High speed pursuit in the North Cascades of Seattle, according to the chyron, which is code for "highway in the middle of nowhere." A pickup truck is being chased by several cop cars, sirens a-blazin' and a helpful shot of one of the officers on his radio reporting, "In pursuit of tan pickup. Refuses to stop." clears up any confusion for the mentally deficient members of the audience. Oh, and who is that driving the pickup? It's Jimmi Simpson, one half of the hilariously demented McPoyle twins from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia! He chants some creepy Latin (sounds like "Mea culpa") over and over again, and then looks over on the seat to him at a jar labeled "Biohazard" with a crucifix draped around it, and just like you or I would, promptly chucks it out the truck window. As we all know, tossing it to the side of the road is the industry standard way to dispose of biohazardous materials. This guy's either a terrorist or a litterbug; either way, I want the FBI on it! Distracted by the biohazard-in-a-crucifix's-clothing chucking, he narrowly avoids a head-on collision with a semi, but doesn't have such good luck with a tree, which he smashes into and flies out his front windshield. Ouch!
One of the deputies pulls over and walks up to the chucked biohazard and, I swear to God, just opens it up and sticks his nose in it, like it's a damn jar of tarter sauce. He pretty much wants to barf at the sight and smell of whatever it is he's seeing, and has this expression like, "I totally did not expect this!" Ahh, TV cops. God love 'em.
Now we're in the woods with a biohazard team and a whole lot of police, who windshield man is guiding to the shallow graves of even more of these barf-inducing containers. He confirms to a man I can only assume is a detective because he's wearing a fancy winter coat and not a biohazard suit or police uniform that they got them all, all 19 to be exact. 19 of what? "19 containers, 19 fetuses." Gah! Fancy coat man does not have the luxury of being grossed out right now, because somebody from Washington wants to see him in the evidence tent. And this is going to get juicy, because if there's one thing cops hate more than jars of fetuses in the forest, it's Feds.
In the evidence tent Rufus Sewell is looking at slides of some brown rectangular nonsense, with the adorable Marley Shelton lurking around in the background. She establishes that she is the muscle here by tripping fancy coat man and sticking her firearm in his face, for walking into the tent too fast. That's poor camping etiquette, fancy coat man. He explains that he's Detective McNeil, and that he's in charge of the case and she lets him up, apologizing for the macho display. Rufus Sewell greets the detective with an efficient "Good Morning," and introduces himself as Dr. Jacob Hood, Special Science Advisor to the F.B.I., and Marley Shelton as Special Agent Rachel Young. She doesn't do science, I guess. The detective incredulously asks, "Science advisor?!" like it's just the craziest thing he's ever heard. Hood explains that he was hired to investigate crimes "of a scientific nature." Well, I don't see why not, so let's move on.
He explains to McNeil that what we have here is a scientific case, because that brown rectangular nonsense he was examining before was the DNA profiles of each of the 19 fetuses. He stacks them up together and we see that they are all the same pattern, meaning they are all the same fetus. What we've got here is some clones, people! Ohhh nooooooo! He's right, this is scientific! Opening credits time! They are about four seconds long, and now we're in commercials land.
Back at the crime scene, Rachel Young is explaining to McNeil that Hood is a brilliant biophysicist, but that he tends to uncover the truth too often and blab to the world about it (some people!). This causes certain individuals to desire to harm him, so she's been assigned to watch his back. Then she tells him no, she's "not free for dinner," before he even asks, which is awfully presumptuous, and the kind of thing that's going to happen a lot in this episode, because CBS seems to be terrified that there might be people who still don't get that this girl's got pluck, even after that evidence tent scene. ["Or she's seen a lot of episodes of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and knows that Riley (Marc Blucas) has a thing for strong women who can kick his ass." -- Angel]
Space Needle establishing shots. A young pregnant girl is in a grocery store frantically looking for her son David, but quickly finds him talking to some white trash guy who turns out to be the child's father. She has a restraining order against him, but he's all like, "I do what I want!" and then starts throwing her around the store until a very brave middle-aged woman steps in and scares him away.
Back at the forest crime scene. McNeil is explaining to Hood that the pickup driver is an unemployed security guard with no priors, and that someone was paying him to incinerate the containers, but that once he figured out they were full of fetuses he couldn't go through with it. He's a devout Catholic, you see. That wasn't a tasteless joke, by the way; he really is a devout Catholic. That's what all the crucifixes were about. Hood explains he's been chasing someone for a very long time, and this looks like this person's work.
The pregnant girl and her son are in the grossest bathroom I've ever seen, and a woman enters to the girl's screaming protest, "I trusted you people!" And the woman is like, "I know, right?! I'm going to be your nurse now, everything's fine." I bet it's not, though.
