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“The Bridge” recap: “Pilot” and “Calaca” (Eps. 1 and 2)

Episode 1: “The Pilot”

A woman’s body is found on the line between El Paso, Tx and Juarez, Mexico. Det. Marco Ruiz (Demian Bichir) of Chihuahua State Police is first to arrive on the scene. Shortly thereafter, El Paso Homicide Det. Sonya Cross (Diane Kruger) joins him. Sonya’s demeanor is stiff as she calls dibs on the body, which she claims came from El Paso. Det. Ruiz shrugs, not too disappointed to hand the case over. The crime scene has shut down the border and a women riding with an ambulance, requests to speak to Sonya. Her husband is having a heart attack and Sonya refuses to let her through. Sonya is so unmoved by the women’s pleas that it’s unsettling. The woman ends up going to Det. Ruiz, who lets through the blockade. When the El Paso medical examiner attempts to remove the body, it’s revealed that the victim is cut in two.

On a dark alley in Juarez, a visibly upset young woman stumbles by. A man appears, calling out to her. She asks if he is the one. He is, and promptly escorts her into the trunk of his car. The woman, named Eva, is frightened and uncertain that this is the right move as he closes her in. At the hospital, the woman from earlier is revealed to be Charlotte Millright (Annabeth Gish) and her husband is about to undergo emergency surgery on his heart. He reveals to her that he doesn’t love her and wants a divorce. Total dick move! She is devastated by this news naturally, and even more so when he doesn’t make it through surgery.

The dead body is that of Judge Lorraine Gates, and Sonya goes to her home to inform her husband of her murder. It becomes fairly clear during their exchange that Sonya is not the best person to handle these sorts of delicate matters. Her lack of empathy (which she acknowledges and apologies for to the husband) is not intentional, but rather a characteristic of her Aspergers. Later in the autopsy room, the body turns out to be halves of two different women; one Caucasian and one Hispanic. Sonya calls Marco, waking him to give him the news and request files on women’s bodies found in Juarez to attempt and find a match. Marco goes to visit a man he calls “El Capitan” to get permission to investigate the case. One gets the feeling that this El Capitan is not affiliated with the police force. At the El Paso station, Sonya fills her superior Lieutenant Wade (Ted Levine) in on the case, while casually stripping down to her sports bra. He gently reminds her to use the ladies room next time. Lt. Wade has a soft spot for Sonya, and is used to her idiosyncrasies. Steven Linder (Thomas Wright), the man with the girl in his trunk, drives his car over the border and through the hills to a desolate area equipped with just a trailer. She attempts to run off, but doesn’t get very far before giving up. In spite of his “it puts the lotion in the basket” voice, Steven wants to help the girl, not harm her.

Marco shows up at the El Paso Police Dept and tells Sonya that 250 girls go missing each year in Juarez, and not all are investigated. He suspects the other half of the body belongs to Christina Fuentes, one of the Dead Girls of Juarez. She informs Lt. Wade that she has filed a report against Det. Ruiz for allowing the ambulance to go through the crime scene. The fact that Det. Cross is so by the book and procedural might make her an excellent detective, but it also makes her a challenge to partner with.

Back at the Millright ranch, Charlotte finds a secret cell phone and key in her husband’s personal effects. A woman calls and hangs up when Charlotte answers. She confronts the foreman Cesar about the key, and he takes her to a secret locked door at the far end of the ranch. Surveillance video catches the plate number of the murder suspect’s car, and it’s traced to Daniel Frye (Matthew Lillard), a local reporter who is busy drinking his career down the toilet. In the newsroom, we meet Frye and his fellow reporter Adriana Mendez (Emily Rios). Adriana is plucky and ambitious, and covers the border beat. Frye gives her some grief, but she doesn’t take any of it, going right back at him. Frye leaves the office and gets into his car, which unbeknownst to him at first, is loaded with an explosive device. The car locks and traps him inside with nineteen minutes on the clock. The bomb squad arrives, and Sonya takes the opportunity to question Frye on the phone about the case. He naturally panics but reveals he’s covered Judge Gates before. As the time clicks down, and the bomb squad bails, Sonya talks him through his imminent death. Time runs out, but instead of an explosion, the doors unlock and Frye escapes unharmed. The “bomb” contained a cell phone with a chilling message for the detectives.

