Emergence (1×01) Pilot Review

Kids are special but should we care about this one?

Synopsis: After Jo, a police chief, takes in a young child she finds near the site of a mysterious accident, she soon discovers the girl has no memory of what has happened or who she is. The investigation into the history that led up to the accident — and questions as to how and why it happened — draws the woman into a conspiracy larger than she ever imagined, with the child’s identity at the center of it. (IMDb)

Emergence is the second fall series in a row to revolve around planes after Manifest. Just like Manifest, things may not necessarily be what they seem but will we even care to find out?. This series hopes that this mystery will keep viewers coming back week after week but for now, the jury is still out on that one. Meanwhile, the series follows small town police chief Jo Evans (Allison Tolman) who gets alerted of a mysterious plane crash that may not actually be a plane crash judging by the response from agents who claimed to be part of the NTSB. Most notably, Jo happens to find a young girl (Alexa Swinton) near the crash site who she decided to bring home with her.

Thinking that she may have been a survivor of the plane crash, Jo took the girl to the hospital where no sign of injury was found. The girl did not have any memory of what happened but things would become more suspicious after more of the fake NTSB agents came to try and take the girl away. This was enough to convince Jo that there may be something more sinister going on here. Going back to the crash site (which was miraculously cleaned up the night before), Jo found an investigative reporter named Benny (Owain Yeoman) who appeared to know a lot more about what may have happened. Jo was understandably skeptical.

Once home, Jo’s daughter Bree (Ashley Aufderheide) and father Ed (Clancy Brown) took a liking to the girl (who was given the name Piper) who showed signs of having some sort of powers which didn’t really come as much of a surprise. Meanwhile, Jo’s ex-husband and Bree’s father Alex (Donald Faison) was uncomfortable with the situation as Bree wanted to stay with Jo and Piper instead of going with him (and against their visitation schedule).

The weirdness continued when Jo received a call that a couple claiming to be Piper’s parents (they said Piper’s name was Olivia) arrived at the station. At this point, it was pretty easy to be skeptical of them and luckily, Jo saw right through them for which she was right. As soon as that happened, they disappeared (power surges were a frequent occurrence in this episode). Thinking that Piper and her family may be in danger, Jo had Alex take everyone to a secluded cabin. Of course they weren’t safe for very long as strangers arrived . They managed to escape the cabin before someone finally took Piper. However, that would be short-lived as well as the car of her presumed abductor flipped while Jo was pursuing it (in a scene that was revealed in the previews for the series) with Piper emerging unharmed.

All of this was enough for Jo to go back to Benny who discovered that the plane came from an island with a homeland security research facility thus implying what we already probably knew that Piper was an experiment of some sort that escaped. Piper said that she’s try to remember what happened but she was also worried that her remembering would mean that she couldn’t stay with Jo anymore. She assured her that this was not the case as she vowed to find the truth. The episode ended with Piper cutting out some sort of chip that was implanted behind her ear.

In the end, Emergence is off to an intriguing start. Allison Tolman’s Jo is a compelling character (it’s nice to see a female lead) and the episode as a whole did just enough to warrant another watch.

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.