Pilot (Day Break)
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| “Pilot” | |
|---|---|
| Day Break episode | |
 |
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| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 1 |
| Written by | Paul Zbyszewski |
| Directed by | Rob Bowman |
| Production no. | 101 |
| Original airdate | November 15, 2006 |
| Episode chronology | |
| ← Previous | Next → |
| – | "What If They Run" |
| List of Day Break episodes | |
"Pilot" was the first episode of Day Break which aired in a two-hour season premiere with "What If They Run" on November 15, 2006.
Contents |
[edit] Summary
When Detective Brett Hopper woke up this morning, he thought it was a normal day, a day like any other one, but he rapidly learned that he is accused of killing Assistant District Attorney Alberto Garza. Even after offering a solid alibi, no one buys his story. The next morning, when he wakes up, he finds out that he is reliving the same day and that his loved ones are in danger.
[edit] Synopsis
At 6:18 a.m., detective Brett Hopper (Taye Diggs) wakes after having spent the night at the home of his girlfriend, Rita Shelton (Moon Bloodgood). He catches a morning shower with Rita, discussing his apprehension concerning an impending interview with Rita's ex-husband, Detective Chad Shelton (Adam Baldwin) at Internal Affairs, pertaining to activities of Hopper's partner, Detective Andrea Battle (Victoria Pratt). After shaving and dressing, Hopper leaves to head back to his own apartment, stopping off at a coffee shop; he is also tailed by clandestine operatives who photograph and videotape his movements.
At the coffee shop in Venice, Hopper finds a newspaper with the headline "District Attorney Found Dead," detailing the murder of ADA Alberto Garza. Distracted, he bumps into a woman (Bahar Soomekh) and causes her to spill her paperwork. He helps her clean up the mess, but she forgets a note with a phone number and Hopper rushes outside to return it; moments later, he spots a runaway city bus, and narrowly drags the woman out of the way before the bus plows into a row of parked cars, including hers.
Hopper returns to his apartment and retrieves his mail, learning from his neighbors that a plumber had stopped the previous night to work on Hopper's bathroom, setting off the detective's dog. Hopper finds his apartment ransacked, but quickly realizes that his dog Rambis is to blame as the apartment is empty. He finds six hang-up messages from his sister Jennifer Mathis (Meta Golding) and calls her to find out what was wrong, implying that Jenn's husband Randall is a domineering abuser. After Jenn hangs up, Hopper finds a message from a confidential informant named Damien Ortiz (Ramon Rodriguez); Damien's safehouse was attacked, but the message is interrupted when moments later, a SWAT team bursts in and arrests Hopper for the murder of ADA Garza the previous night.
Hopper is interrogated by Robbery/Homicide detectives Choi (Ian Anthony Dale) and Spivak (Mitch Pileggi), and learns that SWAT recovered the handgun that killed Garza from Hopper's closet with Hopper's fingerprints on it. Hopper is booked, and briefly sees Detective Battle before a bearded man in the lobby throws a tantrum and demands to see his brother. Hopper uses his phone call to contact U.S. Attorney Nathan Baxter (Michael B. Silver), who tells the detective that Damien has gone on the run, jeopardizing the case he is set to testify for.
When Hopper is transferred to the county courthouse for arraignment, he sees two shadowy operatives videotaping him furtively among the hectic horde of reporters. Hopper is met in his holding room by attorney Barry Colburn (John Rubenstein); the detective tells his lawyer that their only concern is tracking down Rita, who is missing from work, and who is Hopper's only alibi for the previous night. Brett is also visited by his sister, and discovers that Jenn is hiding several ugly bruises on her arm, presumably inflicted by her husband.
Hopper is delivered to his arraignment by Chad Shelton, who stalls the elevator to corner the arrested detective. Shelton, one of Hopper's former partners, makes various veiled threats and several insinuations about Rita until Hopper attacks him; when they reach the fourth floor, Shelton lets on that he knows more about Hopper's situation than he's willing to tell. Hopper's trial date set for one week, with or without Rita Shelton, and Hopper is remanded to police custody without bail. While Hopper waits in his cell that night, he is knocked unconscious by unseen assailants.
The detective wakes in a rock quarry surrounded by floodlit construction equipment and shadowy agents. He is instructed by one of them (Jonathan Banks) to take the fall for Garza's murder, or those he cares for will be punished. As proof, Hopper is shown a digital video of Rita being shot point-blank in her car; the Shadow Man informs Hopper that his sister, niece and nephew are also on the chopping block, and Hopper threatens to kill his captors. The Shadow Man replies only that "for every decision, there is a consequence"; Hopper is injected with a "mild sedative" and passes out on the quarry floor.
At 6:18 a.m., Brett Hopper wakes in Rita's bed. At first convinced that he has experienced a horrifically realistic nightmare, Brett heads for the bathroom. He is soon hit with an unshakable sense of déjà vu before realizing slowly, through the accumulation of details, that he has somehow been physically kicked back to the beginning of the same day.
