Season 1

Complete listed story — includes the ending

1. Pilot

On October 14, 2011, 2% of the world's population disappears. Three years later in Mapleton, New York, police chief Kevin Garvey witnesses a man, Dean, shooting a dog. Kevin's wife, Laurie, has left him to join the Guilty Remnant (GR), a cult-like organization. His son, Tom, has left to become a follower of messianic figure Holy Wayne. His delinquent daughter, Jill, and her friend, Aimee, live with him. Local pastor Matt Jamison angers the townspeople by arguing that the Departure was not the Rapture. The town's mayor plans a parade to honor the victims of the Departure. During the parade, local woman Nora Durst reveals her husband and two children departed. After the GR begin their protest, Kevin cannot prevent the townspeople from attacking them. Kevin visits the GR's houses and begs Laurie to return home, but she refuses to speak to him. Meg Abbott, who the GR have been stalking, asks if she can stay at the GR's houses. Kevin encounters Dean again and the two of them witness a pack of dogs killing a deer, leading the pair to shoot the pack together.

2. Penguin One, Us Zero

Two weeks later, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, and Cults (ATFEC) assault Holy Wayne's compound after suspecting that Wayne is a sex offender. (Wayne claims to need to have sex with teenage Asian girls to "recharge" his ability to supposedly hug people's pain away.) Tom manages to escape with Wayne and Christine, one of Wayne's girls whom he has impregnated. Realizing that ATFEC will find him eventually and believing that Christine's child will carry on his ability, Wayne goes on the run, leaving Tom to care for Christine. Kevin has a strange dream and, after visiting his institutionalized father Kevin Garvey Sr. (Mapleton's former police chief), he begins to question his own sanity. Jill and Aimee see Nora at a coffee shop, notice she has a gun in her purse and are baffled when she intentionally spills her coffee. Intrigued by her gun, Jill and Aimee spend the rest of the day following Nora, discovering that she is Matt's sister. Meg spends weeks living in the GR's pledge house with Laurie as her mentor, and gradually becomes more accepting of the group's practices and induction rituals.

3. Two Boats and a Helicopter

Matt faces dwindling church attendance and abuse from the townspeople as he continues to preach his belief that the Departure was not the Rapture and that those who departed were often sinners. He faces foreclosure from his bank and is told that a buyer made an offer of $135,000 on the church. The bank gives Matt an ultimatum: if he can raise $135,000 by the foreclosure date, he can keep the church. Matt returns home to care for his wife Mary (who has been in a vegetative state since a car accident during the Departure) and receives what he takes to be a sign from God, remembering that Kevin Sr. buried money in the Garveys' yard. Matt retrieves the money, goes to a casino and bets it in a game of roulette. Matt wins and earns enough money to buy back his church. Upon returning to Mapleton, Matt is knocked unconscious by a group of people throwing stones at members of the GR. After awakening in a hospital, he is devastated to discover that several days have passed and he has missed the foreclosure date. The buyer of his church is revealed to be the GR.

4. B.J. and the A.C.

As Christmas approaches, the baby Jesus from Mapleton's nativity display goes missing. The mayor, Lucy Warburton, announces that Kevin will find it, while she secretly tasks him with buying a new one and roughing it up to appear lost. Kevin thinks Jill and Aimee (along with their friends Adam and Scott Frost) stole the baby Jesus, which later appears on his doorstep. However, to Kevin's surprise, Matt has already replaced the baby with another doll. Tom and Christine have been on the run for weeks and have had no contact from Wayne, much to Tom's chagrin. After Christine is attacked by a man, Tom takes her to the hospital. They are forced to flee after the staff assume Tom has abused her and call the police. Kevin visits the GR's houses and tells them to leave the townspeople alone over Christmas and says he cannot protect them if they continue their provocative behavior. During Mapleton's Christmas dance, Kevin meets Nora and the two become attracted to one another. The GR break into houses across town and steal photos of people who departed. Laurie visits Kevin to hand him divorce papers and receives a lighter as a gift from Jill.

5. Gladys

Public outrage against the GR is amplified upon discovery of the stolen photos. Gladys, one of the GR's most loyal members, is brutally stoned to death by a group of unseen assailants. Kevin visits the GR's houses to remind them of his warning to not provoke the town. Patti Levin, the leader of the GR, takes Laurie to a diner, gives her regular clothes to wear and tells her she can speak normally. Laurie wears the clothes but refuses to speak, believing Patti is testing her loyalty. Kevin attempts to lead an investigation into Gladys' murder, but finds that no one in the Mapleton Police Department is interested in investigating it due to Gladys' GR ties. Much to Kevin's anger, one of his deputies sends Gladys' body to ATFEC for investigation, effectively ending Kevin's own investigation. Kevin attempts to retrieve the body and in doing so discovers that ATFEC has offered to wipe out the GR in Mapleton, as it has done with similar cults across the country. Kevin declines the offer; meanwhile, Gladys' body is incinerated without any investigation.

