Recap / The Leftovers

Season 1

Episode 1 — Pilot

• Blindfolded Trip: Tom aks the congressman to wear blindfolds when taking him Wayne's hideout.
• Country Matters: Jill refers to that team mate she punched out on the field as a cunt.
• Downer Beginning: 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.
• Hysterical Woman: The mother how freaks out after her baby vanished.
• Meaningful Background Event: In the first scene, 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 Matt Jamison and his wife, Mary, are in the first car. Further, Mary is injured so badly that three years later she is catatonic.
• Mood Dissonance: Called out 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?
• Wild Teen Party: Jill attends a wild teen party featuring pounding club music, flashing colored lights, drinking, drugs, casual sex and even self-mutilation.

Episode 2 — Penguin One, Us Zero

• Apologetic Attacker: Tom apologizes to the police man he shot in the neck.
• Blatant Lies: "Not a cult," Laurie says of the Guilty Remnant. This while using textbook brainwashing methods on Meg to recruit her.
• This Is the Part Where...: Kevin brings this up in conversation with one of his officers.
  Kevin: Dennis, do you think I made this guy up?
  '(Silence)
  Kevin: This is the part where you say, "No, Chief, that's fucking ridiculous."
• Creator Cameo: 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.

Episode 3 — Two Boats and a Helicopter

• Asleep for Days: Matt after getting hit with a rock. 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.
• As You Know: Nora mentions stuff to her brother about their parents which only serves to inform the audience.
  Nora: They died in a fire when I was seven...
• Beware the Nice Ones: 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.
• Everybody Knew Already: 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.
• A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: Subverted. It looks like Matt is gonna lose his new won money to a thug outside the casino but he manages to hold on to the bag.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Because Matt stopped to help a member of the GR who is hit with a rock, he ended up losing his church to the very GR.
• The Patient Has Left the Building: Matt leaves the hospital on his own terms after being Asleep for Days.
• Poor Communication Kills: The nurse doesn't out-and-out tell Matt he's been Asleep for Days, and is instead being vague because the plot demands it for Rule of Drama.
• Shout-Out: The title of this episode is based on a joke about religious faith.
• Trauma Swing: When Matt Jamison goes to unbury the money meant for him in the Garveys' garden, he finds Laurie sitting on the swing set.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Facing the possibility that his church will be sold, Jamison is apparently given signs from God that allow him to win enough money gambling to keep it. As he's on his way to pay the bank, he sees a member of the Guilty Remnant get hit with a very large rock. He tries to call 911, but the guys that threw the first rock come back and hit him with another. He wakes up in the hospital and seems to still have enough time to reach the bank before closing. Only when he reaches the bank does he realize that he's actually three days overdue, and, just to rub salt in the wound, it's the Guilty Remnant that bought his church. He gets to keep his huge surplus of cash though, so his money troubles are over for the time being.

Episode 4 — B.J. and the A.C.

• Give Me a Sign: Tom nearly gives up on Wayne's cult, 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.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: 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.
• Reverse Psychology: 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. Unfortunately for him, they see through the gambit and plan accordingly.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: A subplot 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.
• Shout-Out: Laurie dropping the lighter into the grid and later recovering it is a reference to Strangers on a Train.
• Viking Funeral: 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.

Episode 5 — Gladys

• Deadly Euphemism: While speaking with Chief Garvey on the phone, ATFEC Agent Calaney offers to make the Guilty Remnant 'disappear' from Mapleton, permanently. Kevin refuses the offer, which he later regrets.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Gladys, a member of the Guilty Remnant, is brutally stoned to death.

Episode 6 — Guest

• Arc Words: It appears a couple of times before this, but only in this episode does Holy Wayne's "Do you want to feel this way?" become important.
• Armour-Piercing Question: "Do you want to feel this way?" Nora can finally say "no" in this episode.
• Burying a Substitute: After about 2% of the world's population just suddenly vanishes, with no apparent cause and No Body Left Behind, a company comes around that will build expensive, lifelike dolls that look like the deceased for a mock burial.
• Empty Bedroom Grieving: Nora keeps the room of her children as they left it and even renews the cornflakes boxes in the kitchen ever so often.
• Howl of Sorrow: Nora has one when she speaks the Attention Whore writer.
  What is next? NOTHING IS NEXT!
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Nora to the partying convention-goers. They refer to her by her temporary name badge "Guest" and she never sets them straight.
• Platonic Prostitution: Nora hires prostitutes to shoot her while she's wearing a bullet-proof vest.
• Reckless Gun Usage: 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.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: 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.

