Dr. Henry Morgan is introduced checking a pocketwatch, a voiceover stating that the viewer probably won't believe his story, but he'll tell it anyway, because above all else, he has lots and lots of time.
Henry enters a subway car and sits a couple of seats away from a beautiful young blonde woman. After one brief glance, he greets her in Russian, explaining he noticed she had a smudge of a Russian brand of chocolate on her lips. He also knows she's on her way to giving a performance, arousing her suspicions, but his smooth explanations of his Sherlock Scan ease her suspicions enough that she invites him out. Their flirtation is cut violently short when the subway car crashes.
Everyone in the car is killed, including Henry. We see a flashback to his first death, in 1814 aboard a sailing ship, where Henry was shot by the captain because he refused to step aside to let an African man be thrown overboard. Henry's body sinks into the ocean, his watch spiraling down above him. Modern-day Henry reappears in the East River and the cold water forces him to come ashore immediately, despite being completely naked. A shivering Henry is almost immediately arrested, telling the officers, "It's a long story."
Henry is picked up the next morning by Abe, elderly but spry and the only other person who knows Henry's secret. Abe and Henry own an antique store and live above it. Henry retreats to a basement laboratory through a trapdoor hidden under a rug. He makes an entry in a journal about his latest death.
Detective Jo Martinez is introduced leaving a one night stand, clearly hung over. She arrives at the scene of the subway crash very late, claiming to her partner that she'd taken a yoga class the night before and forgot her phone was on vibrate when she went to bed early. She finds Henry's pocketwatch, still ticking, unlike the watch's owner as there were no survivors in that car. Her lieutenant orders her to get a cause of death for the conductor from the medical examiner.
Henry arrives at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner and the first autopsy for the day is the subway conductor. Jo arrives and while Henry's assistant Lucas is fetching coffee, Henry casually observes that Jo is recently widowed and has developed a drinking problem. His autopsy determines that the conductor was poisoned, meaning Jo has fifteen homicides and a mass murderer to catch. Henry receives a phone call, from someone he doesn't know but who asks Henry how he survived the crash, making it clear he knows Henry is immortal. Henry heads straight home, fearfully telling Abe they'll have to leave the country until the threat has been outlived. Abe glumly replies he can't outlive threats any more, and urges Henry to stay and fight back, but Henry has had too many bad experiences when his secret has been discovered. Abe scolds Henry for shutting himself off from the world, saying he might not be able to die, but he hasn't really lived since losing Abigail.
Jo, going through surveillance tapes of the subway platform before the crash with Anita, spots someone checking a pocketwatch before getting on the fatal car. They find a frame where his face is reflected in a window and discover it's Henry. Meanwhile, Henry reluctantly agrees to Abe's plan to stay and fight back, although he's not yet sure how.
Arriving back at work, Henry finds an envelope from "Your Fan" which contains a photo of Henry and Abigail from 1955. A flashback shows Abigail, his wife, dancing with Henry at a club. Henry tells her his long life was all so he'd be worthy of her, but Abigail grows serious and insists Henry's long life has some higher purpose. Lucas has no idea how the envelope got there, but tells Henry that Jo was asking about him, which made him realize how little he knows about Henry. Lucas offers to go out for a beer or to catch some music, which Henry shoots down out of hand. Lucas spots a clipping in the envelope, an article about the subway crash with a cryptic note. Henry suspects this means the caller caused the crash in order to test if Henry was immortal. He tells Abe that evening that if he can identify the poison, he may be able to find the caller. Since a tox screen won't be back for three weeks, Henry has brought home a vial of the conductor's poisoned blood. Abe reluctantly agrees to inject Henry with it so he can determine the poison first-hand. Henry dies, and when Abe picks him up (naked) Henry identifies the poison as aconite. They arrive back at the antique shop to find it surrounded by police cars, with Jo waiting for him.