“There are five murders a year in El Paso. In Juarez, thousands. Why? Why is one dead white woman more important that so many more just across the bridge? How long can El Paso look away? We’ve got some interesting times ahead. This is only the beginning.”

Episode 2: “Calaca”

Charlotte unlocks the mysterious door that leads to an illegal passageway to and from Mexico, under the ranch. There is a memorial set up inside, and Charlotte wants the tunnel closed. Cesar tells her it’s not that simple, but agrees to her wishes. A cattle truck full of people is crossing into the US. One of the women notices that they are going the wrong way. The truck driver stops, and dumps them in the hot desert. One of the men is so angered that he attacks the driver, knocking him unconscious. The woman stops him from killing the driver and they all head off into the desert before the border patrol can track them down. The detectives question Daniel Frye about his connection to the judge and inform him that his car was used in a murder. The question is why. Sonya plays the recording from the killer, and Frye leaks it to the paper. Sonya receives a video message regarding Christina Feuntes, and the apathy in investigating her murder.

Steven is attempting to burn all of Eva’s belonging, including her ID, when a phone rings from the fire. He reaches in (this guy is hardcore) and pulls the phone from the flames. A sinister dancing skeleton appears on the phone. Whoever Eva is running from is bad news. Marco and Sonja head to Juarez, and Sonya starts digging too deep into a missing body. A missing body that the police are doing their best to keep under wraps. Marco tells Sonya that her questions are going to get him killed.

In Juarez, a very shady dude with a goatee sneers in his car. He attacks an old woman and a vagrant searching for information on Eva. The vagrant tells him a gringo took her, and describes his car. Shady dude gets his inside man at the border to dig into it and provide an address to Steven Linder’s apartment.

Frye is back at work and pitching the story of the killer to his boss. She decides it’s a great story but is concerned about police reaction, so she calls Adriana in to work it instead of Frye. He gets royally pissed, as the editor shouts that she wants his personal story as a sidebar.

Back at the ranch, Lyle Lovett shows up. Well, his character shows up, but it’s freaking Lyle Lovett. He informs Charlotte of her dead husband’s “obligations” to his client regarding the tunnel. He leaves her with a three-bean salad, but instead of green beans, it’s just a lot of green. She shows up later at his office and dumps some actual bean salad on his desk, and tosses the money at him before she leaves. Sonya is at home, slurping down ramen noodles and looking at dead bodies, which feels like a typical Tuesday for her. She wanders around, before sticking her hand in her underwear. It’s decided then. Time to get laid. She shows up at a bar and asks a guy point blank if he wants to have sex with her. He does. So they do. Afterward he attempts to cuddle, but Sonya is way more interested in looking at corpses on her iPad. Back at Marco’s house, his wife is jealous over Sonya. He reassures her that nothing is going to happen there. She informs him that she is pregnant with their fourth child. Guess that vasectomy came a wee bit too late, Marco. Steven, his hand red and singed from sticking it in a fiery trash can, shows up at a church shelter. He smiles at the camera. He relieves the woman at the desk from duty, and begins his shift. A picture of a young woman that came in recently catches his eye.

Sonya is obsessing over a crime scene, so she and Marco head out to inspect it further. There, she finds a bead she thinks might be significant to the case.

The people in the desert are struggling and have run out of water, but come across what they think is a miracle. Gallons of water left for them underneath a stature of the Virgin Mary with a skeleton face. The young woman feels that it is a trap and begs them to stop. They tell her she’s crazy and continue to drink. A man comes into the El Paso station claiming to have done the recording they heard the day of the car bomb scare. He saw the article and recognized the lines. He is an actor and was paid by an anonymous person to record the message, three years prior. At the time, he was told it was for an art project.

Frye and Adriana are lunching together, and he apologized for being a dick. They have some playful banter, but things get serious when Frye gets a call telling him to write down a series of number. Adriana recognizes it as a GPS code and gets to plotting the coordinates. I love an industrious girl who’s good with directions. Goatee dude shows up at Steven Linder’s old address, and attempts to break in. A neighbor catches him and tries to call the police but he attacks her. She puts up a fight but he ends up choking her to death with a terrifying apparatus.

Frye and Adriana drive out to the location from the coordinates. There they find the dead bodies of the border crossers. The young woman, barely alive, makes it to the road where a car stops and a figure approaches her. The detectives show up to the scene, and find another bead at the bottom of one of the water jugs.

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