Tonight on CBS Stalker starring Dylan McDermott premieres with an all new Wednesday October 1, season 1 episode 1 premiere called, “Pilot.” On tonight’s episode 1 Beth and Jack target a stalker who’s attracted to fire in the series premiere of this drama centering on the Threat Assessment Unit of the LAPD as they investigate stalking incidents. Dylan McDermott and Maggie Q star.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show, STALKER stars Maggie Q and Golden Globe Award winner Dylan McDermott in a psychological thriller about detectives who delve into the minds of stalkers to protect their targets from future incidents – including voyeurism, cyber harassment and romantic fixation – for the Threat Assessment Unit of the LAPD. Det. Jack Larsen is a recent transfer to the Unit from New York City’s homicide division, whose confidence, strong personality and questionable behavior has landed him in trouble before – but also may prove valuable in his new job. His boss, Lt. Beth Davis, is strong, focused and an expert in the field, driven by her traumatic personal experience as a victim. Other team members include young but eager Det. Ben Caldwell, deceptively smart Det. Janice Lawrence and District Attorney Amanda Taylor who is trying to erase her painful past with Larsen. With their help, Davis and Larsen assess the threat level of cases and respond before the stalking and intimidation spirals out of control, all while trying to keep their personal obsessions at bay.
On tonight’s episode Threat Assessment Unit’s Lt. Beth Davis and Det. Jack Larsen search for a stalker with an affinity for fire. Also, Beth meets with an exasperated college student who claims his former roommate is aggressively harassing him.
This is definitely one series that you don’t want to miss. Don’t forget to stay tuned to Celeb Dirty Laundry where we will be live blogging every episode of Stalker. While you wait for the recap, check out a sneak peek of tonight’s episode below!
RECAP: It’s the premier of #Stalker. A woman, Kate, leaves a message for Troy saying she’s pulling up at the house and wants to order food. She gets a call from a man who says he sees she made it home. She tells him to leave her alone and hangs up the phone. She sees a man in a hoodie and mask at her doorway and runs screaming. He chases her down and throws gas on her. She climbs into her car but he picked up the keys she dropped. He douses the car in gas as well.
She honks the horn and screams. She pulls the brake off and throws the car into neutral to send it sliding away from him. He lights the trail of gas and it follows her down the street. The car strikes a tree and she seems to be okay for a moment but then the car explodes in a ball of fire. Lt Beth Davis gives a speech about stalking statistics. She lists off the incidences and the motives. We see a guy snapping photos of a woman and her child. She looks back as if she’s spotted him. Beth says anyone can be a stalker, spouse, ex or stranger.
Beth says that social media enables stalkers and is the reason cases have tripled. Detective Jack Larsen was the one snapping the photos of the woman – Amanda Tate. He looks at photos he has pinned on a board all of her. A guy in the audience asks if she handled the Selena Gomez or David Letterman stalker cases. She says celebrity stalkers make up just 10% of the cases. Beth gets to the office and Ben tells her the Mayor’s bloody cake was a prank.
He asks to take a case and she says to share if with Janice. She tells Janice to do background on two guys – Eric and Perry – from Alcott University. She’s told that her new officer Jack Larsen is there and she says he’s early but goes to meet her. Janice and Ben talk about Jack and why he got the boot from New York to LA – slept with someone’s wife he shouldn’t have. Beth asks why he wants to move from homicide to stalkers and she says a background in mental illness is required. He makes a couple of bad jokes but says he knows it’s a very specific skill set.
She asks why he wants to be in this unit and he says he’s already in the unit and asks why it feels like an interview. Beth says he has to tail her for a month then will be set free. He asks if there’s a bad vibe between them but she says she’s just sporadically rude. They tell Beth they have a new case – Kate – that was burned alive in her car. She had reported some crimes against her but it was never raised to the stalking unit. Beth and the others head out to the crime scene. Jack and Beth follow the trail from the car back to the house.
The crime scene techs say they’re almost done. Beth leafs through the mail and says the place hasn’t been lived in long and thinks she’s in hiding. Jack says she’s terrified and calls out the clear shower curtain, bed low to the ground and bed placed to face the door to watch for a shadow. He says she had trouble sleeping but wouldn’t take prescription meds because she has a full bottle in the bathroom. He says it’s a man who broke in and slept in her bed and then left little clues to let her know he was there. Beth asks what set him off to kill her. Jack says he doesn’t know but asks if he’s impressed her. Beth says they need to talk to her neighbor Troy.