In an interrogation room, a calm Henry readily admits the watch is his, saying he didn't mention being on the subway to Jo because he didn't think it was relevant and didn't want to distract her from more important investigations. Jo is still suspicious about the hidden lab which contained poisons and body parts, but Henry says he'd have used the slower-acting polonium if he wanted to kill someone, telling Jo he suspects the poison was aconite, very fast-acting, meaning the killer had to be on the subway car. He points out that Jo and everyone else had been desperately hoping for a simple heart attack, and it was Henry himself who determined the subway conductor was poisoned, triggering a deeper investigation. Pointing out Jo doesn't have enough to hold him, Henry returns to the OCME, promising not to leave town.
Henry and Lucas carefully inspect the conductor's body, discovering an injection site behind his ear and a fingerprint from the killer as he made the injection. Henry brings Jo the print, overhearing the detectives describing him as weird and creepy but Jo saying they still should look for another suspect. Henry takes it in stride, saying he's been called worse.
The print leads to a man named Hans Koehler, and Jo takes Henry along for his medical and scientific knowledge when she goes to question him. They discover a greenhouse full of aconite plants and a garage full of chemistry equipment, including distilled aconite poison. Koehler arrives home while they're there and when Jo confronts him, he throws aconite on her hand as he makes his escape. Henry, knowing aconite can quickly penetrate the skin and water can speed its absorption, quickly douses Jo's hand with ethanol, then sets it on fire for several seconds to destroy the poison.
Investigation finds that Koehler recently lost his wife when she fell off a platform and was hit by a subway driven by the conductor Koehler killed. Henry is confused by the lack of any link to his own immortality, realizing Koehler must not be the mysterious caller after all. Henry observes that Jo is craving a drink, and they slip off to a bar. Jo asks Henry about the watch, which Henry says was lost at the bottom of the ocean until it was found and someone bought it at auction and gave it to him, although she later left him. Henry asks Jo about her husband, who was a lawyer who went to D. C. for a deposition and had a heart attack on the hotel treadmill. Their bonding is interrupted by a call from the crime scene - a much larger amount of poison was created than they first thought. Henry determines he may have bern trying to make the poison airborne.
Pictures found in the trash lead to Grand Central Station. Henry notes the air conditioning is on despite it being a chilly night, and leads Jo to the roof where the equipment is. Koehler ambushes them, shooting Jo and forcing Henry at gunpoint to help him bring the poison to the air equipment. Henry hits Koehler with a wrench and they struggle for the gun, but Henry is shot in the chest. He manages to get to his feet and tackle Koehler away from the poison, momentum carrying them off the edge of the roof together, something a half-conscious Jo witnesses.
Jo wakes in a hospital room, greeted by a perfectly healthy Henry. He questions how her recall of him being shot and going off the roof could possibly be true, blaming her recall on the morphine. A phone call to her room turns out to be for Henry, his mysterious caller checking that he's alright after that nasty fall. The caller tells Henry that he, too, is immortal, much to Henry's shock. After the caller hangs up, Jo can see that Henry is upset, but he assures her he'll survive.
Leaving the hospital, Henry has a flashback to World War II, in which he meets Abigail, a nurse, holding a baby boy rescued from one of the concentration camps. A fresh tattoo is visible on the baby's arm; a cut to modern day shows the same tattoo on Abe's arm. Henry watches him with a very fatherly air, kissing him on the top of his head as he rejoins their chess game. Abe declares that for the first time in 65 years he's about to beat Henry. They're interrupted when Jo arrives at the shop, a bandage still visible where she was shot. She's come to return Henry's watch, and to ask him to be her on-site M. E. for a new case. Abe brings Henry his coat and, smiling as he watches his father head out into the world again, turns the shop's sign from CLOSED to OPEN.
Tropes featured in the pilot episode include:
- The '40s: A flashback near the end of the pilot shows Henry, Abigail, and Abe's first meeting. Henry is working as a doctor during World War II and sees Abigail, a nurse, holding baby Abraham, who was just rescued from one of the extermination camps. Henry is clearly smitten at first sight.
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Henry kisses the top of Abe's head in a very fatherly manner in the last scene. Abe may be seventy, but he's clearly still Henry's little boy.
- Age Cut: At the end of the episode, we see Henry holding the baby boy rescued from the camps, with a focus on the number tattooed on his chubby little arm. Cut to a shot of the elderly Abraham, with the same arm in focus, revealing that Abraham is the baby Henry and Abigail rescued all those years ago. Emphasized by Henry giving Abraham a fatherly kiss on the top of his head.
