“Natural
Selection”
(Spoilers)
Some
basic backstory. The main character is
Sarah Manning. She and her foster
brother Felix Dawkins were adopted by Siobhan Sadler, known as Mrs. S. They had been in London, but years ago moved
to … Somewhere North America. Sarah, and
to some extent Felix, have been known to pull some cons. Sarah has a young daughter Kira. About a year ago, Sarah ran off with her
boyfriend Vic leaving everyone behind.
Just before this episode, Sarah and Vic have a fight, she steals a bag
of coke from him, and goes back home.
While
Sarah is waiting for a train, she sees a woman pacing on the platform
crying. This woman sets her purse down
and takes off her shoes and coat. She
turns around and Sarah sees that she looks just like her. This woman then walks in front of a train and
is killed. After the shock wears off a
bit, Sarah grabs the woman’s purse and runs off. She finds that the woman was Beth Childs, and
that she had two phones, one in a pink case.
Sarah
meets Felix at a bar. She asks him to
sell the coke for her so she can get money to take him and Kira away. She tells him about the woman, and they wonder
if they were related. But then Sarah
figures that she might be able to grab some more money from the woman’s home.
Vic
shows up at Felix’s grungy apartment/art studio demanding to know where Sarah
is. Vic owes the local drug lord Pouchy
for the coke. And he loves Sarah, even
though she hit him with an ashtray.
Felix tells him that he doesn’t know where Sarah is.
Sarah
finds Beth has a boyfriend Paul who is out of town for the week. She also finds out that Beth is on a lot of
medication, and that she has a new bank account with $75,000 in it. Sarah plans to impersonate Beth to get the
money. She dyes her hair and studies
videos of Beth at her runs to get her voice and some mannerisms.
To
help her along, she has Felix go to the morgue to identify Beth’s body as
Sarah’s. He does, and flirts with the
coroner Colin. Later when Vic shows up,
Felix gives him “Sarah’s” death certificate.
Vic doesn’t believe him, so they go back to the morgue where Vic is
broken up.
Sarah
shows up at the bank wanting to withdraw most of the $75,000, in cash. The guy tells her that it will take a day or
two for them to get that much money together.
She also looks in her safe deposit box and finds birth certificates for
Beth, Alison Hendrix, and a Katja Obinger from Germany.
Sarah
goes back to Beth’s home, and Detective Art Bell pulls up demanding to know
where she’s been and why she hasn’t been answering his calls. Sarah tries to talk her way out, but he puts
her in his car and they go to the police station. Turns out, Beth was a detective who was on
leave due to shooting a civilian, Maggie Chen.
Sarah excuses herself to go to the restroom. She calls Felix to call off everything, but
he doesn’t answer. She drinks some hand
soap, and when the review board hearing starts, she vomits over the table.
Sarah
goes back to Beth’s to get ready to clear everything out, when Paul comes back
home. He asks about the hearing and
other questions, but when Sarah become evasive she just has sex with him.
A
drunken Vic shows up at Felix’s. They
decide they’ll have a small wake for Sarah after the cremation.
The
next morning Sarah goes to the bank and gets her money. She then stops off at Felix’s, but he’s at
the wake. She doesn’t notice that Art is
following her. He breaks into her car
and finds the stacks of money.
The
wake is on a river bank, so Sarah goes to the other side and watches through
binoculars. She calls Felix and they
talk about things. But then Mrs. S.
shows up with Kira. That wasn’t the
plan, and Sarah doesn’t want Kira thinking her mom is dead.
Sarah
goes back to her car, and another woman who looks like her – Katja – gets in
the back seat. Sarah tries to get her to
leave, but Katja talks about having the samples for Beth’s “scientist friend.”
She also coughs up blood.
Katja
finally figures out something is wrong, and poses a question, “Just one. I’m a few.
No family, too. Who am I?” Sarah
can’t answer that. But just as Katja
figures out that Sarah isn’t Beth, a sniper shoots Katja in the head.
Sarah
manages to drive away. She hears Katja’s
pink phone ring, and then Beth’s. She
had ignored it several times throughout the episode, but now she answers it.
#
So
that’s the first episode. I did leave a
few little things out, but having seen the first three seasons I know what
minor details come up later, such as Pouchy.
One thing I included that only comes up a few times is their code phrase
“Just one. I’m a few. No family, too. Who am I?” I have no reason for this, but I
have a feeling it might come back in Season Four. We’ll just have to wait and see.
I
fully believe that if you look at something long enough, you’ll be able to find
something to nitpick. The biggest
nitpick I have for this episode is that while Sarah went through Beth’s
financial statements looking for stuff to steal, shouldn’t she have noticed
direct deposits from the police? Shouldn’t
she have tried to find something to figure out what job Beth had? I mean, if the guy at the bank had asked how
things were at work, how would she have answered?
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