‘Intruders’ Pilot Recap: More Than One Way to Drown a Cat

Do you like British thrillers with birthday candles? Lots and lots of slo-mo birthday candles? Maybe a few grossly over-dilated pupils? How about a hand cannon with two barrels and dual-ejection ports? Count me curious!

So, what’s this show about? Lemme see if I get this straight. There are beings that are “Immortal,” in that their souls can travel from human body to human body once the current body is dead. There’s also a Second Set of people, quite possibly the same beings, who seek to locate these Immortals, mostly because oftentimes the new human host doesn’t know it’s a host and the Second Set needs to wake it up. Or something. Also, one of the Second Set sometimes really likes to kill the hell out of people who may or may not be Immortal.

It’s all very confusing and sorta boring.

Apparently the U.S. West Coast has some serious shit going down. I think. Actually, it’s hard to tell WHERE this is happening as we visit two real towns and two totally made-up towns. Why are there both fictional towns and real towns? It doesn’t matter.

James Frain plays the currently most deadly member of the Second Set. I remember him from ‘True Blood’ where he basically played the same character. His name in the show might be Shepherd. I can’t be sure, but I’m gonna call him Franklin.

The only for-sure other Second Set member is Robert Forster (played by Robert Forster). With the slight chance of a third member by the name of Gary Fischer and possibly a fourth named Mira Sorvino. The episode starts off with Forster and Franklin rocking up to a dark house, in the middle of the night, in the world’s quietest muscle car (GHOST CAR!). They’re sort of sneaking around but have a key to the door. They go upstairs and find a young girl sleeping. They cover her mouth, restrain her and show her the carved poker chip of barfing. She barfs, has some seizures and then her pupils get really big. I’m thinking that if there’s an Immortal inside, the only way to tell is SUPER pupils. After some background dialogue and the girl speaking in tongues, the Second Set dudes give her a playing card with the #9 on it. They take off, she runs a bath, writes a suicide note and promptly kills herself.

The next storyline is, to me, the closest this show comes to being interesting. SUPER pupil hottie, and possible Second Set, Mira Sorvino is married to a non-SUPER pupil Ex-Cop turned author. They totally clothes-on bang atop the kitchen counter, somewhat lovelessly. The next morning, Mira takes off for a business trip. She doesn’t call for two days. This rouses suspicion in an EX-COP who waits two days before noticing that his wife has mysteriously gone missing! Oh, she lost her smartphone two days ago. Well, that seems reasonable! No, it doesn’t. If I couldn’t find my phone, I would call in the National Guard and probably my significant other. Maybe Ex-Cop should call her hotel, just to see if she’s OK. She’s not there. Oooohhh! Surely the rest of the mystery will run its course over this season.

The other two storylines consist of conspiracy theory Pirate Radio Guy (played by David Dastmalchian, one of the Joker’s thugs from ‘The Dark Knight’ – glad to see him working!) and Creepy Little Girl, who Franklin thinks might be an Immortal. Pirate Radio Guy broadcasts his theories about who the Immortals might be from his roving studio/clichéd beat-ass van. When, one night, Franklin fools him into grabbing some beers, Pirate Radio Guy tells him he has secrets. (Side note: If, after telling a complete stranger that you have secrets, that stranger asks you, “Who else knows about this?”, RUN LIKE HELL!) Franklin then fools him AGAIN into letting him into his home, where Pirate Radio Guy promptly gets his head shotgunned to bloody, chunky bits in the episode’s second grisliest killing.

In the other plotline, Creepy Little Girl gets a few visits by Franklin. He seems to be either trying to coax the Immortal awake or stalking her; it’s difficult to say. She seems to be awakening on her own. During another random beach meet-up, Franklin decides he’s going to shoot the little girl (with his double barrel, dual ejection port hand cannon!), but she tricks him into thinking that she’s TOTALLY just a little girl, not a weird immortal with these SUPER pupils, no sireeee. He buys it.

That night, Creepy Little Girl goes in and out of SUPER pupil/Immortal awakening and decides to draw a bath. Ok, here we go again. She writes something in her notebook next to the bath tub. Could it be another suicide note? Just then, Ser Pounce leaps up on the side of the tub for some kitty love. Creepy Little Girl obliges and then freaks the hell out and violently drowns the cat in the tub, thus winning the most gruesome death of the ep ribbon. It’s awful. Just like this show is starting off.

Apparently, Creepy Little Girl is an Immortal and now fully awake. Her name is now “Marcus.” Marcus calls Franklin and says, “Ha Ha, I totally fooled you and now I’m coming for you.” The show ends with a really long and uninteresting shot of Marcus with his cute loaded-up little red backpack slowly walking out the door, down the stairs and into the dark.

Wow. Stay tuned next week for more confusion and possible pet slaying!

Eek. I’ll be skipping the rest of this show.

1 comment

  1. I watched this only because Wayne mentioned that he was planning to recap the first episode. It’s absolutely godawful. His description of the show’s premise (immortal souls taking over other people’s bodies) is way more coherent than anything actually explained in the episode. Nothing in this makes any sense at all. Unwatchable.

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