Pilot is first episode of the first season of Orphan Black: Echoes and the first episode of this series overall. It first aired in Australia on November 3, 2023 on Stan[2]. It subsequently premiered on June 23, 2024 simultaneously on BBC America, AMC and AMC+ respectively[3]
Summary[]
When Lucy’s quiet life in the countryside is violently interrupted by forces from her past, she must escape to the city with her new chosen family to find answers, only to meet a familiar young woman who begs even more questions.
Plot[]
Birds are heard chirping and there is some clinking before a young woman opens her eyes. Then another voice talks to her mentioning how it looks like she is awake now, but to take her time. The younger woman asks if she was asleep, but the other woman informs her that wasn’t exactly the case. The young woman asks the other woman who she is, but she doesn’t answer. Instead, she asks the young woman if she knows where she is. The older woman then mentions that the younger woman is going to be feeling a bit disoriented as she has been through a procedure, but doesn’t elaborate beyond that. Eventually, the younger woman looks down at her nails, which are covered in a pink substance. The younger woman grows more agitated as she can’t recall what year it currently is nor what her name is either. Eventually, the older woman deduces that the younger woman has her short term memory intact, but it is her long-term memory that is a bit jumbled at the moment. The younger woman gets angry, and breaks a nearby lamp. This results in what looks like male nurse having to grab her, and sedate her since she is overwhelmed.
Later, the young woman hears the birds chirping again, and once again opens her eyes, but this time it is night time. She sees the photo the other woman showed her earlier that day still on the table near the couch she was laying down and proceeds to look at it. She tries to open the various doors in the room she finds herself in, but she is locked in. She tries the windows, but those two are locked, and she can’t open them either. Thus, she picks up the lap and places it on the couch, and then grabs the side table which she used to throw at the window, but it doesn’t break. Eventually, she breaks the lamp into pieces and uses the metal rods to break where the light switches are and manages to open the door from the other side. Unfortunately, when she gets out, she realizes she is not quite free just yet. She sneaks into a nearby area and looks at what appears to be a lab of sorts. She continues walking through it, and eventually reaches what looks like a tank. She subsequently presses a button that opens it and realizes that the pink liquid she is looking at is the same one she had residue underneath her nails. Then, to her horror, what looks like a synthetic body. Eventually, the older woman shows up, and she tells the younger woman that this is not how she wanted her to find out. When pressed for answers, the older woman tells the younger woman that the latter was created; printed to be exact from a high-resolution scan using a very complex process. The older woman explains how this is a new technology whose essence is the 4D printing of human tissue. She makes a run for it, and eventually gets outside.
Two years later, in 2052 the young woman from before is driving a truck as she belts out to David Bowie’s “Janine”. Eventually she gets to a secluded place where she has an RV and proceeds to get inside. She takes a drink of water, and then opens up a secret compartment where she deposits some money alongside jars full of money and a gun. Unfortunately, she ends up pricking her finger, and blood comes out. This causes her to have a flashback to what looks like her and a knife coated in blood. She shakes off the memory, and just then a kid comes into her RV. The kid tells the woman in sign language that she was three minutes and 46 seconds later and asks if they can make pizza. She signs back that the kid needs to get their homework done and then they will talk about it. She then asks the kid if they recall that they forgot something. The kid tries to take their backpack away from the woman, but it drops in the process. She sees what the kid had in their backpack, and reprimands them for having something that doesn’t belong to them. The kid asks what is even in that notebook with sketches and other stuff. She informs her that it is some research, but doesn’t want to tell him anything else. The woman then asks the kid if what they saw can stay between the two of them. The kid nods and hugs the woman.
Later, the woman and kid are testing out a toy rocket outside which they successfully launch into the air, and this makes the two of them laugh. The woman then points out to the kid that a man just arrived. The kid runs to the man, excitedly signing how the woman, whom they refer to as Lucy, helped them build a rocket for school. Once the kid is out of earshot, the dad asks Lucy if her daughter is okay. Lucy jokes that she let her eat a bunch of pizza and drink a coke.
