Jamison has beat him to the punch, replacing the cheap toy store doll with a superior version he had lying around. Garvey just chucks the doll out his window on the way home.

* SilentCredits: With "The Garveys at Their Best," which ends with the Departure - the final shot is [[spoiler: Laurie's stunned reaction to seeing that her unborn child, which she'd just seen via ultrasound, has vanished]]. To maintain the mood, even the Warner Bros. Television logo is silent, with the only sound accompanying the "TV switching off" Home Box Office logo at the very end.

* StayWithMeUntilIDie: [[spoiler:Wayne asks this of Garvey, even getting him to humor a last request where he grants a wish. Though Wayne suspects that he's a fraud rather than a Messiah, if Garvey's wish comes true, at least that will be real.]]
* StacysMom: Aimee seems to have a bit of a crush on Mr. Garvey. During an argument, Jill openly accuses her of sleeping with him.

* StrawNihilist: The Guilty Remnant. Their EstablishingCharacterMoment is to stand near a prayer vigil for the Departed with boards that read together "STOP WASTING YOUR BREATH!" and they only get ''nastier'' from there.
* 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 make up for it by comping all her hotel expenses.
* TakingYouWithMe: [[spoiler: When Susan deliberately drives into oncoming traffic in "Off Ramp," she has her husband and son with her at the time.]]

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: After the Guilty Remnant's stunt in season 2, the government apparently decides they're done with this nonsense [[spoiler:and straight up orders a drone strike on the visitor's center they are holed up in]].

* ThisIsThePartWhere: Episode 2 of the first season, Kevin says it to Dennis
* TookALevelInBadass: Meg in season two. She's just fresh meat for the GR in season one, but by season two has become a confident, manipulative schemer and a power player in the GR hierarchy.
* TookALevelInJerkass:
** "B.J. and the A.C." has the Guilty Remnant move up from public harassment to breaking and entering 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]].
** Meg in season two. She goes from a meek and unsure woman looking for answers to a zealous GR member whose methods are extreme even by GR standards.

* TrailersAlwaysLie: So as to not spoil the cliffhanger of "A Most Powerful Adversary", or give away the episode's MindScrew events, trailers for "International Assassin" used clips that mostly consisted of footage from the episodes after it.
* TraumaSwing: When Matt Jamison goes to unbury the money meant for him in the Garveys' garden, he finds [[spoiler:Laurie]] sitting on the swing set.
* TurnTheOtherCheek: Matt Jamison does this constantly, barring that one instance he beat the crap out of a mugger for trying to take the money he needed to save his church. The Guilty Remnant subscribes to the same philosophy, believing that violence is a sign of weakness, even though they aren't above other morally dubious actions.

* ViewersAreGoldfish: In the first 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.
* VikingFuneral: Jill's friends try to egg her into giving the stolen baby Jesus doll one of these. She ultimately can't go through with it, and her friends end up giving the doll to Garvey so he won't arrest them.
* TheVoiceless: The Guilty Remnant forswear speaking and communicate only through writing, though higher-ranking members are apparently allowed to speak whenever they feel it appropriate.
* WhamEpisode: "The Garveys At Their Best" is a WholeEpisodeFlashback taking place in the last days before the Departure. After 8 episodes spent with these characters, we suddenly see what their lives were like just before the Departure, and it changes or explains a ''lot'' about who they are now and why.
* WhamLine:
** At the end of "Ten Thirteen," the answer to the question posed:
-->'''Tom''': Who are you?
-->[[spoiler: '''Evie''']]: [[spoiler: ''(doesn't speak but writes "It doesn't matter" on a notepad, conveying to him (and the viewers) that she and the other (not-so-)"departed" girls are members of The Guilty Remnant)'']]
** From "Lens":
-->'''Erika''' to '''Nora''': Your children. You said you lost them. Did they depart, or did they die?
* WhamShot: The end of "A Most Powerful Adversary". As Kevin [[spoiler: lies dying on the floor, Virgil empties the syringe of adrenaline he promised to rescucitate Kevin with and then blows his own brains out.]]

* WholeEpisodeFlashback: "The Garveys at Their Best" is set in the days before the Great Departure, ending at the moment it happened.
* WildTeenParty: Jill attends a wild teen party in the pilot featuring pounding club music, flashing colored lights, drinking, drugs, casual sex and even self-mutilation.
* UltimateJobSecurity: Chief Garvey is clearly not emotionally stable at times. He's always seen with a week's worth of stubble, sometimes appears drunk in public, and is frequently bungling police actions. He's also quite young for a police chief with such a large and experienced staff. However, it's never suggested that his job security is at risk. It probably helps that he lives in a small town, his father was the previous chief, and he's tight with the mayor.

* AdamWesting: Mark Linn-Baker appears as a post-departure version of himself in "Don't Be Ridiculous".

