| Pilot - Edward Solinas |
| Stone is handcuffed by the cop, Will Kane, while his partner, Charlie Hirsh goes to look for the priest. After finding out there are two missing altar boys, Stone escapes. He gets a room at a hotel, ($62.50 a night, cash up front). The clerk explains inter-league play in baseball to him before directing him to his room on the third floor. As he washes up in his room, he discovers strange tattoos on his body. A voice tells him, "The names of the fugitives. Penned in my native tongue, of course." As the voice laughs, Stone prowls out on the fire escape with his gun drawn. He sees the Devil sitting there. "You know, they planned this for centuries. Totally unprecedented. Oh, there have been a few, over the millennia, who've slipped thought the cracks. Isolated incidents. Never anything like this. They think they'll beat the Devil. They're wrong, Ezekiel. Nobody beats me." "What are you doing here?" "Well, it's your first day on the job, you dropped the ball, I'm thinking maybe I picked the wrong guy." "Yeah, maybe you did." The Devil laughs. Stone continues, "He was stronger than me, faster. He even burned a hole through a chain link fence." "After all, he was my guest for nearly as century. You were with me what, fifteen years? The longer you are in hell, the more it becomes a part of you, literally. Some of those that escaped have been mine since the dawn of time, and have the powers to prove it." "Terrific, nice odds," "Relax. You all play by the same rules, more or less.." "More or less?" "Well, you're already dead, so you can't be killed, or even feel pain, unless it is inflicted by another damned soul." "So how am I supposed to send them back?" "Did I forget to tell you that part?" The Devil laughs. "It's the eyes, windows to the soul. Anyone, alive or dead, destroys the eyes, and the damned get a one way ticket back home to Hell." "Including me?" "Silly question, Ezekiel. Last time I checked, you were one of the damned. Now, stop asking questions, and get back to work. It's the only way you'll ever earn your second chance at life on earth." "Yeah, about that second chance," Stone begins, the Devil smiling appreciatively, "How does that work, exactly?" "That's for me to know, and you to find out. In the event you actually succeed rounding up all one hundred and thirteen of your wayward brothers and sisters." "One hundred thirteen to one, huh? Great." The Devil stands behind Stone and speaks into his ear. "Remember, Mr. Stone, Gilbert Jax was a rapist, not a murderer. He didn't kill your wife. You had no right to kill him. God's universe doesn't work like the American legal system. You do something, you pay for it." "That is all I was doing," Stone responds forcefully, "I was trying to make the bastard pay." "Yes, Yes," the Devil says, "Now that's what I like to hear. The indomitable spirit, and righteous indignation of the human species. I've heard it a billion times, defending a billion atrocities, and it's still music to my ears." "Listen pal, you need me as much as I need you. You may be all powerful down below, but up here, you're just another corporate big-shot who's trying to cover his ass. Now, if you can't police your own, no one is gonna ever be afraid of you again." The Devil, smiling again, has only one response. He holds up a single digit on his right hand, and with it pushes Stone off the fire escape. Stone lands unhurt on the ground, and brushes himself off. At police headquarters, Detective Kane is showing around a sketch of his assailant. He has a bandage on his nose. Another officer swears it looks like Ezekiel Stone, who died fifteen years ago. Salinas visits an art museum. He approaches a teacher, Ms. Gilliam, on field trip, reminiscing about an old New York and quoting a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, Happy hearts and happy faces, Happy play in grassy places, That was how in ancient ages Children grew to kings and sages Chris, a young boy, needs to use the restroom, and Salinas offers to take him. <commercial> Salinas finds out that he is an altar boy and kidnaps him, killing a bystander in the process. Back at the police station, Kane theorizes to Hirsh that Stone faked his own death when Internal Affairs began to investigate him after his wife's rapist was found dead. Stone returns to the church, asking Father Horn, a blind priest, about Father Solinas. "Don't think because I'm blind, I don't know what goes on outside these walls. Six years ago, I was walking home from the grocery store late at night when a man dragged his wife out on the street and started beating her head against the sidewalk -- what you police call a domestic dispute. I tried to stop him. I didn't know he had a gun. Luckily, he was drunk at the time and his aim was a little off. The bullet shattered the bridge of my nose and grazed one eye. Muzzle flash took care of the other." While Father Horn is speaking, Stone is searching for clues. After he tells Father Horn that he knew someone else shot in the face, he asks what happened to the woman. "Heard she testified on her husband's behalf. At first. I thought it might be a blessing, not to have to look human evil in the face again. But I was wrong. In the end it just made it harder to belive, to keep faith in the justice of God's universe. And it gets worse every day." "Did you ever want to make him suffer?" "I struggled with that. But what good would it have done? It wouldn't bring my sight back." "There is justice, Father." While they were talking, Stone discovered some old coins in Solinas' things. Detective Kane shows up, and tries to arrest Stone. Stone jumps put the window, and climbs out the fire escape. Kane follows him to the roof, telling him to freeze. Stone jumps to the next building, Kane tries, but fails short. Stone pulls him up. "You saved my life." "Maybe I'm not the bad guy you think I am." "I know who you are. You're Detective Liutentant Ezekiel Stone. You broke the Saint Mark's strangler case in ‘81. You solved the Levy brother's double homicide in ‘83. You were one of the most decorated cops in Manhattan south. Then one day, your wife got raped, and you snapped. You killed a suspect." Stone, who had begun to walk away, stops. He turns and marches right for Kane. Kane tries to pull his gun, but Stone gets right in his face and answeres, "He was guilty." "Wait, so are you." Kane