Hood and Rachel are checking into a swanky hotel, and explaining to McNeil that a judge won't charge the pickup driver with accessory to murder because disposing of medical waste is not a crime, even if it is fetuses. Hood ponders how you would keep 19 mothers quiet (I'm going to tell you right now, without having seen the rest of the episode yet -- ya kill 'em.), and now we're in a makeshift hospital room, where the pregnant girl from before is getting a sonogram. She's saying she'd hate for "that childless couple" to lose this baby, but mostly that she needs all the money they're paying her so she can move away from her dirtbag ex. Of course, there's drama with the pregnancy. Basically, if she goes into labor, she will die, but the "nurse" from the bathroom says it's way too early to do an emergency Cesarean (apparently preemies don't do as well on whatever black market they're selling these on). The doctor tells her he doesn't want "another" dead mother on his conscience, and the nurse just kind of rolls her eyes at him like, "You candy ass," and walks away.
Establishing shots of Seattle, then we see the pickup driver intercepted on the street by Hood and Rachel. And by "intercepted," I mean kneed in the crotch by Rachel. They drag him into an empty church (what? They rent the place out? Federal spending is out of control, I tell you), and make him kneel in front of a crucifix and basically tell him Jesus will break up with him if he doesn't tell them who paid him to dispose of the jars. He gives them the name "Geppetto," and I don't know why, but that just seriously creeped me out.
He takes them to a warehouse, where they find the makeshift hospital room from the scene empty. There are also mannequins everywhere. I do not know why. In the hospital room they find a container marked "Westec" whose label alleges that it's full of oh my God! Ew! Bovine semen. If these are mancow babies they're making... then this is the greatest show ever! Boo, Hood says the label is just a cover. Do not dash my mancow baby dreams, Hood! Suddenly, our doctor with a conscience shows up and takes off sprinting at the sight of them. Rachel chases him, shooting up his car, but he gets away. She also yells at Hood for trying to help. He got the license plate though, so she can't really get that mad.
A team is at the warehouse now, and Hood is explaining to Rachel that they'd need more than just a doctor to pull this operation off, they'd need a scientist! Then they go to Westec to talk to a very sassy doctor, who is really unimpressed by both of them. She says she's not going to track a bovine semen label because that's impossible BYE! So they leave without a fight. Doctor's orders.
Cut to pregnant girl's apartment, who is in some serious pregnant-lady distress. She's in crazy pain and "bleeding really badly," all over her couch, to be exact. She calls the conscience-having doctor and he tells her to stay where she is and not go to the hospital. This, for some reason, does not really concern her. She does what he says.
Hood and Rachel's hotel. Another one of Rachel's pluck exposition scenes. A guy tries to hit on her, she tells him she'll bust a cap in his ass and continues working on some paperwork. Oh so much moxie!
Hood shows up with Hefeweisens and they decide that Geppetto may not just be a clever name. It might be a man who's lost a son and is trying to clone him. Wow. I know TV time restrictions require procedural characters to figure stuff out quickly, but good lord. I'd think "maybe it's a toymaker who's trying to build a clone army of scientists to bring his puppets to life!" at least for a second before I arrived at their conclusion. Anyway, off to the library for Rachel and Hood!
And we're back at pregnant lady's apartment, where she is still in bad shape. She is puking and in a lot of pain, so she directs her son (who oddly has no facial expressions, by the way. Hey, he must be related to Blake Lively!) to give her the phone.
Back at the library, Rachel and Hood are looking up rich people who've lost a son in the past few years. They are looking at physical newspapers and not microfilm, which seems weird, but I haven't done research in a library since I was 16, so who knows what they do now. The good news is, they think they found the guy! A billionaire who attempted suicide three times after his son passed away. I say hang 'im, he's guilty!
Pregnant girl is now at the hospital, and you know she's just never going to hear the end of it from the fake nurse and conscience doctor. She's being rushed down a corridor, so we'll find out what's up with her situation later.
Hood's hotel room. Rachel is checking all the obvious hiding places, making sure the room is secure, and finally leaves him with a panic button and a cover name, "Mr. Jones."
She trots on down to the hotel lounge to meet McNeil, who has the skinny on conscience doctor. He's a disgraced obstetrician named Sydney Hayward, who went off the medical grid two years ago. She is appreciative of the info. McNeil also uncovered that Rachel is FBI Executive Protection Detail, which is apparently quite impressive. He then makes the mistake of asking her to have a drink with him, and she says, "I said, 'I owe you one. I never said I'd give you one.'" And he just shakes his head and grins like, "Damn! Her moxie-meter is off the charts, CBS! You have outdone yourselves!"
Pregnant girl is now sleeping in a hospital room. As people are wont to do on TV, when she wakes up she immediately pulls all the IVs and tubes and stuff out of her and runs out the front door.
Back at Hood's hotel room, he's explaining cloning to Rachel with a pair of tweezers and some grapes. I think this is another one for the mentally deficient audience, so let's just skip it. Moving on.
McNeil, Rachel and Hood have found out about the pregnant girl at the hospital and chat with her doctor. They find out she's suffering from placenta previa, which, as we heard before, could kill her if she goes into labor.