He plays the voice mail for them about the food. He says he had his phone on silent and didn’t hear the call. He says they met at spin class and insists they are just friends. Jack asks if he’s an actor and he says he’s a realtor. He says her last BF was a year ago – Larry – who was married so she broke it off. Jack asks to use his bathroom and Troy says no because he won’t let him snoop through his stuff. They next go to see Larry who says he was there all night with his wife.
He says the last time he saw her was a year ago when she thought he was leaving the notes. He says he made a mistake getting involved with her but says he’s just a miserable middle aged man, not a stalker. He says his wife doesn’t know about the affair. They check with her and she confirms his alibi. Jack apologizes to Beth for staring at her breasts – he thinks that’s why she is off put by him. He says he’s good looking, personable and smart so that’s all he can think of. She asks why he did it and he says her blouse and nail polish indicate she would want to be noticed so he did.
Beth goes to see Perry in the hospital. She says Eric told them that he filmed the video. He says Eric had insane mood swings when they lived together freshman year. They ask why he hasn’t pressed charges – he’s obviously been beaten – and he says everyone deserves a second chance. They next go to see Eric and he says Perry recorded him having sex with his GF not the other way around. Eric says he got weird around him. Beth asks if it was like him hiding messages from friends and things like that. Beth thinks that Perry may be fixated on Eric. The dean tells her she can’t let her get further involved since Perry’s parents are important alumni.
Beth goes home and undresses for bed then checks her windows and pulls her drapes. She locks her doors and arms her security system. She turns off her lights and lies down in bed but doesn’t close her eyes. She watches the light under the door just like Jack said Kate would likely do waiting to see a shadow showing that she’s not alone. Lori, a woman, is leaving work. A man – looks like the same guy that burned Kate – waits on her in the parking deck and douses her with gasoline when the elevator opens and she’s alone. She manages to shove him out and pushes the buttons to take her to the roof. She rushes out and begs the people there to help her.
Jack goes for a run early the next morning. He hides behind a shrub as Amanda and her son pass by. She looks over and he ducks back. He gets a call from work and says to tell Beth he can meet her. He takes off running back the way he came. He tells Beth that the woman, Lori, is okay but suffered some burns in her eyes. Lori tells them the guy has been harassing her for a year but says he never hurt her so she couldn’t escalate it.
She says she knew Kate from spin class and took over her old lease. She also knows Troy from spin class. They tell her what happened to Kate and Beth tells Jack later she’s never seen a stalker focus on two women. She tells him to focus on the gym and puts a guard on Lori for now. Jack heads to the gym to see the spin instructor – Kurt. Jack asks if Wild is really his last name and the guy admits he used to do soft core when he first moved there and couldn’t get acting gigs. He says he was at the gym til 10.
Then he asks him about Larry and says he doesn’t take the class any more. He says Troy knows Larry and points him out in the gym. Jack goes to talk to Troy and tells him that Lori was attacked and asks where he was. Troy says he was home alone and can’t prove it. He stands and walks away from Jack. Next, Jack heads to Lori’s place. Beth is there leafing through the mail. He tells her he ran into Troy at the gym and says he knew them both. Beth reads him some of the notes the stalker sent. Jack asks why she didn’t report him and Beth says she was a strong woman and may have just accepted it as part of daily life.
Jac sees something and hops up on the dresser. He lifts a ceiling panel and goes up into the rafters. He finds a crawl space that he hauls himself up into. Beth asks what he found and he says probably prints, DNA and lots of sticky stuff. He crawls further over and looks down and says it’s a secret viewing room because it’s right above the bed. They match the prints found to Larry, Kate’s one-time lover. They go arrest the guy. His wife looks totally freaked out.
At the dormitories, Eric comes into his room and turns the light on. Perry is waiting on him in the dark. He says the RA let him in and Perry says he has a peace offering for him. Eric asks him to leave and Perry says after what he did to him, he can listen.
He says he had to have stitches but won’t press charges. He offers Eric a beer and Perry tells him he knows he just lost his temper. Eric asks if he’s after payback and Perry says he’s not a vengeful little bitch and just wants to be his friend.