Episode 7 — Solace for Tired Feet

• The Call Knows Where You Live: Literally for Chief Garvey, as the Call comes in the form of his father who knows his home address.
• It May Help You on Your Quest: 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.
• Mobstacle Course: When Kevin's father flees from the police car, Kevin runs after him but a group of Guilty Remnant is in his way. Naturally he has to bump into every single one of them and losing track of his father in the process.
• Three-Month-Old Newborn: Christine's newborn looks three month old.
• Woman Scorned: When the other Asian girl learns that she is not the only one Wayne "planted his seed in", she grabs a gun and shoots at Tom.

Episode 8 — Cairo

• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Patti died in Kevin's arms.
• Driven to Suicide: Patti.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Patti Levin stabs herself in the neck with a shard of glass.
• Heroic BSoD: Kevin has one when seeing his white shirts hung up on the woods.
• Ironic Juxtaposition: The episode opens with Patti carefully laying out sets of clothing intercut with scenes of Garvey preparing for dinner with Nora.
• Motive Rant: Patti gives one to Kevin.
• Precision F-Strike: Even by the show's standards, Meg's outburst to Matt 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.
• Stacy's Mom: Aimee seems to have a bit of a crush on Mr. Garvey. During an argument, Jill openly accuses her of sleeping with him.

Episode 9 — The Garveys at Their Best

• Brick Joke: 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. This episode shows this was Laurie's idea: the bag represents all of her repressed feelings, and the house belongs to her husband.
• Cassandra Truth: Patti mentions in a therapy session with Laurie that she feels the world is gonna end. Laurie doesn't believe her.
• Fanservice: The woman who Kevin is cheating on Laurie with is also very attractive and naked when she vanishes.
• Happy Birthday to You!: This episode was shot a year before the lyrics to "Happy Birthday to You" moved into public domain so it's no surprise that we hear "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" sung instead of "Happy Birthday" at Kevin Sr.'s birthday party.
• Interrupted Intimacy: Possible, supernatural version of this trope: the woman Kevin cheats on Laurie with is shown to have vanished during their hotel tryst, and Kevin confirms to Matt that he was "with her" when she vanished, though it's not confirmed whether or not they were actually in the middle of sex when it happened.
• Last Day of Normalcy: Via Whole Episode Flashback, "The Garveys At Their Best" flashes back to show the characters in their final twenty-four hours before the Departure. There are some hints that something is coming: Patti, now a damaged psychiatric patient of Laurie's, is convinced that some unspecified calamity is about to happen; a drain lid blows off in front of Kevin; and a stranger asks him if he's "ready". Other than that, everything is very normal: Laurie and Kevin are still married (and Laurie is hiding her pregnancy from him), Chris is in college, not affiliated to any cult and is fighting with his birth father, Jill is a perky and happy teenager, Matt is celebrating his birthday with his not-yet disabled wife, and Nora is dissatisfied with her home life and suspects that her husband is cheating on her. Then the Sudden Departure happens, and nothing is the same again.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: More so than other episodes because this episode demonstrates some of the strange things that occur prior to the Departure. See: a group of older woman pulling up beside Kevin on the day of the Departure.
  Are you ready?
• Mercy Kill: Garvey shoots a deer that was still alive after being run down by a car.
• Parting-Words Regret: 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.
• Silent Credits: The final shot is 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.
• Wham Episode: A Whole Episode Flashback 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.
• Whole Episode Flashback: This episode is set in the days before the Great Departure, ending at the moment it happened.

