Forever S01E01 Recap: Pilot

Henry Morgan is a man with a lot of time on his hands, who apparently speaks Russian and is very observant and borderline creepy as he demonstrates by chatting with a pretty Russian Concert Cellist. After she initiates plans for a date after the concert, their subway car is hit by another, killing everyone, except him inside. He's died many times, but he's only had one beginning.

It all started 200 years ago. Morgan is a doctor aboard a ship. He proclaims his patient to be on the mend and not infected with Cholera, but the captain will hear none of it, and orders that the slave be tossed overboard. When Morgan protests the captain shoots him in the heart, and his body tossed into the sea. That is when he was transformed.

He breathes, feels love, pleasure and pain everything is the same as anyone else, except it never ends. Since his first death, he always comes back in water, and always naked. Which makes for some fun times. He gets picked up by the police, they frown on public nudity and all.

He's had lifetimes to travel the world, and experience everything it has to offer expect death, and he's come to the conclusion that eternity isn't a blessing but a curse. Abe comes to pick him up, he's the only man that knows his secret.

Detective Jo Martinez has a little trouble slipping her one night stand. He wants more than a night,  but she's not interested, she has a case to solve. She heads to the subway car crime scene and finds Morgan's 200 year old watch. The train car conductor seems to have suffered a heart attack before impact. She's off to check with the ME to make sure there was no alcohol involvement.

Abe points out that Morgan has never died in a train crash, but it won't stop him from looking for death. Morgan goes to his secret laboratory beneath the floor of Abe's shop. How very mad scientist. He's been studying death looking for a way to catch it. He needs to find a way to unlock his curse. He works for the city Medical Examiner's office, as someone obsessed with death, its the perfect place to play.

Morgan gets to work on the conductor. Martinez arrives to see the cause of death, but he's just started the autopsy. She sticks around as Morgan gets to work. While he works he assesses her much as he did the cellist, mentioning her recently deceased husband, her drinking. He comes to the conclusion, no heart attack, but edema and poison. It's not official, he'll need a toxicology screening for that, but he has an uncanny track record of cause of death. His assistant tells the Detective that he's so good he doesn't even have to open them up sometimes. His prognosis means that she has 15 homicides on her hands. Morgan gets a call from a "friend." The man asks how he survived the subway crash. Morgan feigns to know nothing, but the man has been looking for someone like him for a long time. Stranger danger, I hope the ME department has caller ID.

Morgan is a little freaked out. He's packing, getting passports ready. He's stayed in one place for too long. He leaves the destination up to Abe, but Abe cannot leave. Morgan doesn't want to leave without him. He's had every ounce of his blood drained, all of his organs removed and dissected in the name of science, he's been hung as a heretic and worse. Abe tells him its all in the past, now they should stay and fight, and find out who the mystery caller is. Morgan can't be so trusting, can't be hung again. He may not be able to die, but he also hasn't lived for a long time, not since Abigail. That thought calms Morgan a bit.

Detective Martinez looks over subway footage, looking for something or someone suspicious. Anita helps her, tells her it could take days when Martinez spots the pocket watch. She tells her to follow it, to try to get the identity of the owner, and is shocked to see Morgan's face.

Morgan confesses that the weather in Belgium is horrible right now, and Abe tries not to gloat as he enjoys a glass of wine. Morgan is ready to look for the caller.

Morgan heads to his office, and as he looks through the mail he finds an envelope from his fan. It's hand written with no postage. Lucas didn't see anyone except Detective Martinez who came by asking about him. Morgan opens the envelope and inside is a picture of him and Abigail from 1955.

He and Abigail danced the night away. He confesses to her that he loves her more than anything he's ever loved. She tells him that he's meant for something bigger than her, that one day she'll be gone.

Lucas awakens him, and finds it strange that they've worked together for three years and hardly know each other. He asks if he wants to hang out or something, and Morgan turns him down. He turns his attention to the envelope, and pull s out a newspaper article about the subway crash. On it is a sticky note which reads " Henry Morgan QED." The crash was an experiment to prove Morgan's immortality. Morgan goes and extracts some blood from the conductor.

He explains his theory to Abe. Abe thinks that he could have tested his theory in a better way, but it wouldn't have the flair or exposure. The guy wants to be found, they just need to figure out when the conductor was poisoned, which is where the blood comes in. Morgan places electrodes on his body for monitoring while Abe stands by to assist. Abe asks if he's sure he wants to conduct this experiment, and Morgan sees the irony in the fact that this could be his actual death. He's ready though, and Abe injects him. Nothing happens immediately, and then he dies and comes back in the river.