- The Alcoholic: As pointed out by Henry, Jo has taken to drinking after the death of her husband.
- All There in the Script:
- The technician who reviews surveillance tapes is named Anita in the script and closed captions.
- In the script for the pilot, after the subway crash, when Henry realizes he's about to die, he actively removes his pocketwatch and tosses it away, so that it won't vanish when he does. Abe asks him about the watch afterwards, and assures Henry that they'll get the watch back eventually.
- In Henry's lab, there is a tank with several jellyfish visible. According to the script, they are Turritopsis nutricula, known as the Immortal Jellyfish.Henry Morgan: When the only other living organism that shares your plight has neither a heart nor a brain, it can get a bit lonely...
- And Then What?: Abe's response to Henry's plan to run away from his anonymous caller. Is he going to keep isolating himself from the world, spending his days with corpses, never letting anyone get close to him (and not even having Abe, since he's not going with him this time)? That's not really living, is it?
- Artistic License – Marine Biology: There is a tank in Henry's basement laboratory with several jellyfish visible inside. The script and
Word of God say they are immortal jellyfish. The fact that the script uses the name Turritopsis nutricula instead of the currently accurate Turritopsis dohrnii is forgivable, since they were once considered the same species (although they were separated almost a decade before the show started). However, Turritopsis are at most 4.5 millimetres (0.18 in) across and about equally high, much too small to make such a camera-friendly impressive display. - Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Henry is chatting up a beautiful cello player when the subway train crashes. Afterwards, the car is full of dead and dying people, some more mangled than others, but the cellist is still beautiful, marred only by a tiny trickle of Blood from the Mouth.
- Big Secret: Henry's immortality. Obviously, Henry doesn't want to call attention to the fact that he was in the subway crash, but Jo figures it out anyway, declaring him the prime suspect due to his presence and withholding of information. However, he is able to prove that the evidence against him isn't substantial enough, and finds evidence of another suspect, clearing himself surprisingly quickly, all while managing to avoid having his immortality discovered.
- Blood from the Mouth: After the subway crash the young cello player Henry had been chatting up is lying nearby, still in one beautiful piece but with a little trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth and her eyes open and lifeless.
- Bullet Holes and Revelations: When the bad guy of the week is holding Henry at gunpoint, Henry hits him with a wrench and they struggle over the gun. There's a loud bang as the gun goes off, and close-ups of equally surprised looks on both men's faces, before Henry slowly sinks to the ground.
- Burial at Sea: Henry's fate after he's shot by the captain because he refused to step aside and let an African man be murdered.
- But Liquor Is Quicker: Implied when Jo is introduced leaving a one-night stand in the morning and Henry diagnoses her as hung over shortly after.
- Car Cushion: Henry, wounded and lacking options, hurtles himself and the villain off the roof of Grand Central Station. Henry lands directly on a car, the villain on the pavement next to it.
- Casual Kink: After Henry's home is searched and Jo describes several items as torture devices, Henry matter-of-factly states that "all those are for sex."
- Creepy Good: Dr. Henry Morgan is described as creepy by several people. He works as a medical examiner. He can read personal details about people's lives, living or dead, at a glance. According to his resume, his last job before going to medical school (in Guam) was working as a grave-digger. When a warrant is served to search his home because he withheld information about a mass-murder, he's found to have a hidden basement laboratory (which he pronounces with emphasis on the second syllable, like a movie Mad Scientist) containing body parts (excusable since he's an ME) and "torture devices" ("All those are for sex.") and poisons. When questioned he seems completely unperturbed, stating casually which poison he'd have used instead and agreeing that their suspicions of him are quite reasonable — before poking a great big hole in their theory. It's unclear whether knowing that he's been alive since the 18th century and can't seem to ''stay'' dead would help their impression of him any. He's also an Actual Pacifist who has worked as a doctor for a couple hundred years and is quite ready to put himself in danger if it spares someone else.
- Cruel to Be Kind: Jo is not amused when Henry pours ethanol on her hand and lights it on fire to neutralize the poison thrown on it.
- Deadly Gas: The antagonist plans to pump one into the air conditioning system of Grand Central Station.