Episode 10 — The Prodigal Son Returns

• Big Damn Heroes: Kevin saves Laurie and Jill separately from a burning fire.
• Call-Back:
  • 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.
  • The corpse dolls mentioned in episode 6 make an appearance.
• Carpet-Rolled Corpse: Patti is rolled up in a carpet and then carried into the forest for burial.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: 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.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Wayne dies in Kevin's arms, presumably after being shot by the police.
• The Dog Bites Back: The people of Mapleton finally get fed up with the Guilty Remnant after they place life-sized doll replicas of the Departed in their homes. So they proceed to burn down the GR's houses, beat up any cult members they get their hands on, and burn the mannequins in a big fire in the center of the culs-de-sac.
• Doorstop Baby: Tom places Christine's baby daughter on the porch for Kevin to find. But it's Nora who finds her first which makes her change her mind about leaving Mapleton.
• Epilogue Letter: Nora's farewell letter to Kevin is read out in her voice in the second-to-last scene of this season.
• Fanservice: Jill has a brief underwear scene but she's changing to put on a Guilty Remnant uniform at the time.
• Foreshadowing: As Matt drives Kevin back to Mapleton there's a news story about a manhunt on the radio. It's Holy Wayne, who is dying in the restroom where Matt and Kevin stop for lunch.
• Heroic BSoD: Unsurprisingly happens to most of the Mapleton residents after the Guilty Remnant breaks into their houses and places the mannequins of the Departed inside their houses. Nora gets this most of all, and it's implied that she may be Driven to Suicide, but thankfully she finds Christine's baby before she can.
• Police Are Useless: The Guilty Remnant causes a riot throughout Mapleton by 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.
• Rage Breaking Point: In a Call-Back 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.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Christine abandons Tommy and her newborn daughter when she learns that she is not Wayne's only 'Special' girl.
• Stay with Me Until I Die: 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.
• Riddle for the Ages: What Kevin wished for, and therefore whether it came true, remains ambiguous throughout the series.
• Viewers Are Goldfish: As the GR sets out to execute their latest stunt, there are several quick Flashback Cuts showing the various set-up phases (picture theft, corpse dolls, clothes), the latter two being only two episodes ago.

Season 2

Episode 1 — Axis Mundi

• As You Know: John mentions to Isaac that they both have known each other since third grade.
• Day in the Limelight: While the focus shifts between all the Garveys and the Jamisons, this is the first episode where the Garveys only appear for a brief moment, putting them Out of Focus in order to introduce us to Jarden.
• Destination Defenestration: During John's nightly raid, Isaac is thrown out of the window of his house.
• Fanservice: Evie and her friend Taylor streaking in the forest outside Jarden.
• Foreshadowing: Evie and her friends drive home from a swimming excursion in stony silence. This foreshadows that they've secretly joined the Guilty Remnant.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: John usually calls his daughter Evie but when they can't find her in her room after the earthquake, John leave an enraged message on her phone in which he calls her by her full name Evangeline.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Uplifting classic music plays over the muted Screaming Birth scene early on.
• Three-Month-Old Newborn: The child born to the prehistoric woman looks more like four month old.

Episode 2 — A Matter of Geography

• The Alleged House: The house Nora purchased for three million dollars turns out to be rundown. This is implied to be usual in Miracle, as everyone wants to live there.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: 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."
• Bungled Suicide: Kevin tries to drown himself via Cement Shoes but the earthquake puts a spanner in the works.
• For Want Of A Nail: 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.
• Police Are Useless: Kevin confesses his role in Patti's death. The police tell him they simply don't care whether or not it happened.

Episode 3 — Off Ramp

• Armour-Piercing Question: Laurie is keeping it together in her interview with the publishers. Then one of them asks her to edit the book to answer:
  How did it make you feel?

— and she absolutely loses it into an aggressive No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.

• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Disturbingly averted with Meg and Tom.
• Driven to Suicide: A horrifyingly literal example 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.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Susan, the cult member who Tom and Laurie rescue at the beginning is still haunted by the Guilty Remnant - but she's reunited with her husband and son, who are happy to have her back. Then, realizing that they'll still be coming for her, she drives their car into oncoming traffic and kills herself and her family.
• Heroic BSoD: Laurie suffers one and attacks the editor.
• Reusable Lighter Toss: Subverted. Meg has Tom soaked in fuel and threatens to drop Laurie's zippo onto him but it's only Fake Kill Scare message to Tom and Laurie for them to stop their business of "freeing" members of the Guilty Remnant.
• Safe Behind the Corner: Laurie sneaks into the house of her landlord in order to retrieve her laptop, but then the owner's wife returns. Laurie hides behind a wall that separates the kitchen from the stairway. The landlord's wife moves across the kitchen towards that spot but stops and leans on the wall talking on the phone. She doesn't move any closer to notice Laurie.
• Taking You with Me: When Susan deliberately drives into oncoming traffic, she has her husband and son with her at the time.

