Kevin fears he’s losing touch with reality after inexplicably finding himself in a difficult situation involving Patti Levin, a leader of the Guilty Remnant. Meg loses control during another encounter with Matt; Jill confronts Aimee about her relationship with Kevin; Nora stands up to Laurie, and finds her privacy invaded.
Animals: It is revealed that Kevin and Dean caught the dog together in the prior episode, and Kevin subsequently bet with Dean that he could civilize it, with Dean having to give up shooting dogs if Kevin succeeded. Jill sets the dog free in this episode.
The Bible: Matt’s flyer for Meg quotes from 3:16 (although the citation is partially obscured, this likely refers to famous passage John 3:16). Another flyer cites to 17:17 (book unknown). A flyer for Brandon quotes Titus 2:14.
National Geographic: The eponymous town of Cairo, NY is named after the Egyptian city of the same name, which was the subject of an article in the May 1972 National Geographic, “Cairo: Troubled Capital of the Arab World.” The painting of two antelopes seen on the wall in the cabin appears on pages 714-15 of the May 1972 National Geographic. Although it appears to be a Native American hide painting on the show, it was in reality a fresco excavated on the Island of Thera, appearing in the article, “Thera: Key to the Riddle of Minos.” The article pertains to the mysterious disappearance of the first advanced civilization in Europe, the Crete-based Minoans. The article’s author, archaeologist Spyridon Marinatos, was then conducting excavations to prove his theory that an eruption of the volcano on Thera led to the demise of the culture (this is now the widely-accepted explanation). The particular significance of the fresco was that the species depicted, oryx beisa, is now found only in East Africa, leading to speculation that Crete’s sailors may have traveled further than previously thought. The arrangement of boots Kevin sees around the remains of the campfire is taken directly from a photo on page 595 of the magazine (showing young hikers’ footwear drying around a fire before hitting the trail again in Yellowstone National Park).
Cultural References
When Dean refers to himself as a guardian angel, Patti references bells ringing when guardian angels get their wings in Frank Capra's 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life.
Matt’s flyer about Sabrina (Gladys’s partner at the beginning of “Gladys”) reveals that she was an artist, and her mother’s name is Betsy.
The TV Meg watches is reporting on an alleged “mass resurrection” in Somalia: “when allied tanks arrived on the outskirts of Daafeed, the mass grave was empty.”
One of the pages Laurie flips past in the M.D. binder is for someone named Denziger, possibly referencing the author of the Denziger Commission report or a relative of his.
Per the profile in the M.D binder, Nora’s address is 1248 Harris Ave. (her G.R. file in the prior episode listed the address as 2048 Harris Ave.). The address for Mapleton’s DSD office is 7911 Main St.
The truck driver who drops off the delivery with Laurie is the same guy who threw an Icee at Gladys in “Penguin One, Us Zero.”
This episode is the final appearance of series regulars Aimee, Adam Frost, and Scott Frost on the show.
Book to Show
In the book, Nora and Jill are never seen meeting, but Jill is said to be glad that Kevin has a new girlfriend “even if she was a little spooky,” so that Jill can be less concerned about the Kevin/Aimee dynamic.
The Durst family dog was named Woody in the book, changed to Bubba for the show. Woody’s fate is never revealed in the book, but Tom Perrotta has said a chapter deleted from the book revealed that he went feral after witnessing the departure of Doug and the kids.
Kevin abducting Patti is an invention of the show, as is the animosity between the two that has been building throughout the show. In the book, Kevin is never seen directly interacting with Patti, and as mayor, he makes it a priority to appease the G.R. in order to diffuse tensions.
The dynamic between Laurie and Meg is beginning to shift away from the book. In the book, they have bonded too closely during training and become friends, in violation of G.R. protocol, which prioritizes a hive mentality with no attachments. Patti resultantly sends them to the luxurious Outpost 17 house, where they often speak out loud. On the show, in contrast, Laurie has maintained an absolute vow of silence, and she has no tolerance for the verbal emotional outbursts from Meg, who is a much angrier and more rebellious character than in the book.
In the book, Meg’s mother departed on 10/14. The show alters this, revealing that she actually died the day before the Departure.
In the book, Jill worries about Kevin being alone in the house with Aimee, who walks around the house in the mornings in “panties and flimsy little tank tops.” The show leaves it ambiguous whether or not Kevin and Aimee actually had sex. In the book, they do not, but they grow increasingly friendly, culminating in an encounter when “either he leaned forward or she leaned back, or maybe both” in front of the fridge, resulting in Kevin putting his hand on her waist as she rested her head on his chest.
