diff --git a/changelog.rst b/changelog.rst
index 70f76abd..a8b268b0 100644
--- a/changelog.rst
+++ b/changelog.rst
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@ Bug fixes:
 
 * Fix \ev not producing a correctly quoted "schema"."view"
 * Fix 'invalid connection option "dsn"' ([issue 1373](https://github.com/dbcli/pgcli/issues/1373)).
+* Fix explain mode when used with `expand`, `auto_expand`, or `--explain-vertical-output` ([issue 1393](https://github.com/dbcli/pgcli/issues/1393)).
 
 3.5.0 (2022/09/15):
 ===================
diff --git a/pgcli/explain_output_formatter.py b/pgcli/explain_output_formatter.py
index b14cf440..ce45b4f8 100644
--- a/pgcli/explain_output_formatter.py
+++ b/pgcli/explain_output_formatter.py
@@ -10,7 +10,8 @@ class ExplainOutputFormatter:
         self.max_width = max_width
 
     def format_output(self, cur, headers, **output_kwargs):
-        (data,) = cur.fetchone()
+        # explain query results should always contain 1 row each
+        [(data,)] = list(cur)
         explain_list = json.loads(data)
         visualizer = Visualizer(self.max_width)
         for explain in explain_list:
diff --git a/pgcli/main.py b/pgcli/main.py
index 800816eb..5626a5ed 100644
--- a/pgcli/main.py
+++ b/pgcli/main.py
@@ -1602,7 +1602,8 @@ def format_output(title, cur, headers, status, settings, explain_mode=False):
         first_line = next(formatted)
         formatted = itertools.chain([first_line], formatted)
         if (
-            not expanded
+            not explain_mode
+            and not expanded
             and max_width
             and len(strip_ansi(first_line)) > max_width
             and headers