“Pilot” – aired on September 24, 2019
Written by: Tara Butters & Michele Fazekas
Directed by: Paul McGuigan
Grade: 4,5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
At first glance, Emergence appears to lack originality in terms of premise, narrative pace, and episode structure. There is an abundance of elements and clichés in “Pilot” that echo what you may have seen in past shows and I am not talking about too far in the past either.
The tale of the gifted child donned with mysterious superpowers while being pursued by bad guys and protected by good ones has been a rife narrative in science-fiction or paranormal TV shows since time immemorial. In this decade alone, we had Believe (NBC), The Passage (FOX), and currently Manifest (NBC), foraying into this territory, just to name a few. Out of those three, only Manifest made it to the second season (see my reviews for each episode), so it is not necessarily a recipe for success in the arena of prime-time network TV.
Similarly, the notion of dazzling the viewer’s senses in the opening act with a shocking development or a grandiose event portending catastrophic consequences, while offering no explanation, has been done more times than I can remember since Lost popularized the practice over a decade ago with Jack opening his eye in the bamboo forest and the ensuing plane-crash sequence. Add to that initial adrenaline injection, a pace-driven narrative during the rest of the hour, and you get the modern-day-TV formula of the pilot episode, geared toward hooking you through a series of over-stimulating ‘whaaat’ effects. Heck, even main-cast members of some primetime TV shows nowadays exclaim on social media using terms like “What Just Happened” in capital letters during the live airing of an episode, just to amplify the thunderbolt effect on viewers!
Yet, if only it were that easy, right? Apart those mentioned above, others like The Crossing, FlashForward (both on ABC) and Nightflyers (Syfy), just to name three, executed this formula quite well and still landed in the dreaded one-and-done category of TV shows. They are not the only ones either.
Emergence’s series opener carries most of the elements mentioned above. Having said that, it also contains enough ingredients for what makes a successful TV show, starting with the strong cast and the willingness, on the part of the writers, to expand the boundaries of those very tropes that it uses. While “Pilot” remains plot-driven for the most part and moves forward at a brisk pace, it works fairly well as an opener thanks to some efficient world-building in a limited time, enhanced by the expertise of a seasoned director like Paul McGuigan. I always believed his camera work in the dialogue scenes of Lucky Number Slevin (2006) was exceptional, thus I was not a bit surprised when the stellar one-on-one dialogue scene in “Pilot” that I discuss in detail below jumped out at me as the highlight of the hour.
Jo Evans (Allison Tolman), the police chief in a small town in Long Island, wakes up in the middle of the night at her house due to an explosion from a crash at some distance. At the site, she discovers a young girl (Alexa Swinton) who does not seem to remember anything, including her name, where she lives, and how she got there. Jo takes her to the hospital where Dr. Abby Frasier (Zabryna Guevara, who played Dora in the first season of New Amsterdam) initially believes that she is suffering from dissociative amnesia, caused by a traumatic event. Jo thinks of the plane crash, yet neither Abby nor Jo can explain why the girl does not even have a scratch on her. There is no way she could have been on the plane, is there? If not, what was she doing at the site?
National Transportation Security Board (NTSB) agents arrive at the hospital, demanding to see to the girl. Jo stops them but the girl had already escaped her room. She emerges a bit later from the backseat of Jo’s car when the chief is trying to start it to pursue the NTSB agents who, she just found out, are fake agents. She cannot start the car however, because the girl’s presence is causing weird things to happen like lights flickering in the car, and raindrops meandering sideways on the windshield.
Something paranormal is at play anyway (cell phones cannot get any reception, electricity off at the time of the crash, etc.) since the crash and it will not take Jo long to figure out that these events are somehow linked to the girl. If you thought these first few occurrences were freaky, you realize soon that you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Things escalate so rapidly on the paranormal front that by the closing scene of the hour, the early occurrences feel like an episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog in comparison to The Shining.
