Episode One
Synopsis
The first of three detailed, exciting and emotional episodes
her daughter now that she knows, and in a panicking flood of tears admits to her that she’s not her biological mother. Disgusted, Lauren turns her back and leaves the hospital. She decides that she needs to find her parents and know who she is. She returns home, grabs some money and hurryingly packs a bag.
She gets on a bus to the airport, once she arrives she stops in a dark and dismal bar and has a drink, looking at her missed calls from Helen. Soon, a seedy looking man approaches her and attempts to grope her. A young, attractive man sitting nearby sees this and goes to step in, but Lauren is quick to jump up and backhand the seedy man across the face. The young man tells him that he should leave and then takes a seat next to Lauren, he introduces himself as Ethan Briggs with a warming grin. They make small talk and Ethan attempts light-hearted conversation, but Lauren leaves once her flight number is called for boarding.
Ethan finishes his drink and leaves soon after. Later, Lauren sits on the plane and notices Ethan. He sits next to her with a smile, and Lauren rolls her eyes in annoyance. But the pair pick up conversation again and he asks her where she’s going, Lauren hesitates but tells him that she’s going to find her family. She looks out of the plane’s window, taking a last look at the town she now despises, as they prepare to take off. With Lauren distracted, Ethan quickly takes his phone out by his side and sends a text to a private number that reads “I’ve got her”. Lauren looks back at Ethan as he puts his phone away and smiles at her again. She looks away once more and Ethan looks forward, his smile fades.
The next morning, Lauren smells the sweet smell of her mother’s pancakes. Helen greets her with her usual upbeat tone, but this time Lauren catches sight of occasional pained looks on her face. Helen serves up Lauren’s pancakes with a trembling smile before clutching her chest and crashing to floor, knocking herself unconscious. As Lauren cries down the phone to 911, an ambulance races to their home. Once at the hospital, surrounded by glaring lights and empty space, Lauren is told by the doctor that her mother is stable but is suffering from anaemia which caused her chest pains. With the option of giving Helen some of Lauren’s blood in a transfusion to initially help her, Lauren agrees and undergoes a test. But when the results come through, Lauren is told that her blood type doesn’t genetically match her mothers, signifying that they are not related.
With her mother asleep, Lauren struggles to process the news and races home. Turning every area of their house upside down, searching for evidence of Helen’s lies and secrets. Lauren eventually finds what she’s looking for; a surrogacy document between her mother and a couple named Frank and Kathleen Porter, along with a photograph of them all together in London, 1989. Devastated and in shock, Lauren returns to the hospital with her evidence, only to find Chris Hillman, a friend of Helen’s since childhood who’s known Lauren her whole life. Lauren falls into his arms and tells him what she’s learned, Chris seems shocked and surprised. But once Lauren leaves him to talk to Helen, his sympathetic expression turns into a frown.
Lauren enters Helen’s hospital room to find her awake, full of emotion she demands the truth. Helen feels unable to continue to lie to
Its England 1989, an excited and well-presented couple by the name of Kathleen and Frank Porter are preparing for their unborn baby. The couple have put her trust into a gestational surrogate; the gentle young American, Julia Drennen. Although she has no biological relation to the baby, Julia constantly looks down lovingly at her stomach throughout her pregnancy. One day, when Kathleen mentions that if the baby is a girl, she wants to name her Amanda. Over time, Julia loses her grip on reality, convincing herself that she can’t part with the child, and becomes panicked. Soon, Julia packs her bags in her cluttered London flat, and decides to go into hiding in order to steal the child and raise it as her own, while Kathleen and Frank start becoming more and more panicked over not being able to reach Julia. Eventually, Julia leaves and arrives at an airport. She hands over her new passport, which shows her photo next to the name ‘Helen Daniels’. With a relieved look on her face, she disappears into a crowd of people.
Its twenty-seven years later; 2016. An attractive young woman cleans the bar of a run-down diner, making witty jokes back and forth with the customers, her co-workers address her as Lauren. She finishes up for the evening and walks to her car in a dark, urban street. She sighs as she looks at her boring, dull hometown in Philadelphia. She arrives at her warm but shabby looking house, to an aged Julia (now known as Helen) and addresses her as ‘mom’. The pair talk about their days in routine, with Lauren once again pretending that she’s not bored out of her skull to keep her mother happy. The pair carry on with their evening at home, going through their day to day life that Lauren’s grown so tired of.