- Deadpan Snarker: Often literal with the "dead" part.
- When Henry's testing a lethal poison on himself (bear in mind, he's in front of and talking with his son at the time):Henry Morgan: Wouldn't it be ironic if this time I actually die?
Abraham Morgan: Hysterical. - When he's been shot and is bleeding out:Killer: You're going to a better place.
Henry Morgan: I doubt that.
- When Henry's testing a lethal poison on himself (bear in mind, he's in front of and talking with his son at the time):
- Dehumanization: When Henry checks an ill African captive and declares, "This man will be fine," the ship's captain tells him, "He's not a man, he's property." The institution of slavery relied on such dehumanization.
- Dies Wide Open: After the subway crash when the pretty cello player's body is lying nearby, her eyes are wise open and lifeless.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Henry quite nonchalantly asks Abe to kill him so that he can solve the week's mystery. Later episodes, however, have him say that he still fears death and show that he fights to stay alive even if dying and coming back to life would be a simpler option. (Possibly justified in that this particular case seems to involve someone who has found out Henry's secret, and Henry is thus more motivated than usual to get answers quickly.)
- Henry's basement lab is reached through a trap door in the floor of the shop. In later episodes, characters enter the lab by coming down what appears to be an ordinary staircase with light coming from a doorway at the top and no sign of anyone closing a trap door as they enter, and the hidden entrance is never seen or referred to again.
- Elegant Classical Musician: Henry is chatting up a beautiful, elegant woman on the subway, who is a cello player heading to perform at a concert at the Lincoln Center.
- End-of-Episode Silliness: In a deleted scene at the end of the episode, as Henry and Jo get into her car to head for the next crime scene, Henry asks if they can have the sirens on. Jo gives him an exasperated/amused look and asks Henry how old he is, but she indulges him by turning on the sirens as they pull away, Henry grinning like a boy.
- Establishing Character Moment: In the first scene Henry checks the time on his pocket watch, shows off his Sherlock Scan talent, then dies violently and reawakens in the East River.
- Exactly Exty Years Ago: The series started airing in 2014; Henry's first death was in 1814.
- Fair Cop: Alana de la Garza is drop-dead gorgeous, so of course Detective Martinez is an excellent example. The other regular police characters are
not quite as amazingly stunning. - Friendless Background: Henry gets a call from someone who identifies himself to Lucas as a friend, which Lucas tells Jo is weird because Henry doesn't have any friends. It's basically true; aside from Abe, who is family rather than friend, Henry doesn't seem to have anyone to share his life with at this point. According to Abe, Henry hasn't let anyone get close to him since losing Abigail.
- Gilligan Cut: In the pilot, when Abe realizes Henry wants to determine the poison used by being killed by it himself, Abe declares "Absolutely not!" Cut to Henry's lab as they prepare to inject him with the poisoned blood.
- Gun Struggle: In the pilot, when Henry confronts the bad guy on the roof of Grand Central, Henry hits him with a wrench, and a struggle for the gun ensues. There's a shot, and each man is shown with a look of surprise consistent with being hit, before Henry slowly collapses to the ground.
- Hand-or-Object Underwear: Given how Henry is Naked on Revival after each death, and the show was made for broadcast television, this trope naturally comes into play. The first time we see Henry die and revive, he comes out of the East River on what is clearly a very cold day (so he can't just swim until he finds a discreet spot to emerge). He covers himself with his hands until two police officers approach him, at which point he raises first one hand, then the other in surrender.
- Heal It With Fire: A suspect throws poison on Jo's hand. It's already started to penetrate Jo's skin, so Henry neutralizes it by squirting ethanol over the area, then setting it on fire and not letting her put it out for several seconds.
- Heartbroken Badass: Jo is a tough cop, but was devastated when she lost her husband Sean.
- He Knows Too Much: Henry decides this of the mysterious caller. His plan of silencing the caller, in an interesting subversion of the trope, is simply to move far away and outlive the person. Of course, as he finds out at the end of the episode, the other person is also immortal, so outliving him isn't an option.
- Held Gaze:
- When Henry and Abigail meet, they can barely keep their eyes off each other, especially Henry.
