The Series Premiere of ABC’s The Catch

Imagine that you have met the perfect guy. He is funny, smart, and witty. He loves art, cars, and you. He is a very handsome man who looks great in a suit and he worships the ground you walk on. When you first started dating, he took you to museums and showed you a world you weren’t used to, and that is part of the reason you fell for him. However, one day that all comes crashing down when this man, your fiancée, runs off  with your entire life savings and everything you owned in your shared apartment.
The Catch stars Mireille Enos as Alice Graham, a private investigator who is tough as nails in her career, and is one of the best at catching the bad guy. In fact, the show opens with Graham busting a perp at a museum. We meet Peter Krause’s Christopher Hall conning Enos without her knowledge. He is the big con man, Mr. X, whom she has been after for a year. While Graham is busy planning the wedding that she isn’t quite excited about, she states that she wants to be married, but doesn’t want the big fuss. Krause and his team are planning to take all of her money and remove every trace of his existence from her life after he leaves for work in the morning. It is clear pretty early on that he is struggling with the decision to con her because he has fallen in love with her. After pleading unsuccessfully for her to elope with him, Krause ends up going through with the plan, emptying out all of evidence of himself from the house and his work office. Graham is rightfully upset, quickly realizing that the man she loved, Christopher Hall, doesn’t exist. She finds herself replaying the moments of their year-long relationship, trying to figure out the signs she missed.
Somewhere unbeknownst to the viewer, Krause is sitting comfortably with his faux secretary assuring her that he took everything from Graham, directed with the close-ups that ‘Shondaland’ is known for, full of emotion and grit. Graham works tirelessly to find any and all clues that may lead her to where Mr. X/Christopher may be. She comes in contact with an FBI agent, Jules Dao (Jacky Ido), who is looking for Mr. X, too.  She tracks Mr. X to an unveiling of a technology  that will generate billions of dollars. The unveiling of technology is by one of Graham’s firm’s biggest clients, Seth Hamilton, and Mr. X/Christopher is using the clientele and information that he stole from Graham’s firm to become one of the clients and pretend to be them so that Hamilton will give him the money in the name of investment.
Mireille Enos of The Killing fame pretty much carries the entire hour-long pilot on her shoulders. She is believable and creates sympathy right off the bat, and keeps the audience rooting for her from start to finish. There is a naïveté in her portrayal of Alice Graham that works in the same way that Kerry Washington’s emotional Olivia Pope works and it is a joy to watch. The premise of the show is great, but in many ways, the pilot falls flat.  Peter Krause of The Parenthood fame shines when he is on con missions, but reads dry and emotionless in scenes with Enos, even when he shows doubt about conning her, when he is supposed to portray that his character genuinely loves her despite the fact that he is not supposed to. This flat portrayal is shocking because of his amazing turn as Adam Braverman on the aforementioned Parenthood. As far as chemistry goes, there is a spark there, so close you can see it, but it did not reach its full potential in tonight’s first episode. As we always say, you can’t judge a show entirely by its pilot, so we will be watching again next week with the hope that it will be better and  to see what else unfolds in the Shondaland world.
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The Series Premiere of ABC’S The Catch: photo courtesy of ABC