‘The Leftovers’ Season 1 Episode 2 Recap: Top 5 Spoilers

On tonight’s episode of The Leftovers, Kevin visit a psychiatrist after his dog shooting incident last week. Meg struggles with her initiation into The Guilty Remnant.

Jill and Aimee stalk Nora Durst, and Tom helps Christine escape the FBI raid on Holy Wayne’s compound.

Here’s what you need to know about the episode entitled, “Penguin One, Us Zero.”


1. FBI Raids Holy Wayne Compound

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(screenshot/HBOGo)

The FBI sets up a raid against Holy Wayne and his compound. They go in hard, shooting anyone with a gun in his hand and cuff the young Asian women on the floor. Christine gets away, but one officer spots her running outside. He pursues her and demands she tell him where Wayne is or he’ll shoot her. The officer doesn’t get the chance before Tom comes from behind and shoots him in the throat.

Christine and Tom duck down an underground tunnel and pick up a car off the compound. They drive to an abandoned gas station where they find a guy shot to death inside. Wayne’s assistant pulls up and lets out Wayne from the trunk of her car. He tells Tom the FBI wasn’t coming to find him, because they started shooting before they got inside the house.

Tom tells Wayne he shot the FBI agent to protect Christine, as Wayne instructed him to do. Wayne can sense the pain inside Tom after killing a man, and tries to hug and heal him. Tom won’t let him.

Wayne and his assistance have to split up from Tom and Christine, because its not safe for them to travel with him. He gives Tom a stack of money and a burner phone, after he breaks Tom’s in half (hard to contact Daddy now). Wayne drives off, but Tom can’t get his car started. He starts hitting the steering wheel and yelling the F-word over and over. Christine tells him everything will be okay, because Holy Wayne told her so.


2. Kevin Visits A Psychiatrist

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(screenshot/HBOGo)

Kevin has a dream with the mystery man and his daughter Jill’s friend Aimee. She pulls him out into the woods in just their underwear to where the mystery man has one of the Guilty Remnant members in the sights of his rifle. Kevin looks down to see if feet in a burning pile of leaves, but he wakes up before the flames can consume him.

He must have smelled a fire burning, because his neighbor Paul is burning his departed brothers clothes in the backyard. The fire jumps to Kevin’s fence. Paul didn’t want to take the clothes to Good Will and see someone else wearing his brother’s clothes. He didn’t want them in the attic either.

Kevin goes to see his psychiatrist who asks if he’s had any further contact with his ex-wife Laurie. The police chief corrects him that they aren’t divorced. He also asks about the “mystery man” who Kevin was shooting the dogs with. Kevin thinks the psychiatrist doesn’t believe the man exists and he shot the wild dogs who attacked the deer on his own, since when police showed up on the scene, the mystery man was gone.

Kevin knows what he saw and puts his deputy Dennis in charge of finding the mystery man’s pickup truck. Dennis finds it abandoned, with the keys on the dash, in Kevin’s own driveway.

The police chief and his deputy have to serve a warrant at the Guilty Remnant home. Of course, the leader Patti isn’t happy to see Kevin back on her front stoop but since he has a warrant, she has to let him in. Kevin informs Mr. Jensen that his missing persons’ case has been closed and his family’s been notified of his whereabouts. Mr. Jensen says he understands.

Kevin then sees Meg sitting alone on a couch. He asks if she needs help and gives her his card. He notifies her fiance Darren that he’s found Meg. Kevin tries to convince Darren to go over there to save his fiance because she needs him, but he doesn’t believe that since she snuck out in the middle of the night weeks ago.

The mystery man finally appears again on Kevin doorstep. He’s not the only one that can see him though. When Jill and Aimee arrive home, Aimee walks right past him but Jill takes the six-pack of beer that the man is carrying. Kevin asks the man’s name, but he won’t say. He does tell Kevin he can keep the truck and that he knows where another pack of wild dogs is living. He invites Kevin to stake them out at the school yard the next evening.


3. Meg Chops Down a Tree for Her Guilty Remnant Initiation

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(screenshot/HBOGo)

Meg is part of the Pledge House. She has yet to fully commit to The Guilty Remnant in the weeks she’s been staying with them. Laurie takes her into the woods with an ax. After Meg realizes Laurie isn’t going to kill her, she picks it up and starts chopping a tree. Laurie sits on a nearby log and watches.

After a few hours, Meg can’t chop anymore and questions the point of the exercise. Is it supposed to represent her former life, or something? She calls the GR a cult, and Laurie writes that they’re not. When Meg says she won’t chop down the tree, Laurie asks why. Meg goes on a tangent of how stupid she thinks Laurie and the entire group are and Laurie responds, “Okay” on her notepad.

Patti thinks Laurie is going too easy on Meg. Laurie says she’s not strong enough yet, but if that’s the case, Patti needs Laurie to get rid of her.

Laurie comes to Meg’s room later to take away another one of her possessions. Meg asks if Laurie remembers what it’s like to feel anymore. The GR member avoids the question and instead writes to Meg that her recruit met her husband earlier. “No shit. The hot cop, and you’re here?” she asks (and who wasn’t wondering that?). Laurie finally admits she does remember what it’s like to feel and that convinces Meg to give up a sweater that belonged to her mother.

The next morning Patti informs Laurie that Meg is gone. Meg has only gone back out to the woods to try and finally chop that tree down.


4. Jill and Aimee Stalk Laura Durst

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(screenshot/HBOGo)

Jill spots a handgun in Nora Durst‘s (the woman who lost her whole family) purse when she trips over it in the coffee shop. She and Aimee think up scenarios as to why she’d keep such a large gun with her. When Nora leaves, the girls decide to follow her. They even hijack the Frost twins’ car, along with them, to continue following her car.

Nora pulls into the driveway of the Patterson’s house. She’s there to ask a serious of questions so the Pattersons can collect their departure benefit for their son Charlie, who had Down Syndrome. She has to asks more than 150 questions like did he have food allergies, did he ever travel to Brazil, did he enjoy cooking, did he speak more than one language and did he have more than 20 sexual partners.

While Nora’s inside, Aimee, Jill and boys pull up down the street to spy. Aimee sneaks over to her car to look for hand creme and discovers a Chipmunks album on the front seat, hand cream in the center console and stale jelly beans in the glove compartment. Jill starts honking the horn to the boys’ car obnoxiously, and Aimee scurries back. Nora opens the front door to the Patterson’s house just in time to watch the kids drive away.


5. Kevin Visits His Father in a Mental Institution

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(screenshot/HBOGo)

After the mystery man visits his house, Kevin goes to visit his father Kevin Garvey Sr. He’s been living in a psych ward since he began hearing voice and was relieved of his duties as the town’s chief of police, the position his son took over.

Kevin arrives to find Mayor Lucy visiting her father, as she told him earlier. Before she leaves, she kisses Kevin’s father intimately, on the lips. Kevin sits down and his father asks about “his house” and “his job”. He also asks about Kevin’s kids. When Kevin tells him he’s lost contact with Tom, Garvey Sr. tells him that just because Tom doesn’t check in that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love him. The message is an assurance to his son and himself.

Kevin wants to know when “it” started happening to his father, meaning hearing voices. Garvey Sr. doesn’t give a clear answer, but advices his son to tell his shrink that he’s sorry for shooting the dogs and move on. The conversation gets interrupted by a voice in Garvey Sr.’s head. It knows Kevin is there and wants to tell Garvey Jr. that someone or something is coming to help him. Garvey Sr. doesn’t know who or what, but warns his son to keep it to himself.