The Leftovers begins three years after a worldwide occasion called the "Abrupt Departure", the peculiar, concurrent vanishing of 140 million individuals, 2% of the total populace, on October 14, 2011. Following that occasion, standard religions declined, and various cliques developed, most outstandingly the Guilty Remnant, a gathering of white-dressed, chain-smoking skeptics, and a faction drove by Holy Wayne, a man who sees himself as the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.