Hopper is still shaved, and still sports the knick from his previous cycle through the day. He leaves, and immediately returns home, retrieving his mail before finding his apartment ransacked. Hopper quickly calls Westside Hospital to warn Rita, then phones Jenn to tell her to stay home, and calls for a patrol car to be stationed outside Rita's apartment by pretending to be Detective Spivak. Scouring his closet, he locates the planted handgun, disassembles the weapon, and hurries to the Santa Monica Pier where he drops the parts into the water. He is also unaware that he is followed.
Hopper rushes to Westside Hospital to learn that Rita took a vacation day, and sees a patient in critical condition rushed by him: the woman from the coffee shop, injured in the bus crash. Beginning to understand the ramifications of his situation, Hopper hurries to the high school where Jenn teaches and Randall is principal. Encountering Randall in the hallway, Hopper throws his brother-in-law through the glass window of a trophy case, then finds Jenn and tells her to flee with her children.
In a public park, Hopper meets with Detective Battle to implore her aid in locating Rita. Instead, Battle asks Hopper about Garza, and Hopper realizes that his partner has flipped on him to help Spivak and Choi. He flees into the subway with Spivak and Choi in pursuit; Hopper drops onto the roof of a moving train, and slip into the car as it deboards; Choi leads a team of officers onto the subway to search the train as it leaves the station. Hopper emerges from below the platform, having slipped off the train before Choi boarded, and is summarily arrested by Detective Spivak.
Spivak and Choi interrogate Hopper again, insisting that when a dive team searches the Santa Monica Pier, they'll have enough to convict the detective. While Hopper waits for Colburn, he spots the bearded man watching him; Hopper then uses his phone call to check his messages. The message from Damien concludes with the informant entreating Hopper to meet him "where [they] first got it all started [at] nine o'clock" that night; he also finds another message from a woman informing him that he should have received a package.
Colburn chastises Hopper for beating up Randall, and Hopper instructs his lawyer to get Jenn and her children someplace safe. Chad again escorts his ex-partner to his arraignment; when he stalls the elevator, however, Hopper attacks him, knocks him unconscious, and flees through the basement in Chad's vehicle. Brett heads to Detective Battle's home, surprising her at gunpoint when she returns from work; she suggests that his current predicament may be related to his covert investigation into the Latin Disciples street-gang for the U.S. Attorney's office, for which Damien Ortiz was the primary informant.
Battle agrees to search Rita's apartment, while Hopper heads to the club where he and Damien met. He is forcibly delivered by a pair of bouncers to the roof, where Damien Ortiz is waiting; Damien explains the assault on the safehouse by a group of "skinheads," then cancels his deal with Hopper. Damien escorts Hopper into the alley behind the club where Hopper offers to personally protect Damien; moments later, two gunmen shoot down Damien and four of his bodyguards before apprehending Hopper.
Hopper wakes in the rock quarry again, and tells the Shadow Man that he will only take the fall for Garza's murder if Rita, Jenn, his niece and his nephew are left alone. The Shadow Man appears confused as to how Hopper knows that their meeting is about Garza, and forces the detective to watch Rita's murder again. Hopper demands to know why he is being detained, but the Shadow Man only repeats his mantra — "decision; consequence" — before the detective is injected again and passes out on the quarry floor.
At 6:18 a.m., Brett Hopper watches Rita sleep from the foot of her bed. When she wakes as well, he tells her plainly, "I love you."
[edit] Allusions to Hopper's situation
- Detective Brett Hopper's name reflects the fact that he is "hopping" back in time, making him a "time hopper." Further, the Shadow Man tells Hopper to "unwind," reflecting the temporal aberration that keeps kicking Hopper back to the beginning of the same day.
- The Shadow Man's mantra — "decision; consequence" — reflects that the decisions that Brett makes have consequences later in the day.
- Jenn assigns her students to read a novel by Jules Verne, who is known not only for his command of the science fiction genre, but also for his incorporation of political themes into his work.
[edit] Trivia
- Detective Spivak is played by Mitch Pileggi, who is most notable for his run as FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner on The X-Files; the sixth season episode "Monday" also featured a time loop as the crucial science-fiction plot-point.
- Hopper's mug shot number is 11235813, the beginning numbers of the Fibonacci Sequence.
- The gang that Hopper was investigating appears to be named after the Chicago-based Maniac Latin Disciples.
- Brett's escape from the elevator is identical to Chad's escape in the series finale.
Detective Hopper also acquires several minor details concerning events of his repeating day, including:
- Traffic on the the 405 is stalled by the overturn of a tractor-trailer, spilling over 100 cases of diapers onto the freeway.
- The Los Angeles Dodgers execute a seven-run rally in the ninth inning to beat the San Francisco Giants 11-10. Incidentally, the Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres 11-10 in ten innings on Monday, September 18, 2006, two months prior to the airing of the series.