Episode 4 — Orange Sticker

• Driven to Suicide: Kevin admits to Patti that, like her, he really wants to kill himself. As first seen in "A Matter of Geography", he survives thanks to the lake having vanished after he somnambulantly tied a brick to himself and jumped in.
• Heroic BSoD: 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.
• Impairment Shot: Early on, when Nora suspects that Kevin has departed, she drops to the ground and the camera goes with her.

Episode 5 — No Room at the Inn

• Always Save the Girl: Matt eventually gets his wristband but insists that Mary get it so she may go back into Miracle that their child could be safe.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: 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. She wakes up again in "I Live Here Now," and confirms what happened.
• Fan Disservice: Ends with Matt stripping naked before being put in the stocks. Let's just say it isn't only the Ninth Doctor's ears that are big...
• Flashback Cut: When Matt finds the dead man in the car wreck, there's a short flashback to the scene where the man stole his wristband earlier in the episode, because Viewers Are Goldfish and couldn't make the connection themselves.
• Give Me a Sign: Matt demands this of god.
• Laser-Guided Karma: 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.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: Matt mentions that he and his wife tried to have children for ten years but then this one night they had when she awoke after three years was the time it actually worked.
• Male Frontal Nudity: When Matt takes his clothes off for his turn at the pillory.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Kevin got John to let Matt and Marie back into the town but then Matt makes John angry at the last moment so that the latter would change his mind and have Matt and his wife deported back to the camp.
• Only the Knowledgable May Pass: 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."
• Trauma Conga Line: After Matt leaves Miracle to take Mary to the hospital, he's beset by nonstop horrible events: a guy steals his wristband, breaking his arm and concussing him, who he then finds having been hit by a truck, he finds any way to get Mary back in, bribes a guard, the back way in floods. He has to give Mary up to Nora and Kevin, who promise to take care of her, and then enters the stocks in the waiting room outside Miracle.

Episode 6 — Lens

• Armor-Piercing Question: 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?
• Chekhov's Boomerang: The DSD questionnaire was first very important in Nora's other centric episode, S1's "Guest", and it comes back - as does the general composition of the final scene of that episode - when Erika bullies Nora into doing the questionnaire when they argue over if Evie disappeared or departed.
• Window Pain: Serves as a Book Ends. The episode begins with Nora angrily throwing a rock through the Murphys' window. At episode's end - after 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.

Episode 7 — A Most Powerful Adversary

• Ate His Gun: Virgil.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: 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.
• Betrayal by Inaction: Virgil promises to resurrect Kevin after he takes the fatal poison dose. He empties it and leaves Kevin to die, as he, Michael, and John all suspect that Kevin was responsible for Evie's disappearance.
• Death Is the Only Option: Virgil notes that Jill may be better off if Kevin let go and died.
• Evil Former Friend: Deconstructed. Virgil and John both pretend to be friends with Kevin in order to trick him into punishing himself for Evie's disappearance, but they also think he's this to them, as they think he killed Evie and hid this from them.
• Face–Heel Turn: While they're still estranged, revealed that John, Michael, and Virgil all conspired against Kevin to get him to kill himself.
• Lured into a Trap: The reveal of the final scene. Virgil convinced Kevin he'd resurrect him but John and Michael have convinced Virgil that Kevin had something to do with Evie's disappearance. It was all a trap to get Kevin to ingest the poison, and Virgil leaves him to die.
• Was Just Leaving: When Kevin comes to Virgil's house, he bumps into a tense situation between Virgil and his grandson Michael. Virgil resolves the situation by announcing that Michael was just leaving which the latter grudgingly does.
• Wham Shot: The last scene. As Kevin lies dying on the floor, Virgil empties the syringe of adrenaline he promised to resuscitate Kevin with and then blows his own brains out.