- Jo and Henry share one when they're talking about their pasts at the bar.
- Honor Before Reason: Henry refuses to compromise his ethics and step aside to allow an African captive to be killed, even though the captain is ready to shoot him if he doesn't, and once he's dead they'll kill the man anyway.
- Hospital Epilogue: Henry and Jo end their adventure with Jo waking up in the hospital, being treated for the gunshot sustained on the roof of Grand Central, and Henry has come to visit her.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The episode starts with Henry dying in a subway accident, getting impaled through the chest on a torn metal railing. He later records in his journal the nature and location of his injuries and the level of pain on a scale of 1-to-10 (the pole is rated a seven).
- In the Back: The killer shoots Jo in the back, possibly having watched and waited for her to turn.
- Isn't It Ironic?: At the end of the episode, the song that plays over Henry and Abigail meeting sings about New York, a place Abigail at least has never been, while their meeting is taking place at a liberated concentration camp in Germany, and is a song about a long-distance relationship when Henry and Abigail were never really apart from that time on until the very end.
- Kinky Cuffs: When Jo accuses Henry of possessing "torture devices" and Henry explains blandly that they're for sex, the pictures on the table include a couple of pairs of handcuffs.
- Love at First Sight: The first time Henry sees Abigail, holding baby Abraham as snowflakes drift around them, he's clearly smitten and can barely take his eyes off her.
- Made of Iron: After getting shot, Jo is left barely conscious. Henry gets shot, and is able to not only get up, but charge the killer and tackle him hard enough to break a railing and send them both over the edge of the building doing so.
- Mad Scientist Laboratory:
- Henry's basement lab resembles one, and Jo refers to it as his "secret cave" after searching it, describing it as containing "human organs" (Henry is a Medical Examiner) and "torture devices" ("Oh, those are for sex!"). It's entered through a trap door hidden under a rug, and there are Gratuitous Laboratory Flasks containing colored substances when they're not neatly put away in cabinets, as well as a large fish tank containing jellyfish note . It doesn't help that Henry pronounces the word "laboratory" with emphasis on the second syllable, which most Americans associate with movie mad scientists.
- The Villain of the Week has created a lab in his garage, with Gratuitous Laboratory Flasks sporting bright purple residue from the aconite flowers he's creating poison with. Justified as he's a chemist.
- Master Poisoner: The villain of the episode, a former chemist who uses aconite, a near-instant and incredibly painful poison from the monkshood flower, and who is planning to release it in gas form through the air conditioning at Grand Central Station as revenge on the train companies who were "responsible" for his wife's death on a subway track.
- Men Are Childish: In a deleted scene at the end of the episode, Henry asks Jo as they get into her police car if they can turn on the sirens. She gives him an amused/indulgent/exasperated look and asks Henry how old he is, but she does turn the lights and sirens on.
- Mistaken for Flirting: Henry says to Jo, "You want a drink." Jo mistakes that for a question, as in trying to ask her out, but Henry corrects her.Henry: I wasn't hitting on you, Detective, merely stating a fact: you want a drink.
- Near-Villain Victory: The main plot ends with this; the Villain of the Week has shot both Henry and Jo, and is about to release poison gas into the ventilation system of Grand Central Station. At the last second, Henry manages to get to his feet and tackle the villain away from the device, in a charge that carries both of them through a railing and off the roof to their deaths.
- Not Even Bothering with an Excuse: Jo questioning Lucas about Henry makes him realize he knows almost nothing about Henry even though they've been working together for three years. Lucas suggests they go out for a beer or catch some music together. Henry responds with a simple "No, thank you." Lucas, disappointed, says he appreciates the candor.
- On a Scale from One to Ten: Henry has a book where he records his deaths, including rating pain levels on a scale from one to ten. Getting impaled through the chest by a broken handrail in the subway crash was rated a seven.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted as both the villain of the pilot and Detective Hanson have a wife named Karen.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Jo is shot in the shoulder. She's out of commission and wakes up in the hospital, but when we next see her she's got a little gauze visible taped to her chest and is otherwise fine, using that arm pretty normally and apparently back to full duty investigating another murder.