Benny Gallagher (Owain Yeoman) is your cliché investigative reporter who can either be a valuable asset to the protagonists or a thorn on their side. He has access to inside information (of course) and he won’t reveal how or whom (naturally). He knows that the NTSB already called off the investigation and correctly predicts that the official report will blame the incident on an unmanned drone mapping forests or “some rubbish like that.” He also knows that the plane originated from Plum Island where a Homeland Security research facility is located (that much, Jo also knew, to her credit). He wishes to collaborate with her to uncover the mystery, an idea to which Jo does not look favorably at first. Yet, she can neither dismiss his resourcefulness nor reject his offer off-hand, and by the end of the episode, she will indeed turn to him for assistance because she will not know who to trust anymore after the frantic events of the hour.
And yes, the plot indeed advances frantically, perhaps a bit too much.
If the most memorable scene of the hour also happens to be the calmest one, not impacted by some paranormal twist or breathless action, but rather enhanced by a simple-yet-heartfelt dialogue showcasing the wonderful connection between two characters, it means the show needs to maintain a healthier balance between intimate scenes and the plot-driven ones. “Pilot” is rather dominated by the latter. This is not to say that it is wrong because the premise needs to be soundly established and populated in a premiere. It’s just that I am not able to confirm yet, to myself at least, that action and shock-value will not dominate the show, and frankly, I would prefer to confirm that as soon as possible. Blatantly put, I want more scenes like the one with the two main characters in the upstairs bedroom.
Tolman and Swinton milk every bit of the delightful three-and-a-half-minute-long dialogue (kudos to writers Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas, also the showrunners). Jo shares the story of her mother abandoning her when she was the girl’s age and encourages her to open up by saying, “sometimes it helps to talk about things that are scary or sad because then we know that we’re not alone,” to which the girl replies, “If I remember, then I have to go away. And I want to stay.” Tolman and Swinton’s deliveries are splendid, and I must also give giant praise to whoever decorated the charming bedroom.
Jo felt compelled to bring the girl to her home from the hospital, for good reasons. Not only does the girl have nowhere else to go, but there are also some ‘bad guys’ after her. They come in the form of fake NTSB officers and a couple named ‘Mr. and Mrs. Martin’ (Quincy Dunn-Baker and Gia Crovatin) visiting the precinct and pretending to be the parents of ‘Olivia.’ Having experienced the incident with the NTSB agents at the hospital, Jo is mentally on high alert and does not swallow the story of the Martins. In a clever move, she asks to see pictures of their daughter on their phones because, you know, what parent does not have pictures of their child on their phone, right? Well, ‘Freddie and Charlotte’ do not!
They realize Jo is suspicious of them and somehow sneak out of the precinct unnoticed during the nine seconds that Jo left them in her office. Never mind that Jo was 10 feet away expressing her doubts to her deputy officer Chris (Robert Bailey Jr.) and that there were two other officers standing right near Jo’s office. Call me nit-picky, but such discrepancies jump out, and they could have easily been avoided.
As for family dynamics in Jo’s house, her daughter Mia (Ashley Aufderheide), thanks to whom the ‘girl’ gets the name Piper, appears to get along great with the newcomer. The third and last member of the household is Jo’s father Ed (played by the always-charismatic Clancy Brown). He is recovering – or trying to – from cancer that he acquired from years of working as a firefighter and being around smoke. The good news is that the doctors recommended him to return to regular daily activities.
Let me insert a paragraph here about Tolman and Brown’s performances as the father-daughter duo of Ed and Jo. One of the reasons why Piper quickly takes a liking to Jo, I presume, has to do with the soothing way in which Jo speaks. Her soft voice comes in short spurts, never taking a menacing tone. Her expressions convey a sense of sincerity. Same goes for Ed who exudes goodwill and trustworthiness. You listen to both and understand at once why they are related to each other. It’s a great casting choice to pair them up as father and daughter, hats off to the showrunners.
