The Imposter – The premiere begins with a man climbing out of a drained indoor swimming pool in what appears to be some abandoned facility. His ankle is shattered but he slowly makes his way to the diving board and practically falls off. As he splatters against the ground, Eli (Billy Crystal) startles awake and goes about his morning routine. When he briefly stops to admire an old photo of a farmhouse, Lynn (Judith Light) appears out of nowhere to ask about it. He soon realizes that he’s speaking with an apparition or part of his imagination.
Eli ambles around the house for a few more minutes before his attention is drawn to a scratching at the front door. A quick peek outside reveals the source as a small boy, Noah Sawyer (Jacobi Jupe), scratching his fingers bloody on a wooden panel. The message appears nothing more than gibberish and Noah remains mute throughout the entire encounter until he flees into traffic to get away.
Eli shares this strange meeting with his Therapist (Julia Chan) later that day but she appears uninterested and only accuses him of deflecting, apparently something he does weekly. Calling him out on this certainly doesn’t help because it leads to him admitting that he doesn’t want to talk about his feelings. Instead, she steers the conversation towards his work, where he is revealed to be a highly successful child therapist himself, although he doesn’t suspect he can do that work anymore.
He soon gets his chance to find out because after immediately returning home he receives a call from Gail (Sakina Jaffrey), who wants him to take on a special case. He practically hangs up on her as she mentions sending the boy’s file. He ends up scanning through it later that night before returning his attention to the photo of the farmhouse.
Eli eventually manages to fall asleep only to be startled awake in the middle of the night by the return of Noah. This time, the boy is standing over him in his bedroom. He, once again, remains mute throughout the entire encounter but does hug Eli at one point, which Eli struggles with accepting. Noah takes off as soon as Eli calls 911, leading him to claim he made a mistake and following Eli to a nearby apartment building instead. The two do not acknowledge each other again until they are standing outside of an ajar apartment door.
Eli enters the apartment first and gets a face full of mace from a very frightened Denise (Rosie Perez). Once things are explained, this awkward encounter will reveal that Denise is Noah’s mother or at the least his guardian. She claims he is extremely sweet and caring but some recent unidentified trauma has left him mute. Before Eli leaves, Noah will give him a drawing of the outside of his house, which is exceptional. As Eli returns home, Denise asks Noah if she can sleep in his room because she’s feeling lonely. He agrees and although she sleeps on the floor, he will end the night snuggled next to her after seeing what appears to be rapidly growing black tendrils in the corner.
At the same time, Eli experiences Noah’s nightmare, as if he is seeing it transpire through Noah’s eyes. Eli immediately shares the experience the following morning with Jackson (Robert Townsend) but is quick to mock his theory of him and Noah being connected through a spiritual realm. Eli will also dismiss Robert’s offers to put him in touch with a shaman friend. Despite all the quick dismissals, things get really eerie when Gail introduces Eli to his new client, Noah.
After reluctantly agreeing to take on the case, Eli pulls out all the stops to get a reaction from Noah, including magic and toys but fails. It will eventually be Lynn’s book that does the trick, but it only causes Noah to lash out violently as the growing tendrils return. The entire experience plays out almost like a possession and Noah will speak for the first time, although it’s in a foreign language.
A bizarre incident at home later that evening with Lynn and a seagull crashing into his window sends Eli to visit a language expert, Drake Lieberman (Itzhak Perlman) with his recording of Noah. Drake doesn’t recognize the language but suspects that a language translation program might do the trick. Later that day, Eli meets with Jackson at a bar where they briefly discuss Capgras Syndrome, a disassociation disorder where the affected individual begins to think everyone around him is an imposter. But in all actuality, it is the affected individual who is the imposter. Eli suspects he has become the imposter.
As Eli returns home that evening via public transport, his memory briefly expands on the pool scene from the opening. He will be identified as the man on the diving board and rather than falling off, he will be pushed this time by someone with a profile similar to Noah’s. When he shares this with his Therapist, she says it subconsciously means that he sees himself as a broken, shattered man. She also suspects this is the case because he isn’t willing to discuss Lynn’s suicide. He immediately storms off without another word.
By the time Eli returns home his anger has grown and stepping in the dog’s accident sends him over the edge. He will spiral out, smashing furniture and throwing things until he realizes that he’s cut his palm open. At the same time at school, Noah is besieged with visions of the tendrils that cause him to stab another student with a pencil. The cut on Eli’s palm turns out to be a blessing as it gives him the courage to enter the downstairs bathroom, something he hasn’t done since Lynn’s death. While tending to the wound, his office computer begins broadcasting the song ‘Only You.’ This ultimately leads to him seeing Drake’s e-mail with a link to a translation program.
The language is revealed to be 17th Century Dutch and translates to, ‘I’m scared. Save me. Please save me.’ Eli arrives at Denise’s apartment to find her in tears over Noah’s earlier incident. From there the two of them will go to the psychiatric hospital Noah is now being held in. After finding Noah hiding under the bed, Eli tells him that he will help in Dutch. Noah appears to understand. The episode ends with Eli asking Noah what he’s afraid of. Noah leads him to a drawing of the farmhouse.
Before Review
I am honestly up in the air with the series right now. It certainly doesn’t appear to be anything too original but it was gripping at times. At other times, it felt longwinded and drawn out, despite being under 40 minutes with at least a minute intro. It does feature some heavy hitters like Billy Crystal, Rosie Perez, and Robert Townsend. Billy and Noah don’t appear to have the best chemistry, although it’s not completely horrible. I will admit that I’m interested in seeing the story unfold and for that and the short run time, I’d give the first episode a 5.6 out of 10.
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