At night, Lucy is playing some music on her record player as she tinkers with some trinket and looking at some schematics. The door opens, and the man from earlier informs Lucy that his daughter is asleep now. He hugs her from behind, and proceeds to kiss her, which Lucy accepts. Things grow steamy quickly, and the two take their clothes off and have sex. Afterwards, the two are cuddling on the couch, while he caresses her hand. Eventually stopping at a scar. He asks Lucy if she really can’t remember how she got that. To which Lucy replies that she must have blocked it out. Switching gears, she asks the man if he has thought more about telling his daughter Charlie about them, as it has been a year. Lucy states that she feels weird about lying to her. But the man says he wants to make sure she is ready since he wasn’t sure if Charlie could be okay after someone named Clara left them. Lucy reiterates that she isn’t going anywhere because this is her home now. He tries asking her why it was so hard for her in the city. But she dodges the question, and simply says it is hard to talk about it. But she just felt lost until she met him. Lucy then goes onto sit on his lap, as she recites how she likes SpaghettiOs, doing crossword puzzles, taking long walks on the beach and jokes about how she has the pathological desire to not talk about her past. Lucy tells him that she loves him and he jokingly introduces himself to her as Jack, who works at a diner, but used to be an army medic. Afterwards, Lucy is jolted away when she experiences the same memory from before.
Later that day, Lucy is out working on some fields, and she tells a coworker in Spanish about the memory that is plaguing her. How she does not remember what she did before she was holding the knife and seeing all that blood and she can’t escape. Lucy is called over by a man who asks if she can work her magic on his car, and make it work again. She tells the man that the steering fluid line may be broken, but proceeds to tinker with it anyway. Much to her horror, the fluid looks just as pink as the one from the tank she saw two years ago in the city. She then recalls coming out of that tank and ripping a membrane of sorts encasing her, so she can breathe. Frazzled, she turns around, and ends up getting hit by a nearby truck, and has a gash on her forehead. The other employees rush to her, and one of them is calling the ambulance, but Lucy doesn’t want any doctors involved. She then is being looked at by a hospital, where they are using a scanner of sorts, which detects the injury she got in her head as a result of the accident at work. The doctor informs Lucy that her tests came back completely normal, which shocks her. She asks the doctor if they would be able to tell if she had a baby before, but the doctor informs that it would not be with 100% certainty. But before she can elaborate, a worried Jack arrives to check up on her. Eventually, Jack asks Lucy to move in with him, and tells her that is right and they should tell Charlie about their relationship.
Elsewhere, the older female that Lucy met two years earlier is smoking outside, when she gets a call. The person on the other line informs her that based on the scans that were done to her, it is a match for Lucy.
At a hospital sometime the following day, a man takes out a vest from a bag, and puts it on, before smiling creepily at the rearview mirror. Afterwards, he gets out of his car, and goes to the hospital’s front desk. Where he asks for the whereabouts of his sister, who was recently admitted there and proceeds to show them a picture of Lucy on his phone.
Meanwhile, Lucy along with Jack and Charlie are enjoying getting wet on a slip and slide. Later that night, Lucy is putting her stuff in a box, and someone opens the door. She thinks it's Jack, but instead, she is pinned to the wall by the man looking for her at the hospital. He then pulls down her shirt from her arm, and scans it, which lets him see a bunch of numbers. He taunts Lucy by saying how she must have really thought she figured out a way to escape them, and by the looks of it had set up a whole life for herself. She hits him and the two struggle and Lucy tries to choke him. But he rips the rope, but this enough for her to escape from her RV and into the nearby fields. The man finds Lucy again but this time points a gun at her. But before he can shoot, another gun goes off and kills the man. When Lucy looks at the direction the bang came from, she sees Charlie with her gun in her hands.
Afterwards, Jack is hugging his daughter, as a frantic Lucy packs their stuff while she says that they need to go as they are no longer safe. Jack wants to know why she had a gun in her trailer, but Lucy tries to tell him that she will tell him everything when they get somewhere safe. Undeterred, Jack wants to call the cops since his daughter just shot a man. Lucy tries to explain how the cops can’t do anything to help them in their current situation, and that people like that man Charlie killed could be on their way to hurt her and them as well. Lucy then mentions how the people who are after her are dangerous, and for a year they tried to get her back. She explains that there were a few close calls, but she thought that she was now off their radar. So she realizes that she must face them herself, and in the meantime, she will take Jack and Charlie to Tina’s where she knows they will be safe.
