- The Monohan family move into their new home in The Gates, an exclusive community of perfectly manicured lawns and friendly neighbors. But things grow complicated when Nick Monohan, the new Chief of Police, has to investigate those neighbors in a missing persons case during his first day on the job. Claire and Dylan Radcliff fight to hide not only their involvement in Nick's case, but their rather unusual family secret. Meanwhile, Charlie Monohan tries to adjust to his new school, finding a friend in the beautiful but unavailable Andie Bates. Just when his family is finally settling in, Nick's world is rocked by a late-night caller with some terrible news.—ABC Publicity
- "The Gates" - "Pilot" - June 20, 2010
Welcome to the Gates. A swanky gated community that has a high quotient of oddities.
Our way into the place is through the Monohan family: new police chief Nick, wife Sarah, teen son Charlie, and tween daughter Dana.
Apparently, Nick left his last job as a Chicago homicide detective under murky circumstances after accidentally shooting a suspect he thought was going for a gun. This is supposed to be a clean start for the family.
When they arrive they are impressed by their huge fancy house complete with pool.
At the police station Nick meets his young cop crew Marcus and Leigh who explain about the superfancy security and monitoring system within the Gates. They say the last chief retired to Mexico. Nick figures there isn't much crime but Marcus and Leigh inform him that the previous day there was a car accident on camera. The driver walked away but then the cameras went down and they don't know if he left. Nick tells them to investigate the driver.
We already know from the opening sequence that the man was a contractor who swerved to avoid hitting a young girl named Emily. He hit his head so Emily's mom Claire Radcliff invited him in to tend to his wound, and, it turns out to kill him and drain his blood because she's a vampire. (One who apparently has no trouble going out in the daylight. We see her furiously applying lotion after showering after the kill and this may help. That's serious SPF, no?)
Later Claire arrives at the Monahan's with a lasagna and a welcome smile. Sarah seems stressed out about the move and Claire recommends she go to see the Gates resident herbalist Peg.
On her way to Peg's, Sarah notices Devon's Day Spa. She goes in and Devon offers to help her with her stress. (It turns out that Devon and Peg are both witches. Devon was once Peg's protege but she has branched off on her own. Devon is apparently evil, luring people into her store and giving the Gates residents potions that may be hurting them. Peg is more of a good witch who really wants to help people and is apparently helping Claire with her vampy cravings.)
Claire's husband Dylan comes home, smells blood on her breath and realizes she must've killed somebody. Just as he's about to investigate, Nick shows up to interrogate the Radcliffs. Claire says he just drove off and Dylan theorizes that since the guy hit his head maybe he passed out somewhere.
After the cops leave Dylan freaks out on Claire who shows him the body in the wine freezer. He admonishes her that she has to control herself so they can properly care for Emily. As the head of a biotech company he says he gets them enough blood. She says it's not the blood it's her more general vampire nature and breaks down that it's all his fault since he made her this way. They devise a plan to get rid of the body. Dylan drives the guy's truck out avoiding being seen on the security cameras. Claire puts the body in her trunk and on her way out gives the security guy at the front gate drugged cookies so he passes out. They go to a lake outside the Gates and dump the body nearby surrounded by beer cans. Dylan fangs out and gnaws at the dead guy to make it look like wolves. He then gets in her trunk for the ride back.
Nick and the gang look at the video of the cars leaving and it doesn't add up and he asks the gang to get a search warrant. Later when he learns that Sarah has befriended Claire he's wary. Sarah's pissed and begs him to not be so intense about his job here so they can have a normal life.
Ultimately the judge wouldn't approve the search warrant for the Radcliff house which is good news for the smarmy Gates mastermind who comes to visit Nick and strongly suggests that the residents of the Gates aren't interested in a snoopy police chief.
That normal life will include school for the kids at the posh Gates Academy.
We don't learn much about nerdy, overachieving daughter Dana but Charlie gets right into the action impressing a girl named Andie in class with his knowledge of Flanery O'Connor and pissing off her football player boyfriend Brett in the process. This is not good because Brett, and many of his other football buddies, are werewolves. They all run in a pack outside the Gates but Brett is apparently uninterested in joining the gang. He's trying to control his beastly ways but when he overhears, with his super-hearing, Andie confess to Charlie in the woods that she likes him he almost wolfs out, until one of his buddies brings him back to humanity before he can attack.
Meanwhile, Nick gets a late night call about a body outside the Gates. He, Leigh, and Marcus go to check out the John Doe and it turns out he's not only not the contractor, he's not a John Doe. He's the former police chief.
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What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of Pilot (2010) in Australia?
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