Keifer Sutherland’s new supernatural drama, Touch, left me pleasantly surprised and I was left with very few questions by the end of the show. Tonight’s episode felt like a deleted scene from 2004’s blockbuster hit, Crash – and that’s a good thing. There were several different sub-plots that we eventually find out is all connected.
It opens with Sutherland, playing widower and single parent Martin Bohm, reflecting over baby photos of his mute, special needs son, Jake. Jake’s specific condition isn’t mentioned, in this episode at least, but when he begins to make patterns with his maple syrup & sugar packets at breakfast, it’s obvious he has something to say.
Martin takes the pattern to Professor Arthur Teller, played by Danny Glover, where we find out Jake’s affinity for numbers, that the pattern Jake left behind is actually called “The Golden Ratio” and the pattern symbolizes the number 22.
From this point on we’re taken on a dizzying ride between the lives of several different characters. The episode continuously switches back and forth between Martin & Jake’s story, a loving dad/pick-pocket, a young Muslim girl trying to break from the restraints of society, a doctor secretly in love and a lonely woman bent on getting revenge for her family.
In a nutshell, here’s what happened: the pick-pocket steals Martin’s laptop causing Martin to miss Jake’s screening with a social worker, fate causes Martin to sit next to the vengeful woman who is holding a gun waiting to kill the man who she believes killed here entire family. Across the globe, the young Muslim girl dresses as a boy and takes her father’s car for a joy ride, they come across a woman going into labor and decide to help her, risking certain imprisonment. While trying to figure out how to get out of this predicament, the pregnant woman calls her husband who is in New York on business. Back on this side of the world, but in Canada, the young doctor must sacrifice talking to the girl of his dreams in order to find a bone marrow donor for a boy with adopted parents. (Still following me? Stick with it, I promise it will come together.)
Back in New York, Martin has helped the vengeful woman’s target escape after the husband of the pregnant woman walks in front of the bus causing tons of commotion, which allows them to get away. While attempting to catch her victim, vengeful woman gets hit by a bus and taken to the hospital. Along the way Martin notices a tattoo on the target’s chest with the Bible verse Exodus 22:22, “Do not take advantage of children whose father’s have died.” The target tells Martin that he is the man whom ruined the woman’s life, but he never killed the children, he took them to Canada. (Starting to see the connection here?)
And all of this happened on the number 22 bus!
Come to find out, the boy in Canada who needed bone marrow is the biological brother of vengeful woman which means she can be young doctor’s donor allowing him to run to the train to meet the girl of his dreams which is not young Muslim girl, though the two are technically betrothed. Young doctor posts pictures on Facebook of the non-Muslim girl, his father cancels the wedding and young Muslim girl’s father allows her to go to college after witnessing her deliver a baby.
Wow. That’s a large nutshell.
At the end of the episode, we’re given a touching moment that helps calm down the excitement. Martin opens a box addressed to Jake from his aunt, which contains a teddy bear, an unopened letter and a cassette of Jake’s mom talking and singing to him. There’s a tenderness at this point, which makes me want to watch again, hoping for a stronger line of communication between Jake and his father.
We learn so many things here. Everything is connected, Jake is clairvoyant and Martin feels like he must follow the signs Jake gives to him. This was a loaded episode, which is way easier to follow by watching it, not trying to explain it. There’s so much more little stuff that happened as well, but jumping into a show that’s already five episodes in is usually a tough feat. There are characters you don’t know, story lines that seem absurd and moments when you aren’t sure if you should be paying attention or checking your text messages. You don’t always know what to follow. But I was left satisfied and I can’t wait to watch it next week. Hopefully, it will be a bit easier to recapture.