Lucy tries to tell Charlie that she didn’t do anything wrong because that bad man was going to her, and Charlie protected her. She promises that nothing like this will ever happen to them again, and that this is not Charlie’s fault. Eventually, Lucy drops Jack and Charlie off at Tina’s, who is a friend of Jack’s from his army days. She apologizes to them once again, and Jack, now less angry, sighs and tells her how he knows she is sorry.
At the Additive Foundation, a recording of the older woman Lucy met two years earlier plays for two people in suits while they are riding the elevator. The recording states how at the foundation, they have pioneered the process of 4D printing precise replicas of vital organs for transplant, which are saving thousands of lives all over the world. The recording continues that as a global health organization rooted in social justice, the Additive Foundation, they refuse to accept that one life is worth less than another. Eventually the two people in suits inform the older woman that the body of the man that attacked Lucy was found in an adjacent orchard with a small-caliber gunshot wound to the head. They also found evidence of a struggle in Lucy's trailer. In addition, Jack and Charlie’s pictures appear on the screen and the woman wearing a suit, informs the older white woman that the owner of the property and his young daughter are AWOL. They are presumed to be missing or dead at this point. Which is something the older white woman refuses to accept stating that because Lucy was attacked, she rightfully reacted. However, she doesn’t think Lucy is capable of hurting a child. The man wearing a suit interrupts the two women, and says that the takeaway here is that Lucy is proving to be violent and unstable. He asks the older white woman if she is sure all the pieces are in the right place since she was the one who built Lucy in the first place. The woman calmly explains that the scan they used did not have enough detail for certain kinds of memory recall. So Lucy can’t be faulted for not remembering who she is. Moreover, this does not mean there is anything necessarily wrong with her executive functioning. The guy, whom the other woman calls Tom, states that if Lucy has a flaw, then maybe they should consider not trying to bring her in alive. Since at the end of the day, Lucy is a liability for both of them.
Afterwards, the older white woman goes to the restroom, and calls someone but they don’t pick up. She tears up and explains that she has had a long day, and just wanted to hear her voice, before hanging up.
Meanwhile, Lucy is out in the city searching for clues after getting the location from where her attacker initially came from. Eventually, she ends up in a building and when the doors open, she is shocked to see the girl she was seeing in her nightmares with a knife coated in blood. Lucy tries to get answers from the young girl, but she is weirded out, and doesn’t want to answer her. When she drops her headphones they are surprisingly playing David Bowie’s Janine. Even more shocking, when Lucy grabs the young girl’s hand, she sees that the two of them share the same scar. Lucy realizes that she is being followed and uses the young girl as bait, to have the person following her to drop her gun. She questions who the person is, and who they work for. But all she says is that she is a nobody, and is simply an employee. Lucy asks if the young girl is the same as her, but all the person says is that it is above her paygrade. The person calls Lucy by her name, which results in Lucy saying that all she wanted was to be left alone. She then grabs the young girl and has her get inside her truck.
At the foundation, the older white woman makes a call to none other than Cosima, whom she refers to as aunt. She then states that she is Kira and that she is worried, as she may have done something terrible. As she is being asked if she is fine by Cosima, on her desk, pictures of her aunt Cosima, Siobhan Sadler, her mother and Uncle Felix are on full display.
Credits[]
Starring[]
Guest Starring[]
- Reed Diamond as Tom
- Tattiawna Jones as Emily
- Zariella Langford-Haughton as Charlie
- Jonathan Whittaker as Craig
- Georgia Leva as Myung
Co Starring[]
- Dañiella Velasco Morales as Mariella
- Vicki Kim as Doctor Palmer
- Natalia Jonas as Mother
- Victor Chiu as Worker #1
- Elan Even as Apple Foreman
- Nabil Ayoub as Security Guard
- Jeremy Hutton as Sweater Vest Man
Continuity[]
- Takes place several years after both To Right the Wrongs of Many, the series finale for Orphan Black, and Orphan Black: The Next Chapter.
Music[]
- “Janine” by David Bowie