wants to know what information Stone has about the case. Stone tells him, "The man behind this is Edward Solinas, a priest who started seening the four living creatures from the book of Revelations here on earth." "‘Four living creatures'? What is that?" "Chapter four, verse six. The four holy beasts who have something to do with the second coming of Christ, only there's a catch. They can't play their role unless they're in heaven. Solinas started seeing the four creature in the faces of children, alter boys to be exact." Stone pauses as he turns away frome Kane. "He killed sixteen kids in Italy before he was finally forced to escape. Ended up here in the United States, in 1896." Kane clearly does not believe this, but Stone continues anyway, "where he killed 8 more kids. Right here, in this city, before he was stopped. Now he's back, for more." "1896 - that's crazy." Stone continues, "The only thing going for these kids is that he sends all back to heaven together. He won't kill one until he has all four. Which means there is time." As Stone walks away, Kane says "Wait a minute." This prompts Stone to turn and clarify what Kane had said earlier, "I wasn't one of the most decorated cops in Manhatten South, I was the most decorated." As he walks away, Kane shoots him in the leg, but Stone doesn't stop, just jumps off the roof and keeps going. <commercial> Kane arrives on the crime scene in the museum bathroom. A hand print is burned into the victim's face. The lab says it is H2SO4Na(Cl2)2, (Sodium Chloride) or human sweat with sulfur. Stone finds out that the old coins are 1900's subway tokens. He visits a museum to see old subway maps, and the clerk hits on him. Stone tells her that he is married. Flashback to Stone's past, watching his wife Rosalyn (Genevieve Langlois in the pilot) in the kitchen, then upstairs to the bedroom, where she is putting up wallpaper. Then she gets into the shower, and when she comes out and sees him standing there, she drops her towel. Stone picks it up... Cut to Stone sitting on some steps, thinking... Cut to Kane, reading Solinas' files in the police basements, and beginning to believe. In the old subway tunnel, Solinas is preparing for the killing of the creatures. <commercial> Stone uses the old maps to find the entrance to the subway. Inside, he finds the 3 kids and releases them. Stone tells them to call Detective Kane. Driving around in the squad car, Kane now believes in Stone's story. His partner does not believe. The call comes over the radio for Detective Kane. At the intersection, they find the 3 missing alter boys. Kane's partner tells him to stay there with the 3 kids whjile he goes down into the subway. After the kids identify Solinas' picture, and tell him about a Detective Stone that rescued them, Kane goes down in the old subway. In the subway, Kane's partner is attacked and killed by Solinas. Stone jumps Solinas, but is overpowered. Kane comes in and shoots Solinas, but there is no affect. Kane fights Solinas; they go through a brick wall into a live subway track. Kane dodges, but Solinas is hit by a subway, again to no affect. Solinas prepares to attack Kane, but Stone shows up and shoots him in the eyes. Kane watches as the first tattoo burns itself off of Stone's are. After, Kane fully believes Stone, but thinks it is insane. Stone says he's sorry about Hersh's death, but Kane reminds him that at least the kids are okay. "I don't know if it matters," Kane says, "but I was going through your file and your wife is still collecting your death benefits. I mean, she lives somewhere in California someplace: I don't remember the place exactly. I just..." he trails off. "Okay," Stone says, hailing a taxi. "Oh, what you said to me on the roof of the church, about me being guilty? Maybe if, I was in the same place, same moment, if I had it to do all over again... I don't know." After a pause, Kane asks, "Hey, what happens now? You just keep tracking these guys down?" "Beats burning in hell," Stone replies, getting into a cab. "Hey," Kane says, waiting for Stone to look back at him, "knowing all this...how it works... it's allright." He begins to walk away. "Kane," Stone calls, "Knowing is the easy part." |
| Ezekiel Stone (Peter Horton) wakes on an empty subway car. He walks down the street, looking at the people. He finds a church and goes to confession. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. "It has been a long time since my last confession. I was a cop, and good at my job. I was married. I had a good life." A pause, while Stone braces himself to continue speaking, "Then my wife was raped. We, uh, caught the guy who did it, but he got off. I tracked him down... and I killed him.." There is an echo, "killed him.., killed him..." "This is a terrible, terrible sin, my son," the priest (Peter Woodward) tells him. "Two months later I cornered this petty thief who had a gun. He opened up on me, and I took five bullets to the face and neck... "And I died. And because I had killed a man in cold blood, I went to hell," Stone tells him. The priest sits there in shocked silence for a moment, and Stone asks "You okay in there, Father?" When there is no response, Stone continues. "You know it's funny, but even [in] the most maximum security pennetentuary, from time to time, inmates will escape. It happened on Devil's Island, it happened at Alcatraz, and six weeks ago, it happened in Hell. One hundred and thirteen of the most vile creatures who ever walked the earth escaped. And now they're back." "But the Prince of Lies, the Master of Hell, surely having his subjects back on Earth, spreading chaos and destruction, all this would bring a smile to his face." "I don't know, Father. You of all people know that even the Devil has to answer to a higher power. He screwed up, and now he needs someone to fix things. Someone to track down these creatures... and send them back to Hell. "Why are you telling me this.. this, ridiculous story?" "Oh, come on, Father, I think you know why." The wood in the confessional creaks and breaks, and Father Edward Salinas runs, Stone follows him. The priest runs down an alley, and Stone trains the gun on him. "Time to give the Devil his due," he says. Just then, a squad car pulls up. Stone holds his fire. Salinas escapes by burning his way through a chain link fence. <the title, ‘BRIMSTONE', flashes on the screen> |