An hysterical woman, failing to contact the person she is trying to reach on her cell, jumps out of her speeding taxi as it crosses the 59th Street Bridge late at night, climbs over the railing and dives into the East River. It’s a suicide according to NYPD “Detective Jo Martinez” (Alana De La Garza). “Homicide,” counters medical examiner “Doctor Henry Morgan” (Ioan Gruffudd). And so begins the second episode of this new ABC drama.
Lorraine Toussaint as “Lieutenant Joanna Reece” gets into the act as Jo’s superior who’s tough as nails. We know this because Reece tells Jo that she feels sorry for her because she lost her husband, but that’s no excuse for Jo not to be on top of her detective game.
Jo wants to proceed with Henry’s recommendation that the bridge victim be treated as a homicide, but Reece says no. This of course is Jo’s cue to circumnavigate her boss, grab Henry and find out whodunit.
Because Henry has to do his dying shtick in each episode to remind us of his immortality, he goes climbing on the bridge looking for clues and gets hit by oncoming traffic. That happens after he discovers that there was another person on the bridge besides the deceased woman, who it turns out was a grad student translating an ancient scroll. They first suspect her professor, who she was having an affair with, until he ends up dead too. Further investigation by Jo on Henry’s insistence reveals someone had lured the woman to the bridge to kill her. Then the professor’s wife comes under suspicion; she must have murdered her rival out of jealousy. But still Henry is not satisfied.
In what seems to be dues ex machina disguised as experience and intuition, Henry confronts another grad student accusing the nerdy man of envy and resentment so deep seated that he would take the lives of his colleagues, to get his name on ancient scroll research paper.
In a OK-you-got-me moment, the killer threatens Henry with a knife, which he refuses to put down even though half of Jo’s squad is pointing their guns at him. He ends up shot by the police.
Lieutenant Reece calls Jo in, presumably to call her on the carpet for her disobedience, but instead praises the detective for trusting her gut. Only on TV does a police chief tell a subordinate that it’s OK not to follow orders.
This case was particularly rough for both Jo and Henry, as they had to interact with the young victim’s parents and witness their grief. It’s emotional for Jo who misses her husband; as well as for Henry who misses Abigail. Also, because the loss of a child is involved, we learn in flashback that Henry adopted “Abe” (Judd Hirsch) when he was a baby, and raised the now old man as his son.
There is also a hint that Abigail perhaps did not leave Henry via death as originally suspected, but that she abandoned both Henry and Abe, and she might still be alive somewhere.
I assume every episode will conclude with a call from the stalker as this one does. (The pilot did as well.)
Earlier on in this episode, the other immortal man left a gift on Henry’s desk: a note written on antique paper from a hotel in Italy where Henry and Abigail stayed at the end of World War II. This freaks out Henry, but when questioned, the mystery caller won’t give out too much information. “There’s no need to rush this relationship,” he says, “we’ve got all the time in the world.” He also tells Henry to call him Adam, as he’s been alive from the beginning, or at least the last 2000 years.
There’s something intriguing about this show, but they have to cram so much in each hour, that the three different storylines (crime solving, past lives, and mystery stalker) don’t really get their due.
src of http://www.starpulse.com/news/Lorraine_Duffy_Merkl/2014/09/24/forever_s1_ep_2_look_before_you_leap
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