Take Two – Pilot

By: Gladys Luna

The episode opens with a woman identifying herself as Detective McNair (Rachel Bilson) while she is walking into an old, abandoned warehouse looking for someone. Muffled sounds can be heard leading the detective to her target. A woman, whose name is Stacy (Katelyn Peterson), is revealed to be tied up to a chair. While the detective tries to free her, a man named Vlad (Andre Tricoteux) shows up from behind and points a gun at her. She is asked to put her own gun down and she does as requested but the girl is not giving up without a fight. Vlad tries to pick up the gun and in a swift move Detective McNair kicks the gun to his face and pulls out another gun turning the whole scene on her favor. The good guys have won again Suddenly, we see that the whole scene has been part of a long-canceled TV show called “Hot Suspect” whose star Sam Swift (Rachel Bilson) has recently entered a rehab center due to her prior behavior. Sam greets Theresa (Evelyn Chew), the receptionist of the center, who reveals to be a big fan of hers while she hands her all of her stuff as she has satisfactorily completed the program and has been officially released. When Sam is heading towards the door, she is met with her agent Sydney (Heather Doerksen) who welcomes her back to the outside world and gives her a cap and glasses to use as a “disguise” and cover herself from the paparazzi waiting for her at the other side of the fence.

Sam confesses to Sydney that she has had enough with her past and wants to do everything different and just get back to work. Sydney tells her about this new script she has received from a new- young writer where she would be playing a private investigator that would mean her ticket back to the business if she agrees on. Sam decides to give it a chance and also, as a way to make a better representation of said character, she asks Sydney to help her find someone that may guide her through it and she thinks of someone that could be a good fit of what they are looking for, a guy Syd used to date with.

On the other side of town, private investigator Eddie Valetik (Eddie Cibrian) is helping his client John Killen (Bob Frazer) to solve the robbery of one of his cars. Eddie cares to explain the whole process of the investigation to the other man until he reveals that he knows that John himself set everything up in order to cover a murder of a young girl that he just committed.

After another problem solved, Eddie returns to his office where his assistant and technician Roberto “Berto” (Xavier de Guzman) informs him of a new case that has arrived and also advises him that “an old friend” is waiting for him. Eddie soon meets with Sydney who asks him to pay an old debt to her and help Sam in the building process of her new character. The man doesn’t seem to be interested at all saying that he won’t be anyone’s babysitter without realizing that Sam has been standing behind him. She assures him that she hasn’t needed a babysitter since a while ago and after a coming and going of arguments Eddie finally agrees to help her.

Their first case together has arrived, and Eddie asks Sam not to intervene while he is talking to the client and even though the girl promises she won’t but ends up asking more questions than Eddie himself. The case is about a girl named Lynette (Emily Tennant), a straight “A” student, well behaved that went missing right after she arrived to L.A. and as her parents have heard nothing from her recently they assume her dead. Sam and Eddie start their search of Lynette’s whereabouts and that is how they end up knocking at the apartment’s door where the girl was staying. A young man, Horace Marshak (Scott Patey), opens the door and explains them that Lynette rented a room for a week but after three days she left, and he didn’t see her again. Sam has been watching the whole dynamic between Eddie and the guy and had picked on something, so she calls for Eddie and lets him know what she has learned about “body language” throughout her career so, based on that, she believes that the guy has been hiding something. The girl suggests going and searching the room where Lynette had stayed and when they do, it turns out that the girl had been spied by the Horace through the eyes of a teddy bear standing in one of the shelves. The guy freaks out and confesses that he did spy on her, but he had nothing to do with her disappearance.

Sam and Eddie leave the apartment after asking the guy to hand them the footage of Lynette. That is how they find out that the girl had called to an escort service, so they decide to pay a visit to said place.  When both arrived there, Eddie speaks to the woman that runs the place and goes by the name of “Mads” (Michelle Harrison). She lets them know that Lynette actually went to visit her, but not about looking for a job. Instead it is to find a guy called Ricky Jenson (Brennan Walstrom) that works for them as a part of the security team. Mads helps Eddie by giving him the address of where he lives and when the duo arrives there they find out that the man had been murdered.

