TOUCH Strings Along the Red Thread
Episode 1.01 “Pilot”
So, there’s this ancient Chinese secret, known either as the Red String of Fate or the Red Thread of Destiny – which says that a red thread is tied around the ankles of those destined to be together. The original version has this thread connecting people who will one day marry each other, but for the purposes of “Touch” that connection has been expanded to include just about anyone.
SPOILERS AHEAD
In this first episode, we’re introduced to Martin Bohm (Kiefer Sutherland), the father of 11-year-old Jake (David Mazouz). Jake’s autistic, and so far has never spoken. Following the death of his wife in the 9-11 attack, Martin has had his hands full trying to connect with his son, and things are starting to come apart at the seams when Jake starts climbing cell phone towers.
Precisely at 3:18pm every time.
Jake adds another piece to the puzzle when he gets out of the car at the gas station, fascinated by the school bus from PS318. Inside the gas station: a guy buying a lottery ticket. When Jake hears the numbers, he takes the ticket, locks himself in the car and writes the numbers in his book. Lottery ticket guy is not happy. Fisticuffs with Martin, who doesn’t take kindly to the suggestion that Jake belongs in a cage.
Enter social worker Clea Hopkins (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who’s convinced that Martin is fighting a losing battle. Going from job to job after being a hot shot journalist, Martin seems to be spiraling down to a point so deep he can’t climb out. After so many incidents involving Jake, she now has to settle him in a boarding house for evaluation. Needless to say, Martin is not happy about this. Because something is going on with Jake. Something to do with the cell phones he collects and the number 318.
After meeting with Arthur Teller – who has studied the mathematical connection between everything in the universe and already knew Jake was climbing cell phone towers – Martin gets a glimpse into his son’s way of looking at things. Danny Glover gets underused at Teller, but since he’s in promos for later episodes, it’s likely he’ll get more to do. Teller’s insight helps Martin figure out that the numbers have a meaning, if you just know how to squint and look at them right. Martin’s figured out that Jake’s trying to say something.
That’s the backbone of the episode. And interspersed into this story – a restaurant supply salesman, the lottery ticket guy (who wins, by the way), a customer service operator in Ireland, a “working girl” in Tokyo, and a kid in Baghdad, with a bomb strapped to his chest. What do they all have in common? What’s the thread that ties them together? The salesman’s phone, which Martin found at JFK, except he put it down and it made its way around the world.
Sutherland gives a nicely nuanced performance as Bohm, with his vulnerability on his sleeve. He’s frustrated, beleaguered, and all he wants to do is connect with his kid. Mazouz probably has the bigger challenge of the two, playing a kid so focused and fixated on just one thing the entire time, and never having a line of dialogue. His performance is purely physical, and it will be interesting to watch Jake’s development following the events of this episode.
So, the salesman’s phone ends up recording the customer service girl singing in a bar, and that video makes its way to the jumbo screen in Tokyo because the working girl knows a guy, and while the salesman is talking on his new phone with the customer service girl, he sees the photos of his dead daughter on the jumbo screen, and the customer service girl tracks down the phone and finds the kid with the bomb, who only wants a new oven so his family can stay afloat, and the customer service girl knows where to get an oven, because she’s just tracked down the phone that belongs to the restaurant supplies salesman…. See? It reminds me of the Liberty Mutual insurance commercials, where one event leads to another leads to another until it loops back in on itself.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/JYATwAZzWEE]
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Meanwhile, Martin has figured out that Jake is trying to get him to Grand Central Station at 3:18 on 3-18 (March 18) in order to do something that involves a particular phone. When he gets there, he runs into the lottery ticket guy from the gas station. Fisticuffs. Martin misses whatever it is he was supposed to do. Or did he? Turns out the guy was the New York fireman who carried Martin’s wife down the stairs of the World Trade Center. We know this because he was using the phone at Grand Central to call Martin and say he now has money and is going to give it away to help people, because he wants to make up for not being able to save Sarah Bohm. And because he missed his train he was able to save the PS318 kids who were on the school bus before it burned in a traffic accident.
Is it a string of too many coincidences? Is the show trying to be too smart by half?
That’s the question, along with the question of Jake’s ability. Does Jake have the power to predict the future? That certainly seems to be the way they’re playing it, but it’s really too soon to tell. The folks over at io9 have this very interesting examination of how autism seems to be the new superpower of the day, what with Gary on Alphas and now Jake on Touch. Is it wish fulfillment? Compensation for what is perceived to be a defect?
Once we’ve seen a few more episodes when the show officially kicks off in March, we should get a better idea of whether or not this is going to be more science, or more ancient Chinese philosophy. Given that it’s Tim Kring pulling this particular red string, it’s more likely going to be both – one explaining the other explaining the first in a loop.
Was it just me or was the salesman seeing his daughter’s photos in Tokyo far more emotionally compelling than the anti-climactic hug between Martin and Jacob at the end?
Not sure I’d say the hug was “anti-climactic” but yes, there definitely was a lot of emotion in that scene. Even though you could see it coming, it was still nicely done.
dont forget they were at the top of a mobile phone tower in the pissing rain the other guy was ieen the road and the photos of his daughter were the size of cinema screens . get real arsholes
Mary, I’m not sure the location/setting has much to do with the emotion of any particular scene. It’s a combination of writing and performance. The Tokyo scene was very emotionally charged because the daughter was dead. The scene at the top of the phone tower involved Martin finally connecting with his son after making the speech that he’d never been able to even touch the boy. Both scenes were emotionally charged, just in different ways.
And I’m not sure what you accomplish by calling anyone names.