Episode 8 — International Assassin

• Alternate Universe: When Kevin dies, he goes to an alternate reality where he's an assassin.
• Back from the Dead: Kevin is given a fatal amount of poison and buried, only to come back to life of his own volition after a spiritual journey. Michael, who witnesses this, gives an entirely understandable "Holy shit!" in response.
• Book Ends: The episode begins with Kevin breaking the surface of water and ends with Kevin breaking the surface of soil.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Patti died in Kevin's arms as a Call-Back to the ral death scene in.
• Heroic Suicide: It's revealed that Virgil shot himself to enter the afterlife and be Kevin's guide there.
• Lie Detector: Kevin is hooked up to one.
• Naked on Arrival: Kevin wakes up naked in a bathtub.
• Neck Snap: How Kevin offs the fat guy in the hotel corridor.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: A Spy Fiction episode in a mystery drama series.
• Politicians Kiss Babies: Discussed by Patti who is running for president.
  Patti: I was working my way through the crowd shaking hands and I see this fellow and he's waiting for me and he has a baby in his arms. And I'm thinking to myself, "Shit, now I'm gonna have to kiss that thing. Because that's what one must endure if you want to get elected."
• Professional Killer: Kevin plays the part.
• Raised Hand of Survival: Kevin's hand is the first thing we see when he rises from his grave at the end.
• Room Disservice: The guy delivering flowers to Kevin's room was out to kill him.
• Silent Whisper: Towards the end, the man on the bridge whispers something in Kevin's ear but we never learn what exactly it was.
• Thrown Down a Well: Kevin does this to little Patti.
• Trailers Always Lie: So as to not spoil the cliffhanger of "A Most Powerful Adversary", or give away the episode's Mind Screw events, trailers for "International Assassin" used clips that mostly consisted of footage from the episodes after it.

Episode 9 — Ten Thirteen

• Fake Kill Scare: Meg pulling the pin of a (fake) grenade on a bus of school kids.
• He Knows Too Much: The cyclist who got too close to the camp of the Guilty Remnant gets stoned on Meg's order.
• Spiteful Spit: Meg spits out in disrespect before entering the bus that would take her out from Jarden.
• Unflinching Walk: Meg walking away from the school bus, less the explosion.
• Wham Line: At the end, the answer to the question posed:
  Tom: Who are you?
  Evie: (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)
• Wham Shot: The revelation that Evie and her friends are hiding in a warehouse.

Episode 10 — I Live Here Now

• Back from the Dead: 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.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Everyone, throughout this episode. All the characters get caught up in the rampage on Miracle during the anniversary celebrations, and the entire extended Garvey/Jamison family fight hard to be reunited in Matt's church in the final shot of the season.
• Fade to White: The transition from the rampage on the bridge to Kevin waking up in the hotel bathroom.
• Fan Disservice: 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.
• Ironic Echo: When Kevin confronts Meg in Jarden, Meg will only respond by singing the gospel theme song of Miracle, which she has utterly destroyed.
• Just a Flesh Wound: 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.
• Police Are Useless: The shit hits the fan in similar fashion as in the season 1 finale, when 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. That is until the season 3 premiere...
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: All the characters have been scattered nonstop for the first two seasons. In the final scene, Kevin's whole family is back together and unharmed.
• Title Drop: Kevin says it, accepting Miracle as his home and saying he wants to go home.

Season 3

Episode 1 — The Book of Kevin

• Back for the Dead: The third season premiere has Dean the dog-hunter return only to die trying to murder Kevin and Tommy.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Goodbye, Guilty Remnant.
• From Bad to Worse: 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 blatant act of domestic terrorism, ATFEC launches a drone strike on the visitor's center where the GR is holed up, wiping them all out in an instant.
• How We Got Here: The episode 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.
• Gas Leak Cover-Up: The 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.
• Self-Harm: Nora is revealed to have done this to herself by breaking her arm to cover up the tattoo she got commemorating her Departed children.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: After the Guilty Remnant's stunt in season 2, the government apparently decides they're done with this nonsense and straight up orders a drone strike on the visitor's center they are holed up in.
• What Happened to the Mouse??: Lily was happily living with Nora and Kevin at the end of Season 2, and it's left mysterious throughout most of the episode what happened to her. It's revealed eventually that Christine came back and took Lily back.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: John gets instructions from Laurie via earpiece.
• Zip Me Up: Justified. Nora asks Kevin to help her zip down her dress because of the cast she's wearing.