Abe retrieves him, and Morgan babbles o about the fast acting poison and its symptoms. They return to their shop to find it crawling with police. They haven't been robbed, Detective Martinez is there.

At the station, Detective Martinez questions Morgan about his watch, asking if it ever occurred to him to tell her that he had been on the train. It has occurred, but he didn't want to waster her time he claims. She has a search warrant for his residence and cave. He has quite a collection in the laboratory. She asks about the toxicology, and he tells her his Aconite suspicions. He walks her through the idea of if he were the killer. Him being the killer is not likely, but he tells her not to rule him out. She doesn't have enough to hold him, and he heads back to work.

At work, he has the conductor's body before him again, looking for a needle entry. The killer had to infect him somewhere, and he finds a nasty bruise behind his ear. A UV light and some power reveal a fingerprint.

The police continue to look at Henry Morgan as a suspect, revealing his previous job as a grave digger. Detective Martinez doesn't think that he's the culprit though, he may be a creeper, but it doesn't add up. Morgan hears her colorful description of him, but he's had worse said and isn't offended. He's brought her a picture of the fingerprint to run through her system.

The print belongs to someone with no priors, and Detective Martinez tells him that Hans Coler is not an official suspect. Morgan heads to the backyard, and Det. Martinez tries to stop him, she doesn't have a warrant. He finds a dead rat, which gives probably cause. It ingested something to cause the distended belly, the foaming of the mouth. Upon further looking Morgan finds a greenhouse full of growing Aconite. Det. Martinez takes the lead to search the shed/garage and finds a laboratory. She tells him not to touch anything, but he's very curious. Coler returns home, and the pair go to hide. Det. Martinez jumps from herr spot, thinking that just yelling freeze will make Coler freeze. He doesn't, and as he makes a run for it, some Aconite is spilled on Martinez's hand. Morgan springs to neutralize it, they only have a minute, and death by aconite isn't pleasant. After pouring ethanol on her hand and lighting it on fire, he puts it out, and she's safe.

Hans Coler was a chemist. His wife died in the subway driven by the conductor. He had been planning this for a long time. It all adds up, just not the way Morgan thought it would. He asks Det. Martinez out for a drink, kinda. More of a statement, that she wants one, and lets her know that he's the least judgmental person she'll meet.

She take him up on it, trying to figure out Morgan. He went to school in Guam, worked as a grave digger, and carries around an almost 300 year old watch. Morgan tells her the watch was a gift, and tells her the story of the watch. The woman must have cared about him, before she came to her senses he jokes. He asks about her husband. He had a heart attack while out on a run. She feels like a part of him will never get over him, and he tells her that she won't. Not the words she expected from him. She gets a call.

There are two vats at the Coler home that have been drained, but evidence shows that they were filled with Aconite. He has something bigger planned. Morgan looks over some of the papers and recognizes some of the sketches from Grand Central, where Coler's wife happened to fall off the platform and die. Morgan suspects that the Aconite has been made airborne, and heads to the roof. Det. Martinez is shot, and Coler tells Morgan to assist him at gunpoint. Morgan tries to talk Coler out of the crime he's about to commit, that killing all of these innocent people won't bring his wife back. He struggles with Coler, and Coler shoots him in the stomach. Coler leaves Morgan to die as he prepares to put the Aconite in the ventilation. Morgan uses his last moments to throw Coler and himself from the rooftop to their deaths.

Det. Martinez awakens in a hospital bed. Morgan is there, and asks what happened. He tells her that she got shot, and Coler committed suicide. She doesn't quite believe him, and he asks her what she thinks happened. She thought they both fell off the roof, but it doesn't make sense. Still, she knows that there is something he's not telling her. She gets a call, but its for Morgan. It's his number one fan. He wanted to make sure that he was okay after his nasty spill. His fan is after the same thing Morgan is, death, but he's looking for a little fun before he finds it. Morgan is a little shaken after the call.

He's seen a lot of death, a lot of pain and suffering through out his life. But he's also seen a lot of beauty, a lot of life, of wonder. He met Abigail during World War II, after she found a healthy baby in the rubble. Life is a series of moments. Morgan watches Abe as he finally beats him at chess, for the first time in sixty five years. There's such a kinship between the two. The problem with living forever isn't loneliness, the pain or the loss, but when life ceases to surprise you. Det. Martinez returns his watch to him. Abe tells him to invite her in. Det. Martinez can't though, the most famous sword is sticking out of some guy's chest and she's requested him as her ME. Abe grabs his coat, and Morgan goes off with the pretty detective with a new hope in his heart.