- Playing with Syringes: Henry has had some bad experiences in the past when people found out about his immortality.Henry: Abe, this has happened before! I've had every ounce of my blood drained, my organs dissected in the name of science!
- Psycho Knife Nut: Henry's colleagues generally agree that he's highly creepy; the fact that he uses a large hunting knife as one of his main autopsy tools doubtless helps contribute to this image.
- Purpose-Driven Immortality: Abigail believes this is true for Henry's immortality.Abigail: Henry, listen to me. Everything you are, everything you've learned is for something bigger. You were made like this for a reason, but it wasn't for me.
- Rewind, Replay, Repeat: Martinez makes her Techno Wizard do this with footage of the train station just before the crash, in hopes of finding a killer. Instead, she finds Henry.
- Right Behind Me: A slight twist — Detective Martinez describes Henry as weird and creepy while he's right behind her, slightly out of focus. Her colleagues visibly react to his presence but don't gesture or otherwise actively try to warn her. Martinez does not speak the expected line. Henry clearly doesn't mind and assures her he's been called worse.
- Runaway Train: The story is kicked off with Henry dying in a subway crash, waking up again, and getting caught up in the police investigation.
- Secret Diary: Henry keeps a "Diary of Death" in which he records details of each time he dies.
- Secret-Keeper: Henry describes Abe as the only person who knows Henry's secret.
- Secret Room: Henry's basement laboratory, with its entrance a trap door hidden beneath a rug in the antique store.
- Sherlock Scan: Henry does this with a beautiful young woman sitting near him on the subway, correctly determining she is Russian and is a professional cello player on her way to a performance.
- Signature Item Clue: Henry's pocket watch. Jo finds it in the wrecked subway car, then spots a man checking a pocket watch in the video surveillance of people getting onto the fatal car. A reflection shows that man is Henry, who Jo had just met.
- Stalker without a Crush: The mysterious caller says speaking with Henry for the first time is the most exciting thing that's ever happened to him. He knows Henry died in the subway crash, sends Henry a picture of Henry and Abigail from 1955, and calls after Henry dies falling off the roof of Grand Central making it clear he watched the fall happen.
- Stopped Clock: Averted when Jo finds Henry's watch in the crashed subway car and, rather than stopping at the time of the crash, it's still ticking.
- Taking You with Me: The Villain of the Week has incapacitated Jo and fatally shot Henry. Before he can put the poison into the train station's air conditioning system, though, Henry uses the last of his strength to tackle him off of the roof. Naturally, both of them die, but ultimately it sticks a little less for one of them.
- Technicolor Toxin: The poison featured is a purple-blue color. Justified as it's aconite, which is derived from monkshood, a similarly colored flower.
- The Teetotaler: According to Abe, Henry gave up drinking 28 years ago. Henry breaks this streak of abstinence with a glass of wine.
- There Is Another: Henry has been immortal for 200 years and never met another like himself, so he believes he is the only one. Then his anonymous caller tells him they "share the same pain, same curse, same affliction."
- They Would Cut You Up: When Henry gets an anonymous phone call from someone who knows his secret, he's ready to flee the country immediately, reminding Abe, "This has happened before! I've had every ounce of my blood drained, my organs dissected in the name of science!"
- Twofer Token Minority: The unnamed Lieutenant in charge is black and a woman.
- The Voice: The mysterious caller is nothing but a voice on the phone.
- Wham Line: When the anonymous caller tells Henry it seems death isn't an option for either of them.
- Wooden Ships and Iron Men: Henry's first death is aboard a sailing ship, one engaging illegally in the slave trade at the time.
- You Are Not Alone: Played far more darkly than usual in that the mysterious caller claims to be the same as Henry, unable to die, but he also implies that he's going to torment him about their curse.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Quoted almost word for word.
- You Didn't Ask: Jo discovers that Henry was on the subway train that crashed, information he neglected to volunteer when she saw him mere hours afterward. When she asks him why, Henry's reply boils down to this, explaining that he didn't think it was relevant and he didn't want to distract her from her investigation.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Said word for word by Jo when she sees that the owner of the pocketwatch found on the wrecked subway, caught on video entering the fatal car minutes before the accident, is the weird medical examiner she was just talking to.
