KIDNAPPED {PILOT} (TV)
Summary
The pilot of this drama series about the events surrounding the kidnapping of the teenage son of a wealthy New York couple. The story begins with the Cains, a wealthy New York family living in a lavish penthouse suite. The family’s teenage son Leopold is driven to school one morning, along with his bodyguard Virgil and his friend Alfred. Along the way they are stopped at what appears to be the site of a car accident by men dressed in police uniforms. In reality they are a band of kidnappers, and there is a flashback to one of them, Mr. Greene, being interviewed by the leader of the operation, known as “The Operator.” In the present, the kidnappers shoot the driver and Virgil kill several of them before being shot by Greene with a sniper rifle from a rooftop. Leopold is taken and Alfred is returned to the Cain family with a note simply reading “don’t call the police.” The Cains struggle over what to do and their lawyer Roger Prince recommends that they call in Lucian Knapp, a so-called “specialist” who makes his living recovering kidnapped children for their parents. He receives a call from the Cains immediately after successfully completing an job retrieving a kidnapped teenage girl by killing her captors. He meets with the Cains the next morning and advises them not to call the FBI, as unlike them he conducts no investigations but focuses simply on retrieval of the child. He is accompanied by his associate, a woman known only as “Turner.” Meanwhile, FBI special agent Latimer King is being honored by his co-workers, as he is about to retire. He meets with newly assigned agent Malcolm Atkins, who is disappointed that King is leaving. King is visited by Jackie, Virgil’s sister, who reports that he has gone missing and asks King to look into it. Knapp asks the Cains for a list of enemies. The family has been unable to contact their eldest child Aubrey, a student at Brown University. Knapp searches Leopold’s room and goes to speak with Alfred about identifying the kidnappers. King visits Conrad about Virgil’s disappearance, and Conrad denies any knowledge of it or of Leopold’s kidnapping, so as not to provoke King’s suspicions. However, King starts investigating Aubrey, as Conrad claimed that Leopold went to visit her. Alfred identifies one of the kidnappers and Knapp searches for him. However, just before he finds him he is killed by a hitman known as “The Accountant,” working for the Operator. He tells the Operator he saw Knapp there, but they leave him alone for the time being as the Accountant kills Greene as well. The Operator calls the Cains, using a voice modulation program to disguise his voice. He tells them to await further instructions and then hangs up before Conrad can voice a reply. Turner is unable to get a trace on the call. Leopold awakens in a sparse room in an unknown location, monitored by a pair of unknown men. Turner continues to monitor the Cain’s phone line, discovering that Ellie has placed a call to an unknown man. The men imprisoning Leopold try to feed him pills of some sort, but Leopold secretly keeps spitting them out. Turner discovers that Ellie was communicating with someone in the Secret Service, but is unable to determine who. Aubrey turns out to be missing, having apparently gone home with someone she met at a party. King and his FBI cohorts confront Knapp and Conrad in the Cain home, claiming that they are taking over the investigation to retrieve Leopold. Knapp tries to warn the Cains against working with the FBI and becomes rather confrontational with them; it turns out that Knapp is an ex-FBI agent and has some personal history working with King. They are interrupted when the Operator places another call, and asks that Conrad deliver twenty million dollars to a specific subway station near Coney Island. Turner is able to trace the call this time to an apartment building in Brooklyn. King’s squad begins planning various sweeps and searches, but Knapp soon comes into argument with them about how to proceed. He feels that they should hold off on such actions until the exchange has been made. King agrees and asks that the FBI teams hold off until after the drop. Conrad is prepared to go and given a suitcase containing twenty million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds. At the subway station Conrad, watched by Knapp, receives another call on a payphone instructing him to walk into the train tunnel itself for further instructions. He does so and Knapp follows close behind, hidden. Meanwhile, Atkins and a squad of men surround the apartment in Brooklyn and wait to move in. Conrad encounters an unknown man who asks him to leave the money where he is and leave; Leopold is not with him. Knapp sneaks around and tackles him from behind as King and his men move in. Knapp quickly realizes that they have been tricked, and the man claims he was paid to deliver the message and had no knowledge of the kidnapping. However, Atkins orders the FBI squads to move in on the apartment, only for several of them to perish when an explosive goes off inside the building. Meanwhile, Leopold makes an escape attempt by using a plastic utensil to unscrew an air duct, but does not succeed. Ellie receives a call from the Operator who claims that Leopold is dead. Knapp violently confronts Atkins over his blunder, only for their argument to be broken up by King. Knapp feels that the FBI is constrained by their adherence to procedure and protocol, and angrily storms off. In private, King warns Atkins that should he try anything like what he did that day again, his career will be finished. He then orders further phone taps and for surveillance to be put on Knapp. King decides to delay his retirement in order to resolve the kidnapping case. Ellie becomes distraught and contemplative at the apparent death of her son, but Knapp tries to reassure her that he is most likely still alive. The episode ends as Knapp stands alone in the Cain home when the phone rings. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: September 20, 2006 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:43:16
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:89163
- GENRE: Drama
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV series, 2006-2007
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Michael Dinner … Executive Producer, Director
- Jason Smilovic … Executive Producer, Writer
- Sarah Timberman … Executive Producer
- Carl Beverly … Executive Producer
- Guin McPherson … Associate Producer
- W.G. Snuffy Walden … Music by
- Jeremy Sisto … Cast, Lucian Knapp
- Carmen Ejogo … Cast, Turner
- Delroy Lindo … Cast, Latimer King
- Linus Roache … Cast, Andy Archer
- Boris McGiver … Cast, Greene
- Will Denton … Cast, Leopold Cain
- Timothy Hutton … Cast, Conrad Cain
- Mykelti Williamson … Cast, Virgil Hayes
- Dana Delany … Cast, Ellie Cain
- Doug Hutchison … Cast, Schroeder
- Ricky Jay … Cast, Roger Prince
- Robert John Burke … Cast, Bellows
- Otto Sanchez … Cast, Otto
- Michael Mosley … Cast, Malcolm Atkins
- James Urbaniak … Cast, The Accountant
- Robert Clohessy … Cast, The Operator
- Audra McDonald … Cast, Jackie Hayes
- Lydia Jordan … Cast, Alice Cain
- David Brown … Cast, Flophouse Clerk
- Bill Cwikowski … Cast, Homeless Man
- Brett del Buono … Cast, Alfred Masters
- Millie Tirelli … Cast, Maria
- Albert Jones … Cast, Sam
- Hana Moon … Cast, Elizabeth Westlake
- Paul Borghese … Cast, Driver
- Mariano Mederos … Cast, Doorman