Eric says they just need to leave each other alone. Eric drinks the beer and Perry laughs and says payback maes him sound psychotic. He says if he really wanted revenge he would have poisoned his beer. He tells Eric that he disappoints him and Perry leaves. Eric locks the door after him then smashes the beer bottle by throwing it against the wall.
Larry says he didn’t kill Kate. He says he helped Kate move some boxes up there and the semen hasn’t been tested yet. Beth asks Larry about the footage on his laptop and his lawyer says he’ll get them thrown out. Beth is told she has a visitor and she sees that it’s Eric. Jack goes to check with Janice and Ben on the video footage. Eric tells Beth that Perry is insane. He says he got into his room and threatened him. Eric says campus police won’t do anything because of who Perry’s family is. Beth says it’s hard to prove since he attacked Perry and Perry has no record.
Eric tells her that his GF left school and his grades have plummeted because of what Perry is doing. She says she knows he’s scared and he says he’s not scared, he’s mad because no one will help him. He slams some stuff around and Jack asks if she needs help. They tell her that Beth can handle herself. Eric tells her he doesn’t want to live like this and she tells him she has been through this and worse than this. She says it will end and she’ll help him. Beth tells him to call her any time.
Janice finds something on the footage. Larry was stalking both women. They notice that someone was in the room and Larry wasn’t alone in the girl’s apartment. Jack brings in Larry’s wife to interview. He asks if she knew about the affair and she says of course she knew. She says he started going to the gym when he had a midlife crisis. She says she found cocaine on him and he told her it belonged to his new bro. He asks if it was Troy and she says no, but when he says Kurt Wild, she says that’s him.
Ben says Kurt is really Buford Posey and the guy has a record back to when he was 12. Larry confesses to the cops that Kurt killed Kate. He says he taught him how to flirt with Kate, hit on her and have sex with her. He says after she dumped him, Kurt suggested a new game with two new picks. They put put an APB on Kurt and Beth is told that Lori is safe with police guards at a friend’s house. We see the cops check her place and she tells them she just has to grab some things and goes into her bedroom.
The cops ask her to keep the door open and they compromise on half open. Her rug rolls back and we see a guy coming out from under her floor where there was some sort of trap door. She changes shirts and Kurt sneaks up behind her and puts his hand over her mouth. Jack asks how the hell this happened and the beat cops are flummoxed. Since he’s not at home, they decide to try the gym. Sure enough, that’s where he’s taken her. He pulls the tape off her mouth and she begs him not to do this. He asks if she remembers what she said when he asked her out.
He says she told him she was seeing someone but he knows she was lying because he knows everything about her. He tells her the game is over and douses her in gasoline while she screams. He tells her she won’t be alone and says they’re going to do it together. He soaks himself in gas too. Jack sees this and shoots through the window to get to them faster. He has matche and Jack tells him not to move. He goes to light the match and Jack puts a bullet in him. Lori is loaded into an ambulance and Jack comes out to talk to Beth.
He asks if he gets anything from her and she asks what he wants. He says he doesn’t want her to hate him. Then he asks why she wears sexy things if she doesn’t want men to notice. She says she wears them for herself. Then she tells him she knows about New York and the captain’s wife. He says it was the Deputy Chief’s wife. She asks if he came to LA to be a better man and he says people can change.
She says knowing his history may have clouded her judgment. He asks how she came to head the unit. She tells him the plot of Fatal Attraction but he catches on. She says to be patient and tells him she’s not going to put her history out there in the first five minutes. She says that would be creepy. She wishes him good night and leaves.
Beth goes to find Perry. She knocks him down in the parking lot and roughs him up. She slaps his face and tells him to leave Eric alone. He says he’ll report her and she says for what – stalking a stalker. She tells him she isn’t under his family’s thumb and will come after him. She tells him to leave Eric alone.
Amanda approaches Jack and asks if he thought she wouldn’t find him. She asks why he’s there and he says new job. She tells him to stay away from them and says she moved there to get away from him. He says it’s his son too but she says he can’t show up and ruin her life again. She tells him to leave her alone.
He tells her he wants to change his life and doesn’t want to be the guy she remembers – he says he wants to change and begs her please. He says he has a right to see his son. Amanda tells him to stay away from them and walks away. He walks into his place and looks at the photos of her and his son on the wall with tears in his eyes. He touches his son’s face. He hangs his head. Beth goes through her bedtime ritual with her drapes and alarm system. She leaves a gap in her drapes and we see Perry standing outside her place glaring at her.