Episode 2 — Don't Be Ridiculous

• Adam Westing: Mark Linn-Baker appears as a post-departure version of himself.
• As Himself: Mark Linn-Baker, revealed on the news to have faked his Departure, shows up as himself, delivering a message to Nora. In the process, he references his actual degrees from Yale.
• Asshole Victim: The Australian chief of police named Kevin kicks some dogs which makes it easier for the audience to accept his death by the hand of the old lady.
• Authentication by Newspaper: In the clips Nora is watching, the volunteers hold up newspapers to prove the day of recording.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Mark Linn-Baker is first mentioned in a brief cameo in Season 2 as someone who faked his Departure because of the Departures of everyone else in the main cast. This experience results in him coming back to try to find where the Departed went.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Very downplayed, but Tom bluntly tells Nora that he didn't leave Lily for her, he left Lily for Kevin. This is cruel to Nora as she's grieving, but it's implied that he's trying to stop her from feeling as if she's lost her purpose forever.
• God Test: Imposed by Grace onto the police chief via water boarding. He fails the test.
• Home-Early Surprise: Nora returns home early from her journey only to bump into Kevin as he is about to suffocate himself via suicide bag. He then confesses to her that he only wanted to see how it felt.
• Instant Sedation: The Australian Kevin goes out from the Tranquillizer Dart in no time.
• Mercy Kill: The kangaroo hit by the car.
• Significant Name Overlap: Aside from both Kevins (which is also a plot point in this episode), Grace tracks down an Australian police chief named Kevin Garvey.

Episode 3 — Crazy Whitefella Thinking

• Shoot the Shaggy Dog Story: Garvey Sr. walks across Australia on a desperate quest to find Christopher, convinced that he's the only person who can prevent a biblical flood. Christopher promises to tell him the song that will stop the flood after Kevin fixes his roof. While fixing the roof, Kevin slips off it and accidentally kills / badly injures Christopher. While attempting to find the song before Christopher dies, Kevin is stranded in the desert.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: When Garvey Sr. wakes up after being rescued from the desert, he finds himself in a room and his POV shot lingers on a globe hanging from the ceiling.
• When It Rains, It Pours: When Garvey Sr. is stranded in the desert at night it starts raining cats and dogs.

Episode 4 — G'Day Melbourne

• Coincidental Broadcast: Kevin spots Evie on his hotel room TV when a news report about a dead police chief named Kevin attracts his attention. Later Garvey Sr. spots Kevin on TV as well which prompts him to call all hotels in the city to find out where he is staying.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the opening scene, when the customs official checks Nora and Kevin's passports, a freeze frame reveals that both passports have expired (Nora's in 2013 and Kevin's in 2009), but they are still allowed to enter Australia.
• I See Them, Too: At first Kevin thinks that Evie is a projection like Patti but then he gets surprised when another man acknowledges her existence too.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Invoked. Kevin has this reaction when Nora tells him about the option to follow the Departed. As a result, she does it.
• This Is Unforgivable!!: Nora's reaction when, while she and Kevin are fighting, Kevin tells her that she should "go be with [her] kids".
• Use Your Head: Kevin gets headbutted in the streets by a man for harassing Evie.

Episode 5 — It's a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World

• Answer Cut: When the airplane is diverted to Tasmania, Matt's question "How the hell do we get to Melbourne?" is answered by a cut to a ferry.
• And Then John Was a Zombie: Matt reveals near the end of the episode that the cancer he had as a child is back, and it's terminal.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The man who claims to be god can be seen earlier when boarding the ferry.
• Shaming the Mob: Subverted. When Matt mentiones the name "Frasier" he gets tied to a chair in order to "milk him". But he manages to free himself, picks up a megaphone and starts shaming the mob, but his words have no effect on the crowd and they start booing him.
• Shout-Out: The episode title is named after It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
• Two-Keyed Lock: The soldier on the submarine manages to turn both keys with his hand and foot.
• Wretched Hive: The love boat where Everybody Has Lots of Sex.

Episode 6 — Certified

• Call-Back: Nora tells Laurie at the beginning of the episode that, if she wanted to kill herself, she'd go snorkelling. The Ambiguous Ending shows Laurie choosing to go snorkelling on the day of the anniversary, despite Jill and Tom's call to her.
• Driven to Suicide: Deconstructed. Laurie tries to kill herself after the Sudden Departure, but backs out and joins the Guilty Remnant instead - which, as she and Nora discuss, is itself a form of suicide, as they believe in slowing smoking themselves to death. Nora keeps a packet of cigarettes with her, but it's ambiguous if it's for this purpose. Laurie then takes Nora's advice and chooses to maybe kill herself.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Laurie appears to accept this at the end of the episode. Having tried to protect Kevin's mental health all series, Laurie accepts that she cannot change his mind about committing suicide.
• How We Got Here: The episode explains how Laurie showed up to the Ranch alone, in a stolen van with a black eye.
• "Leave Your Quest" Test / Secret Test: Implied to be the case with the Departed scientists that rejected Nora in "G'day Melbourne". If her tracking them down is any indication, they wanted her to want to go badly enough that she'd follow them across Australia even after they rejected her.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: Laurie knows enough about Judas to compare herself to him, but didn't know he killed himself.
• Shout-Out: Laurie makes references to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:
  Laurie: Well, so everybody wants something. A brain, a heart, courage. Kevin's in the Emerald City. He's the one that's gonna give it to you.
  Garvey Sr.: All right, Dorothy. Let's have it.
• A Storm Is Coming: Garvey Sr. mentions it, fearing that it will be another biblical flood.

