Leftovers is all about emotions after a strange global event. Two percent of folks just poofed away. The story follows different characters as they face grief, faith and search for meaning in a changed world. It got tons of praise for storytelling and strong performances. It’s a ride you won’t forget, trust me.

Meet the characters from The Leftovers

Tom Garvey

Tom is the quietly steady one in the Garvey clan — a guy who seems simple but surprises you by being unexpectedly practical and weirdly loyal. He bounces between being a sensible son, a reluctant wanderer, and someone who probably knows more survival tricks than he admits (seriously, he seems to have a pocket for everything). Tom’s the type who can diffuse tension with a badly timed joke and then disappear to do some small, solemn task that makes you wonder what he’s really thinking. He’s patient, sometimes frustratingly so, and also stubborn in that gentle way that makes people trust him even when he’s obviously winging it. Also, random detail: he might secretly love musical theater or be into conspiracy podcasts — I can never decide, and that’s part of his charm.

Jill Garvey

Jill is the volatile, sharp-edged teen who alternates between fury, sarcasm, and startling tenderness. She’s the kind of daughter who will stomp out of a room and then come back with a strangely sincere apology, usually while holding a bag of stolen snacks. Rebellious and restless, she’s always testing boundaries (hers and everyone else’s), and you get the sense she’s trying to carve herself out of the chaos by being more dramatic than the world. There’s an almost performative coolness to her — sunglasses, sneers, the whole vibe — but also real confusion and mess underneath it all. Also she collects weird pins? Or maybe that was a temporary phase where she liked knitting, I swear she did both at different times.

Patti Levin

Patti is the icy, charismatic face of the Guilty Remnant — terrifying and magnetic at once. She speaks in a low, calm way that eats up space; people listen because you feel like history is tripping over itself when she’s around. She’s unbelievably disciplined, militant about silence and ritual, yet there are these glimpses of warmth (a strange laugh, a sudden hug) that make her even more dangerous. Patti’s like a walking philosophical essay you can’t escape, and somehow she makes you feel cleansed and accused at the same time. Tiny weird detail: I half remember her humming to herself sometimes? Or maybe that was another leader — either way, she haunts the show.

Kevin Garvey

Kevin is the mess-at-the-center-of-everything, the mayor who tries to hold a town together while his own life slowly comes unglued. He’s heroic in a mundane, exhausted way: makes tough calls, drinks too much coffee, and keeps pretending he has a plan even when he doesn’t. There’s this eerie, knife-edge tension around him — like there’s either something supernatural happening or he’s losing his mind, and the show loves to sit on that ambiguity. Despite his bravado, he’s deeply insecure and occasionally childlike (he hoards ridiculous objects sometimes — tie pins? toy horses?), which makes him oddly endearing. Also he flip-flops between being a stoic leader and a total emotional wreck, often within the same scene.

Laurie Garvey

Laurie is the ex-wife who vanishes into silence and comes back carrying a whole other life on her shoulders. At first she’s coolly militant as a member of the Guilty Remnant, then she sheds that skin and tries to be human again, which is messy and moving. She’s stubborn, fiercely independent, and complicated — a person who can smoke calmly on a rooftop and simultaneously wonder if she’s ruined everything. There’s tenderness in her that fights with a kind of moral rigidity; she gives advice like a therapist but then breaks her own rules without warning. Also odd little thing: she seems extremely organised but will inexplicably forget birthdays — consistently — which is somehow both infuriating and believable.

Nora Durst

Nora is the hard-as-stone, brilliant survivor who channels grief into sharp practicality and an offbeat sense of humor. She works for the Departed Department (yes, the bureaucracy of loss), and she’s absurdly efficient — like, frighteningly so — with a no-nonsense face that barely cracks. Under that armor though, there’s a reactor of pain and weird hope; she’ll say something deadpan and it will land like a gut punch and then laugh about it because what else do you do. She’s also prone to sudden, cinematic vulnerability — one moment impossibly controlled, the next you catch her doing something impulsive and devastating. Quirky note: she might own a very small, very useless souvenir collection (shot glasses? seashells?) that she swears explains the universe.

Matt Jamison

Matt is the firebrand pastor with the ruined idealism and a mailbox full of angry letters he probably wrote to himself. He’s clinging to faith like it’s a life raft (and honestly sometimes it is), and he’s compulsive about making moral arguments that are loud and kind of heartbreaking. Matt will argue scripture in a diner at 2 a.m., carry a stack of printed emails, and then cry quietly into his hands when the sermon’s over. He’s righteous and self-righteous in equal measure, which makes him infuriating and noble at the same time. Also he has this weirdly endearing habit of collecting receipts? Or was it rosaries? I can’t remember, but he definitely hoards something symbolic.