The pilot episode of The Crossing aired April 2nd on ABC.
The Premise: Refugees from a war-torn country 180 years in the future start showing up in the present to seek asylum in an American town.
The Mystery Begins
We first meet Jude Ellis, Sheriff of Port Canaan, taking a yoga class. Apparently he has some stress to deal with, and a past (which includes a son and an exwife) he’s trying to work through. But yoga class is cut short when a deputy arrives with the news that a body has washed up on Thorn Beach.
However, when they arrive, it’s not just one body, it’s what appears to be an ocean full of them. And there’s something else: they’re not all dead.
There’s a little girl, and Jude is shocked to find that she’s breathing. Her name is Leah, and she wants her mother who she says is in the water. Others wash up, and all total 47 make it out of the water alive.
But there are no life jackets, and no missing vessels.
Homeland Security arrives on the scene, and agent Emma Ren takes over. She tells a bewildered Jude that the people are seeking asylum, that they are refugees.
The Mystery Grows
Jude talks to the little girl, Leah. He asks her how they got in the water. She tells him they were running away from a war. He then asks where they are from and she says America. When he tells her there is no war here, she says, “There will be.”
We then meet several of the refugees, each one telling parts of the story.
Caleb (who has a birthdate of 150 years in the future) says that they knew there would be risks and they didn’t expect to arrive the way they did. When Ren asks how it’s possible that his birthdate is 150 years into the future, he says, “You can’t imagine what will become possible.” Great line.
We meet more of the refugees: there’s Hannah, a young girl, who tries to make friends with Roy, a Homeland agent. There’s Paul, and Thomas. And Caleb, of course, and his wife, Rebecca, who have lost a daughter. They each share bits and pieces of what happened:
“… a process, a way to bend time …”
“… no other option …”
“ … we are an endangered species …”
“ … not a war, an extermination …”
When Agent Ren asks if the govenerment was involved, she is told that someone or something called “Apex” took over the government.
Homeland shuts the Sheriff out, and Agent Ren gives him “talking points”. He has to lie to the press and tell them that there were no survivors.
Meanwhile
Down the coast, a fishing boat has rescued another refugee: a woman searching for her daughter.
Then this Deputy Undersecretary, Lindauer, shows up for a debriefing, and my bad guy radar immediately went off. Me suspected something was up with this guy. Agent Ren relates the stories from the refugees about Apex, and “heightened cognitive function”. He isn’t buying the time travel thing, and tells her to keep them sequestered.
The woman who was found by the fishing boat makes her way to Port Canaan where she holds the Sheriff at gunpoint and demands that he take her to the dead. He drives her to the hangar where the bodies are being kept, and she searches the bodies, but Homeland shows up, and the woman literally pounces up into the air and out through a window. Okay, this Momma has some super powers. I’m thinking Apex.
Thomas meets with Agent Ren and tells her he has information with national security implications. He says there was an earlier migration, a smaller group with a different agenda. He wants to talk to the President. She can’t do that, but instead arranges a meeting with the Lindauer.
The refugees are loaded up on buses and taken to some housing site out in the woods. Looks like a camp or something. But Thomas gets his meeting with the undersecretary. He tells him that the ones they need to fear are already there. And then comes the twist: Lindauer is one of them! I knew he was bad, but I didn’t expect that.
In the last scene, the woman from the fishing boat, Reece, shows up at the Sheriff’s house. She tells him she’s looking for her daughter, to which Jude replies, “You wanna start from the beginning?”
Boom-there you go. The pilot episode. It was good, I liked it. I love the premise, it’s a timely story about refugees and government coverup, but then there’s this time travel twist and mystery that elevates it, so it’s not just a political drama. And I love the main players so far. Jude is my favorite, I don’t think he’s just gonna stand by and let Homeland take over. Plus he’s got a bit of a backstory, something that haunts him, something he wants to make right, and that makes him interesting.
Please share your thoughts in the comments—what did you think of the pilot? Who is your favorite character so far? What do you think Apex is?
The Crossing returns on April 9th, 10/9 C, on ABC.
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