Back at Hood's hotel room. He wants to go harass the billionaire they found at the library, and Rachel thinks that's a retarded idea, considering they have no proof. Then she storms off and passes out in her room.
Meanwhile, the fraudulence of TV infomercials drives Hood to drink, so he sneaks away to the hotel bar. He also accidentally activates his panic button once he sits down there, causing Rachel to kick in his hotel room door in her undies, and search the entire hotel until she finds him at the bar. They are both embarrassed, and Hood actually does seem to be genuinely sorry about the gaffe. I'd still kick his ass if I were her.
It's morning, and Hood has somehow convinced Rachel to go accuse the billionaire of cloning his dead son and leaving countless dead mothers in his wake. It's kind of insensitive, but we're in the home stretch of the episode, so it's not like they're going to be wrong about this. They walk in, introduce themselves, notice a Westec brochure on his coffee table, accuse him, he fairly convincingly pretends to be offended and throws them out.
Before they leave, Rachel steals one of his house phones, and once in their parked car they take the phone off the hook and listen in on his distress call to Dr. Hayward and creepy fake nurse. He tells them to cut the pregnant girl loose, and creepy fake nurse says they can't do that because this fetus is the most viable one yet.
Hayward and creepy fake nurse arrive at pregnant girl's apartment, and she is in freaking labor. She demands a hospital, and Hayward calls the billionaire to inform him that she needs an emergency C-section. The billionaire responds that "Geppetto wants to be present at the birth," so either he is not Geppetto, or he refers to himself in third person. Both possibilities are equally viable at this point. Hayward says he can take her to an abandoned clinic he knows of, but that he'll need cash up front. Billionaire is like, bitch, please, it's already done.
And now they have this to deal with. The dirtbag ex shows up at pregnant girl's apartment for some reason, but fortunately Hayward and the girl are gone, and only creepy fake nurse and the expressionless boy are there. The dirtbag gets a little too surly and inquisitive, so creepy fake nurse stabs him in the neck with a pair of scissors. But it's CBS, so you don't get to see it go in or anything. Awesome squishing sound effects, though.
Hood and Rachel arrive at the apartment now to find the dirtbag alone and amazingly still alive! He's left the scissors in his neck, which is the only thing keeping him alive. Rachel checks the bathroom, but unbelievably does not check behind the damn door, which, I mean, I didn't go to cop school or anything, but I really think that checking the most obvious hiding place in a room is somewhere in the curriculum. Anyway, someone emerges from behind the door, which startles everyone, but it's just expressionless boy, so all is well.
It's a little while later, and an ambulance has taken the dirtbag away. Hood asks McNeil to do him a favor and steal some evidence for him, and he does.
Now we're at the emergency C-section, where Hayward is trying to convince creepy fake nurse to give Geppetto up to the Feds to save themselves. Creepy fake nurse pretends to agree, and then stabs him in the neck with a syringe the second his back is turned, Dexter-style. He crumples to the floor.
Hood and Rachel are back at the billionaire's house. He's wallowing in his son's old room in anticipation of his new clone baby's birth, and Hood lectures him on all manner of ethical and logical things, and finally shoves the stolen evidence in his hands, one of the fetus jars. This convinces him that the clone baby won't be exactly like his dead son because life experiences make up a person, not just DNA. We also find out that Hood's wife died a few years ago, which'll probably come up even more often than Rachel's sass in upcoming episodes. The billionaire tells them where the pregnant girl is.
They arrive at the clinic to hear the sound of flatlining. A middle-aged blonde woman is working on the pregnant girl, trying to revive her. She sends Rachel to go find some O Negative blood, and she and Hood work together to revive the girl. She informs him that she lost the baby hours ago, but that there's still a chance to save her. While Rachel is off blood-hunting, creepy fake nurse shows up for a scalpel fight! Rachel easily defeats her. In the meantime, Hood figures out that the blonde woman is Geppetto! And that she is the one Hood has been chasing all this time! He is shocked by this! She curtly ends the exposition with, "Nice to finally meet you, Dr. Hood," and calmly walks out of the room, leaving Hood stranded with the dying girl. Rachel runs back in, and they combine forces. Magically, the CPR works, and the girl is livin' and breathin' just like the rest of us.
Cut to Hood and the girl in a sunny park, clearly at least a week in the future. She thanks him for saving her and laments that because of the experiment, she now can't have any more children. Hood tries to comfort her, offering, "More love for the one you have," and we cut to expressionless boy going down a slide all "Yay! More love for me!" Or it could just be, "Yay! Super fun slide!" It's hard to tell, but seeing an expression I can finally recognize on him is quite an acting breakthrough for this kid, so bravo, young man.
Rachel walks up with a very important cell phone that she hands to Hood and he is like, we have to go, there is a "very delicate" situation to tend to! It's week's case! And we're out. Wouldn't it have been nice if The X-Files had been as popular when it was on as it is in this current pilot season? Just saying.