6. Guest

While wearing a ballistic vest, Nora instructs an escort to shoot her. After discovering that her departed husband was having an affair, she decides to file for divorce. At the courthouse, she encounters Kevin, who is also filing for divorce. Nora, working for the Department of the Sudden Departure (DSD) as a fraud investigator, attends a Departure-related conference in New York City. There, her lanyard is stolen by a woman who is impersonating her. She wanders the hotel, finds a party, becomes intoxicated and makes out with the lifelike Departure replica doll of a salesman who had made advances toward her. Nora encounters Patrick Johansen, a man who lost four members of his family in the Departure and wrote a bestselling book explaining how he moved on. Nora accuses Johansen of being a fraud, claiming that anyone who really lost their entire family would know that moving on is impossible. An associate of Holy Wayne (who is hiding in New York) overhears Nora and invites her to meet Wayne, who explains her obsession with pain and then hugs her, seemingly purging her anxieties. When Nora returns to Mapleton, Kevin asks her out on a date. She happily agrees.

7. Solace for Tired Feet

Jill is locked in a refrigerator by Aimee and the Frost twins as a part of a dare. Jill wins the dare but panics when the others are unable to open the door until Kevin Sr. suddenly arrives and rescues her. Kevin Sr., apparently having broken out of the psychiatric hospital, asks Jill not to tell Kevin that she saw him and runs off into the forest. Kevin and Nora's date is interrupted by Meg and another GR member staking out Nora's house. Wayne contacts Tom and instructs him to tape money to the bottom of a mailbox. Tom does so and watches the mailbox, following a man who takes the money to a house. Tom discovers that the man is another of Wayne's disciples who is also caring for a pregnant Asian girl, leading him to further question his loyalty to Wayne. When he returns to Christine, he is shocked to learn that her baby has been born. After learning that he has escaped the hospital, Kevin tracks down his father, who has been hearing voices since the Departure. The two fight after Kevin Sr. attempts to recruit his son to his supposed "mission," but he is eventually returned to the hospital.

8. Cairo

The GR receive Departure replicas and dress them at Patti's behest. Kevin invites Nora over for dinner with Jill and Aimee; Jill confronts Nora about her gun, and Nora claims to have gotten rid of it, offering Jill proof by allowing her to look through Nora's purse. Jill later breaks into Nora's house and finds the gun hidden in a box under the bed. That night, Kevin falls asleep and awakens hours later in his car without any recollection of how he got there. He is now in a forest near Cairo, New York, and he and Dean have apparently kidnapped and beaten Patti. After Kevin tries to release Patti, Dean leaves and claims that Kevin has changed, implying that the pair have repeatedly met before, but Kevin does not remember this. While speaking about the GR and their motives, Patti tries to persuade Kevin to kill her. When he refuses, deciding to release Patti and face the consequences, she commits suicide by slitting her own throat. In Mapleton, Laurie leads the GR in Patti's absence. Jill and Aimee have a falling out, leading Aimee to move out of the Garvey house and Jill to join the GR.

9. The Garveys at Their Best

Days before the Departure, a surprise party is planned for Kevin Sr., who is still chief of police. Laurie is a psychiatrist and Patti one of her patients, who senses an upcoming apocalyptic event which Laurie dismisses as anxiety caused by spousal abuse. Tom, who is actually Kevin's stepson, has a violent confrontation with his biological father, who Kevin (who is still a police officer) then attacks. Kevin notices strange occurrences around the town, including a manhole cover exploding and a deer that is wreaking havoc. Jill, happy and well-adjusted, prepares for a science fair. Nora interviews for a job working on the election campaign for councilwoman and future mayor Lucy Warburton. Kevin chases the deer to a house where it flees and is hit by a car. The driver is a woman who invites him to her hotel room. During the Departure, Kevin is in mid-coitus with her when she disappears; Nora snaps at her family right before they disappear; Jill and Tommy form a circuit at the science fair where one child disappears; Laurie, who is revealed to be pregnant, has an ultrasound and witnesses the disappearance of her unborn child.

10. The Prodigal Son Returns

Matt, who Kevin called for help following Patti's suicide, helps bury the body. The GR are revealed to have made life-like replicas of the departed townspeople and placed them in the locations where they disappeared. Laurie worries that their latest protest will anger Mapleton and asks Jill to go home. Tom is horrified when Christine abandons her newborn baby in a public restroom and leaves. While eating in a diner with Matt, Kevin admits he wants his family to reunite. In the bathroom, Kevin encounters a mortally-wounded Wayne who dies after granting Kevin an unspoken wish. Kevin later hallucinates a conversation with Patti. Arriving in Mapleton, Matt and Kevin come upon a riot by the townspeople, resulting in the GR's houses being set on fire. Laurie speaks again when she screams out to Kevin that Jill is in one of the burning houses; Kevin rushes inside and rescues her. Tom returns to Mapleton with the baby and finds Laurie. Nora, believing that it is best for her to leave town, writes a letter to Kevin but finds Christine's baby on his doorstep. Returning to the house, Kevin and Jill find Nora with the baby in her arms.