As for Mia’s father, Jo is divorced but appears to get along well with ex-husband Alex (Donald Faison) who finds himself smack in the thick of everything in “Pilot” when he stops by the house to take Mia for the weekend. The poor dude was apparently looking forward to a weekend of tranquility, fishing with his daughter, but alas!
Once the fake-parent debacle takes place, Jo is genuinely gone from worried to derailed. She immediately calls Alex to move the family to another house in order to evade the sketchy characters in pursuit of Piper. Apparently, it is to no avail, because the fake parents find them anyway, with no explanation given as to how they did. In an intense action scene, Jo and the family attempt to escape through a window in the basement. Piper is kidnapped and driven away by the couple in an SUV. Jo gets in her police vehicle and follows them when, out of nowhere, the SUV flips over at high speed, killing the sketchy duo but somehow leaving Piper unscathed!
Officer Chris, also bewildered by the events, especially by the fact that the NTSB cleaned up the crash site overnight and gave an official explanation sounding very close to what Benny told Jo earlier, informs his boss that they found a card on the dead guy with no circuitry or magnetics. Jo decides to meet with Benny a second time and hands the card over to him, hoping that he can figure out what it is. She is basically collaborating with him, handing over evidence, aware that she has now crossed the line into the domain of illegality. Benny, the fountain of information that he is turning out to be, tells her that the phony NTSB agents removed the black box and the human remains from the site.
At this point, it’s crystal clear that Jo has become Piper’s protector. She does not even register a report on her at the risk of ruining her career, fearing that more bad guys can then locate her. At least, she has her trustworthy officer Chris on her side who replies, “Done. Easy. Don’t even worry about it,” when she asks him to cross the line with her. Dear showrunners, please don’t let anything happen to Chris, he is awesome!
As if mysteries have not multiplied enough, writers Butters and Fazekas throw in a stunning eleventh-hour twist with a scene featuring Piper looking at herself in the mirror in front of the sink in the bathroom, terrifically performed by Swinton and directed by McGuinan, not to forget the ominous sound of “You Should See Me in a Crown” by Billie Eilish as the background music. You cannot help but get sucked in by what you witness on screen, just to grasp what is really happening.
Piper stares at herself in the mirror (or into your eyes, I should say) as she cuts herself behind the ear to remove a chip that has the same symbol on it as the one she saw on a static TV screen at Jo’s house earlier. She chucks it down the sink with the water flowing from the faucet. It’s a petrifying closing-sequence as Piper’s stare and expression progressively shift from ice-cold to surprised, to one of realization, to slightly strained, to calm, and finally to satisfied, while blood and the chip flow down the sinkhole. Curtain closes on the episode with Piper thoroughly washing away the blood, (almost) expertly arranging her hair to cover the cut and smiling to herself!
It’s an eye-opener because unlike some of the previous shows featuring a gifted child that I mentioned above, Emergence wastes no time in hinting at the possibility that Piper may have a sinister side.
Last-minute thoughts:
– I loved watching Mia lecture her parents on why she should stay with Piper over the weekend instead of fishing with her dad. The subtle sarcasm on her tone when she repeats her therapist’s word about a child needing “security and consistency” is nicely done by Aufderheide!
– When Ed tells Piper about his cancer and explains that the pills on the table are making him better, Piper bluntly states, “no, they’re not.” She can either see the future (in that case, Ed is dying) or read others’ bodies, or something.
– I hope Benny’s character growth will go beyond the scope of the cliché investigative reporter who appears, for the most part, when there is a need to advance the plot forward, because his useful findings do not need justification thanks to his pledge to not reveal his “sources.”
– Do not hesitate to let me know your thoughts in the message space below or on social media. Since I am essentially riding the same boat as the rest of the show’s viewers, not knowing what comes next, I can’t think of anyone else with whom I would enjoy discussing the show than with them.
Until the next episode…
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