“The Brothers” is episode one of season one of Special Unit 2.
‘Darwin was Half Right’ is the opening text.
Chicago, 17 years ago, and a girl is looking out of her window. Her mother gets her to say there’s nothing outside the window. Except there is, and it leaves marks in concrete with its fingers.
The present, and the girl, Kate Benson, is now a cop. She’s in a car with another officer. Kate has been mapping out abductions. The other cop says she has enough raw talent that the department has cut her some slack, but if she keeps seeing things no-one else does, they’ll think she’s not right in the head. That would be the situation now. Last chance to admit there’s nothing here. Kate can’t do that.
The other cop leaves. A man is watching, as a young girl approaches. He’s gone by the time she gets there. Kate watches the girl go inside an apartment building and follows. She tells the girl it’s not safe and they should go. The girl through she heard something. A bird. The door slams shut and a figure drops down and comes towards them. It doesn’t stop and when Kate shoots, that doesn’t do anything. Its hand is clawed, and looks like the one from 17 years earlier. Kate says she knows it. The monster shakes its head. The man from outside arrives and blows the creature to pieces with a strange weapon. He says it’s a gargoyle and they usually travel in pairs. And the girl is taken by something. The man tells Kate to make up something good real quick, as sirens approach.
Kate doesn’t make anything up. Her captain suspends her pending termination.
Outside, Kate encounters the man again. He says to hurry up; they have an appointment. She tells him he’s under arrest, so he can come and tell her captain what happened. No, or the captain will think he’s just as crazy as Kate. He’s trying to get her committed. Kate starts removing weapons from him. Accidentally blowing up a police van with a strange gun. The man says to check his wallet. In which is a Chicago PD ID for Nicholas O’Malley of Special Unit 2. Kate asks what’s going on. O’Malley says she’ll find out at the station house.
Which is reached through a hidden door in a Chinese laundry. O’Malley tells someone he thinks this is a bad idea, then goes. The person he spoke to asks Kate what she’s heard about Special Unit 2. Deep cover, plain clothes. The man is Captain Richard Page, who Kate recognises. She thought he’d retired. He hasn’t. They need Kate’s help temporarily.
Page asks her if she’s ever felt there’s something lurking in the dark. Something bad. Everybody does, but she doesn’t turn away. She sees things others are trained not to. Page says Darwin was half right. Scientists think they’ve never found the Missing Link. But the monsters from every nightmare are the Missing Links. Every culture has the same fairy tales about monsters. They’re all true. Except for vampires.
For some reason, Links, as they call them, love Chicago, and this unit was formed to keep them in check. Page asks Kate if she believes what she’s been told. Not in her nature. A small man rushes in shouting ‘Die’ over and over and Page riddles him with bullets. This is to speed up the belief process. Meet Carl. What they call a gnome. And completely unharmed by being shot.
Page shows Kate the guns; each Link requires different rounds. She will partner with O’Malley. Kate doesn’t think much of him. Their next stop is O’Malley and Sean Radmon, the Link biologist. According to Sean, gargoyles try and exterminate humans every 17 years when their eggs hatch. Various groups usually manage to stop the mass hatchings. Last time they failed was in the Middle Ages and the gargoyle bodies were used to decorate cathedrals. Gargoyles gather people for their young to eat, keeping them alive until then.
Kate is reading the manual in O’Malley’s car. She wonders if other Links know how to keep out of the way of the gargoyles. O’Malley thinks that’s actually not a bad idea. There’s someone they can ask. First, he hands an envelope to a young boy. The someone is Carl, who is holding up a convenience store. He ends up coming with. O’Malley is not talking to Carl; apparently an incident with one of O’Malley’s stripper girlfriends.
They still need to find the gargoyle eggs before they hatch. The missing people will be alive until that point. And when they do, there will be a lot of gargoyles to deal with.