The fact that the G.R has chapters all over the country, and Patti claiming that they don’t take orders, corresponds to the book: “a loose national network, each affiliate following the same basic guidelines—white clothes and cigarettes and two-person surveillance teams—but governing itself without much in the way of organized oversight or outside interference.”
Patti references It’s a Wonderful Life, a film Kevin watches on Christmas Day in the book. He decides he can no longer stand the film, which he used to like, finding it “labored, all that effort just to remind a good man that he was good.” The book also says that Kevin feels like lead character George Bailey in the film, “with no guardian angel in sight.”
Nora and Laurie are never seen meeting in the book.
The scene of Aimee moving out adapts a portion of the eighteenth and final chapter of the novel, “I’m Glad You’re Here.” The dialogue is entirely different, but the circumstances are similar. In the book, Aimee moves out the evening following the morning encounter she and Kevin had in front of the fridge. In the book, she uses the Garveys’ luggage, promising to return it. Jill is unaware of the encounter with Kevin, but Jill and Aimee have become distant in the book. The only explanation Aimee gives is, “It’s about time I got out of your hair.” In the book, Jill has a sleeping bag when she comes downstairs and encounters Aimee, as she is planning to stay at the G.R. overnight. Aimee is going to stay in a basement apartment of her Applebee’s coworker Mimi’s parents’ house in the book, whereas in the show she is going to stay at Dorfman’s (a show character based on the book’s Dmitri). The exchange is longer and slightly more effusive in the book, with Aimee calling the Garveys’ house the best place she ever lived, promising to write Kevin a letter, and hugging Jill while saying that last summer Jill “kinda saved [her] life,” with Jill assuring her it was the other way around. The show scales this back to a brief, fairly distant goodbye.
Laurie taking on a leadership role in Patti’s absence as the seeming de facto second in command is very different from the book, where she is never seen to have any particular authority in the G.R.
“We will not let them forget,” a mantra from the G.R.’s Christmas Day slideshow in the book, is written on the whiteboard in Patti’s office.
Jill asking to stay with the G.R. is inspired by events in the novel. In the book, she is at the compound doing lineups to find the partner of the murdered Watcher Jill found, and she encounters her beloved fourth-grade teacher Holly Maffey, who slips her a note. They subsequently have a months-long instant message communication, culminating in Holly convincing Jill to stay at the G.R. compound for a “sleepover.” However, Jill never makes it in the book: in the final chapter, “I’m Glad You’re Here,” she is intercepted on the way to the compound by the Frost brothers, who have been repeatedly trying to get her to hang out with them throughout the book, and she decides to go watch them play ping pong instead.
Patti summarizes the G.R.’s mission statement, which is accurate to the organization’s goals as stated at various points throughout the book: “to strip away the false comforts of friendship and love, to await the final days without distractions or illusions.” She quotes the G.R. mantras “We are living reminders” and “It won’t be long now” from the book. In the book, the G.R. holds the Christian eschatological belief that the Rapture is followed by seven years of Tribulation, and they are waiting for the Final Judgment to occur at the end of that seven years. (Confusingly, they ignore many other aspects of Christianity, such as the figure of Jesus.)
The revelation that the G.R. orchestrated Gladys’s willing martyrdom is taken from the book’s major twist: that the murdered G.R. members Jason Falzone and Julian Adams were actually staged martyrdoms by the G.R., with the victims as willing participants. Patti’s explanation is, “The world went back to sleep. It’s our duty to wake it up.” As of the end of the book, no one outside the G.R. has learned this, whereas on the show Patti tells Kevin.
Patti implies that Laurie may soon be martyred as Gladys was. In the book, Laurie is tasked with martyring Meg.
Patti’s suicide is an invention of the show. She is presumably still alive and well as of the end of the book.
Music
"I Been Buked" by Alvin Ailey (opening montage of Patti and Kevin)
"I've Got Dreams to Remember" by Otis Redding (Nora's dinner with the Garveys)
"Departure (Lullaby)" by Max Richter (in the park after Aimee leaves; Jill finds the gun in Jeremy's room; Jill sets the dog free)
"Dona Nobis Pacem 1" by Max Richter (Patti's death)
"All My Trials" by Odetta (end credits)
Goofs
Nora’s age is listed as 33 in the M.D. binder. This contradicts the 1976 birthdate listed on her G.R. surveillance file in “Solace for Tired Feet,” and the 1979 birthdates mentioned in “G’Day Melbourne” and “The Book of Nora.” This age also makes it unlikely that she could have met Doug in high school as his age is stated in the same M.D. binder as 36 as of his Departure three and a half years earlier.