After a while, Detective Christine Rollins (Aliyah O’Brien) arrives to the crime scene and questions Eddie about how he discovered the dead body. While they are discussing the situation, the coroner Mick English (Jordan Gavaris) shows up and couldn´t hide his excitement about meeting Sam. When the two of them are inside the bathroom where the dead body is in, Sam surprises Mick with her guesses about the crime scene. The girl takes a picture of a tattoo that Ricky had on his chest and saves it.

In the meantime, Det. Rollings informs Eddie that the murder may be related to the organized crime, so she suggests him to take Sam out of the case for her safety. Later that night, he lets Sam know about the news and she assures him that based on the tattoo on the dead man´s chest she believes that Lynette and Ricky where “childhood sweethearts” and she went looking for him when she realized he was falling for someone else. She also guesses what the girl’s phone passcode might be and when they finally manage to open it they realized that the phone has been reset. However, a new text was received after the reset, so they text back pretending to be Lynette and are able to set up a meeting with whoever´s at the other side.

Eddie and Sam arrive at the place where they had set the meeting at. Sam attempts to go with Eddie, but he won’t let her. The man meets with Racine (Mychal Thompson) the guy they assume is reacted to the other girl’s disappearance, but the guy explains to Eddie that he just met her for a business transaction and nothing else. Apparently, Racine wanted to buy a burner phone and a gun so what Sam can tell out of it is that when Lynette found out about Ricky’s death and she decided to take this matter on her own hands and went after his murderer.

Sam asks to an old friend to track the number of the burner phone that Lynette bought and that is how they arrive to the place where she has been hiding. After they find her and explain her that her father had hired them, she lets them know that her father is dead, so it isn’t possible that he had done that. She also lets them know that Ricky had been working for a man named “Deacon” and had attempted to get himself out of the business, but he knew that there was no way of walking out without getting killed. So, he started to gather some evidence against the man and that is how he ended up dead. Right that moment, Lynette’s fake father (Tim Kelleher) shoots at them and starts chasing them. After a while, they finally manage to get out of there alive, but Lynette’s gets mad at them for meddling with the said situation, so she walks away from them.

Sam and Eddie are left alone and without a case. The girl informs him that the financers had backed out on her movie so Eddie mocks about the fact that after everything he went through now he is not even going to get paid and accuses Sam on been a distraction during the case making the girl get mad at him and walks away.

Sam meets with Syd at a bar and lets her know the details about the case when suddenly she figures out that maybe the man that killed Ricky was a cop and that is the reason why nobody seems to catch him. She goes to Eddie’s house to convince him to help her and protect Lynette from getting herself killed and the man finally agrees. He asks Berto to do some research and they find some of the files Ricky had requested about “Deacon.” They find out that some of the criminal cases taken to court share some commonalities, the sentence in all of them had been reduced and they all are signed by the same person: Judge Noah B. Chambers (Brian Markinson) so they conclude that Judge Noah is actually “Deacon.”

Sam and Eddie set up a plan in order to catch him so, they take advantage of the fact that the judge is running for reelections and he’ll be throwing a party the next day. Sam manages her way in, disguised as a Southern belle. Their objective is to find the files that would give away who the judge truly is but reaching them proves not to be so easy. When Sam and Eddie finally get the files, they hear some sound coming from behind a door and when Sam opens it she finds Lynette tied up inside. As they manage to help the younger girl, they get caught by Paul Seaborn (Lynette’s fake dad) who asks them to drop their gun while he points at them. And just in the way we saw at the beginning of the episode with the “Hot Suspect” scene, Eddie reenacts the part where Sam’s character says that she is “greedy for justice” letting the girl know what she should do so, she kicks the gun that now lies on the floor and throws it at Paul.

Later on the police arrive and Judge Noah gets taken away, but not before telling Eddie that he just made it into his “Christmas list.” Lynette thanks Sam saying she is a real hero and after the fuss has vanished, only Eddie and Sam are left. They say their goodbyes to each other as the chapter has been closed.

The next day, Eddie arrives at his office and sees a room full of people waiting to be attended. Berto tells him that the publicity did well for them, but the thing is they don’t want Eddie to work on their cases alone. In the meantime, at the beach Sam is taking a walk when she gets a call from Eddie and if there is anything we can tell by the wide smile that spreads across her face it is that the duo is back together.

What a tantalizing first episode this was. Let’s find out where the road leads these two next Thursday at 10/9c on ABC. ¡Hasta la próxima!