** "Axis Mundi" introduces and focuses on the Murphys, with the Garvey's appearing in more of a background role.

** Episodes 2 through 7 of Season three have a piece of music relevant to the episode playing over season two's intro sequence.

* AsleepForDays: Matt Jameson after getting hit with a rock. [[spoiler: Rule Of Drama 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.]]

** Season Three kicks off 2 weeks before the 7th anniversary of the Great Departure. Matt Jameson, his congregation, and many others believe something monumental is going to happen this time around, but no one knows or says what it will be. [[spoiler: As it turns out, nothing happens whatsoever, aside from a brief storm.]]

* VaguenessIsComing: The elder Garvey is not exactly descriptive when explaining what is going on to Kevin. Neither is Patti in the next episode. "The Garveys at Their Best" shows that Patti had this trait prior to the Great Departure as well.

** With the benefit of hindsight from season 3's "Certified," however, Laurie ''being'' a therapist may have contributed to her joining the Remnant; her own profound and unresolved grief, and inability to meaningfully frame her loss surrounding The Sudden Departure must have made it dangerous to engage day-in and day-out with the similar distress of others. When another mother asks her about the possibility of the departed eventually returning to the same spot from whence they disappeared, and what she should do- pointing out that the GR members outside "would at least write it down"- something in Laurie snaps.

** 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 shoots himself (doing it explicitly so he could guide Kevin there as well).

* AdultFear: Best exemplified by the opening scene in which a woman loses her baby to the Great Departure. Taken to a more horrifying level in "The Garveys At Their Best", as it's heavily implied that [[spoiler: Laurie, who was receiving a pregnancy ultrasound at the time of the departure, saw her baby disappear in utero. She reveals this to Kevin in Season 3]].

* BeardOfSorrow: Kevin in the first season, 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.

* CreatorCameo: Peter Berg, who directed episodes one and two, appears in a small role as one of Wayne's guards.

** Granted, out of all the theories presented, this one seems to be one of the least likely based on information that the audience knows that said MIT researchers couldn't; [[spoiler: between the woman Kevin was sleeping with departing while he was penetrating her, as per WordOfGod, to Kevin and Laurie's unborn child departing ''in utero'', it seems clear that explanation just doesn't hold water.]]

* 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. Heroes who smoke, like Kevin, do so because they subconsciously want to die.

* HowWeGotHere: [=S3E1=] ends with a woman named "Sara" (looking like a much older and world-weary Nora) living in Australia and steadfastly denying she has any recollection of any man named "Kevin". [[spoiler:[=S3E8=] reveals this is Nora, ''many'' years in the show's future. She may have gone to where everyone Departed to and seen her children grown, her husband with a new wife, and decided she belonged nowhere, before coming back here. Or she just avoided Kevin after a horrendous fight they had and he abandoned her again]].

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane:

* OutOfFocus: Kevin and Laurie's kids are barely present in Season 3.

* TimeSkip: The series tends to move ahead in time as is narratively convenient. For example, "B.J. and the A.C." has [[spoiler:Christine]] barely a month along in her pregnancy, only for her to give birth in "Solace for Tired Feet", three episodes later. The season finale is set on Memorial Day, about seven months after the pilot.

* WhamLine: At the end of "Ten Thirteen," the answer to the question posed:

-->'''Erika''' to '''Nora''': Your children. You said you lost them. '''Did they depart, or did they die?'''

** 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."

** The Dog Killer was initially teased as being a figment of Kevin's imagination. Although he's later established to be a real person (known to the people of Mapleton as "Dean"), no one has managed to find any identifying information on him. He says that he thinks of himself as a "guardian angel." Who or what he is has yet to be revealed.

** 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 shoots himself (doing it explicitly so he could guide Kevin there as well). His gunshot wound also seems to becomes much less serious after he escapes the hotel the second time]].

* NoNameGiven: The Dog Killer, who avoids giving his name since Garvey doesn't yet trust him. It's eventually revealed to be Dean.

** In season 2, the Guilty Remnant staged a MASSIVE invasion of the town of Jarden, TX (rechristened "Miracle" after the Great Departure and officially declared a ''National Park''). This led to serious civil unrest as droves of unsanctioned civilians came in with them and proceeded to loot and commit general anarchy. The response to what is basically domestic terrorism in season 3? [[spoiler:ATFEC launches a drone strike on the visitor's center where the GR is holed up, wiping them all out in an instant]].

* ReplacedTheThemeTune: Season two has completely different opening sequence and song from season one.

** One of the Series 1 gags was that the entire cast of ''Series/PerfectStrangers'' vanished in the Departure. In the Season 2 opener, "Axis Mundi," it's revealed that [[spoiler: Mark Linn-Baker faked his disappearance, and has been found alive in South America.]]