Episode 7 — The Most Powerful Man in the World

• All for Nothing:. Kevin Sr's whole purpose in going to Australia has been to find Christopher's song. It's what he wants Kevin to go to the other side for after Christopher's death, as he thinks it's the only way to prevent the flood. Kevin Jnr finally tracks him down after much difficulty, and asks him for it. Christopher tells him that isn't possible, and Kevin Jnr agrees.
• Alternate Universe: In which Kevin is the President of the United States in a world where the GR has become a global power.
• Armour-Piercing Question: Christopher, while talking to Kevin on the computer.
  Do you believe your father can sing a song and stop the flood? No.
• Call-Back: 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. In this episode, Kevin Sr. does the same thing.
• Dead Man's Trigger Finger: When Kevin is caught out by two security guards on the stairway, his accomplice snipes them down. While being hit the first guard turns around and shoots his fellow.
• Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: Inverted. When Kevin meets Evie's Alternate Self, in a world where Patti and even Meg are worse versions of themselves, she is a pointed protestor against the Guilty Remnant and especially Kevin's regime, insisting that love still exists.
• Evil Chancellor: Patti is probably one to Kevin in the alternate universe, but she does say that he agreed.
• Excuse Plot: Kevin is tossed in a cliche spy story where he is the only man alive to stop the president from starting a nuclear war.
• The Man Behind the Man: Patti to Kevin in the alternate universe.
• Naked on Arrival: Again, Kevin is naked when being washed up on the shore.
• Non-Answer: Grace has always wanted to know why her children chose to leave their shoes behind when they walked into the wilderness to find her. When Kevin finally sees them in the alternative universe, her youngest asks him, "What does it matter?" Strangely, this answer seems to comfort Grace, although it disturbs Kevin.
• Nuclear Option: Patti's ultimate goal, which she says is what people want to do but are too afraid. The plot line in the alternate universe ends with her succeeding.
• Precision F-Strike: The dying Kevin to the presidential Kevin: "We really fucked up with Nora."
• Sitting on the Roof: The last scene. In anticipation of the great flood Garvey Sr. climbed on the roof. Kevin joins him for a chat after his return from the dead.

Episode 8 — The Book of Nora

• Alternate Universe: Nora claims that 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.
• Chekhov's Gun: The goat and the beads.
• Convenient Slow Dance: Kevin and Nora dance to one at the wedding.
• Distant Finale: The majority of this episode takes place at least two decades into the future, with Nora now living in Australia under the alias of "Sarah".
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Deconstructed before being played (somewhat) straight in Nora's case. Kevin apologises for sending her to the other dimension to "be with her family". Nora says he was right, and she had to do it. She tells him that she journeyed from Australia to America, which took months as no boats or planes were running in the near-deserted landscape. She undertakes the arduous journey to get back to her children and Mapleton...only to see that they've moved on happily (at least compared to everyone else's intense misery) without her. She chooses to return to the other world, but at least gets to live in peace, knowing that they are happy.
  • Kevin, too. He tells Nora that he travelled on a yearly basis - for years - looking for her. He eventually finds her and both of them return to each other, just as Nora's birds come back to her.
• Happily Failed Suicide: Implied to be this in Laurie's case. The last we saw of her was jumping off the boat, possibly intending to kill herself before the anniversary of the sudden departure. Many years later, she is a happy grandmother to Tom and Jill's children.
• "Open!" Says Me: When the bathroom door jams up, Nora rams it in with her shoulder.
• Secret-Keeper: Matt is willingly this to Nora, never telling Kevin the truth about where she went after he returned to New York to be with Mary and Noah before he died. Laurie becomes less willingly this to Nora after she returns from the alternate universe and becomes Nora's long-distance therapist. Nora says that Laurie had no choice, but Kevin seems to feel differently.
• Red Herring: 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.

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