Aquaman/Pilot

Pilot
Unaired Pilot
Airdate	unaired
Production Number	—
Written by	Alfred Gouch, Miles Millar
Directed by	Greg Beeman
Stream
Aquaman

Pilot is the pilot episode of Aquaman.

Guest Stars: Adrianne Palicki (Nadia), Amber McDonald (Eva), Kenneth Johnson (Sheriff), Daniella Wolters (Atlanna), Graham Bentz (Young A.C.)

Co-Stars: Mark Perun, Brett Rice (Cmdr. Daley), Stacy Anne Rose (Military Aide), Matt Ennis, Lawrence Sikorski, Joseph Klinker

Plot Overview

Prologue:

My son's story begins in the ocean. A place full of secrets. Some are beautiful. Some are dangerous. Its mysteries have baffled mankind for centuries. None more so than the Bermuda Triangle. But in order to understand the Triangle, you must understand my son. Although he lives among you, he was born in the darkest reaches of the sea. I'd hoped to teach him the ways of the world. How to lead a good life and become a good man. But then I was taken from him.

The Bermuda Triangle, ten years ago. Atlanna is piloting a research plane with her son on board. They are chatting over the radio with dad, Tom, a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant. Suddenly radio contact breaks, and despite the perfect weather, pillars of water erupt from the ocean. One hits the plane, causing it to crash and sink. Atlanna warns young A.C. that they are coming for him and that he must get to the surface. Calling him Orin, she gives him a necklace with a seahorse pendant before freeing him from the submerged plane. Some clawed creature is fleetingly seen to attack Atlanna while the plane disappears into the abyss and A.C. floats to the surface. Hours later, an exhausted A.C. is saved from drowning by a pod of whales.

Tempest Key, Florida, the present. Grown A.C., still wearing his mother's pendant, frolics with the sharks before boarding his moored boat, the Quint, where he is promptly arrested by the sheriff for breaking into a theme park and freeing five dolphins the previous night. He is bailed out by his adopted father, now a U.S. Coast Guard commander. A.C. remembers that fateful flight ten years ago but Tom would prefer him to pull his life together. Similar sentiments are echoed by his business partner, Eva, over the business lost due to his night in jail. A.C. sheepishly admits he freed the dolphins because he felt an empathic link to them. McCaffrey, the lighthouse keeper, introduces himself to A.C. at the bar of the dive shop and utters mysterious pronoucements to an uncomprehending A.C.

Mercy Reef, 25 miles of Tempest Key. A Coast Guard helicopter with Tom Curry picks up a seeming shipwreck survivor, who wears a necklace with the same seahorse pendant as A.C.'s.

Tempest Key Naval Air Station. A Navy commander greets an unplausibly good-looking Lt. Torres on the tarmac and passes along an order for a reconnaissance mission over Mercy Reef because of the mysterious survivor. Out over Mercy Reef, a swimming A.C. races Torres's F-18 when a disturbance in the ocean erupts and shoots down the jet. Torres ejects and is saved by A.C.

At the hospital A.C. tries to convince Torres that the memory of her rescue is an accident-induced hallucination. A.C.'s pendant starts glowing and he stumbles on the mystery survivor who addresses him as Orin and tries to warn him. However, a man with a badge—presumably a federal agent—has the survivor taken away and ignores A.C.'s questions. In an observation room, the agent and his aide identify the man; he disappeared on a flight in 1945 over the Bermuda Triangle.

At night, at the bar, a blonde bikini girl with breast implants introduces herself as Nadia, flirts with A.C., and takes him skinny dipping. In the water she mentions having met him before, then transforms into a clawed, sharp-toothed sea beast and slashes him. A.C. is saved by McCaffrey shooting a crossbow bolt into the monster's back from the nearby shore; she disappears into the water.

McCaffrey explains that the creature was a siren. He then reveals that he is an exile from Atlantis and that A.C., or Orin, is the Prince of Atlantis. Atlantis has remained undiscovered as it is shrowded by the Bermuda Triangle. A.C.'s father was killed because he wanted peace rather than wage war against the surface. McCaffrey helped Atlanna and Orin to escape. They were found by a young Coast Guard lieutenant, Tom Curry, but Atlanna never told him about their origin. A.C.'s destiny is to defend the surface world he has embraced as his own, as well as to protect the ocean from which he was born.

A.C. confides into a disbelieving Eva. He thinks the siren was the creature who attacked his mother and wants to confront the monster.

At the Navy base infirmary the mystery survivor is killed by Nadia. Nearby, the government agent (Brigman) recruits Torres for a secret project by telling her about another case of a man resurfacing unaged decades after disappearing in the Triangle. He points her to a warehouse full of files and explains that she is special because she witnessed something extraordinary and survived. His phone rings and he and Torres are led to the blood-spattered corpse of the mystery man.

A storm has drawn up and A.C. and Eva are securing their shop. The power goes out and Nadia suddently appears, stabs Eva, and knocks out A.C.

A.C. comes to. He and McCaffrey are tied up on the Quint, which is towed by the swimming siren through the stormy sea to return them to Atlantis for execution. They break free but get caught up in a fight with Nadia who has transformed back from her siren shape. Eventually, A.C. stabs her with a harpoon spear right between the eyes and she desolves into light.

Eva is in the hospital, having survived Nadia's attack. A.C. is finally ready to accept his destiny and starts his training with McCaffrey.

Trivia

The Show

• The pilot became available on iTunes in July, 2006 and became one of its most popular downloads.

Allusions and References

• Jaws: A.C.'s boat is named Quint, presumably after the character from Peter Benchley's novel Jaws and Steven Spielberg's movie adaption. Quint was an experienced fisherman and tough guy who headed the hunt for the killer shark.

• Captain Nemo: Nemo is a character from Jules Verne's much adapted 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and related works, where he is the captain of the, at the time, entirely science-fictional submarine Nautilus.

A.C.: Next time you're in Atlantis, could you say hi to Captain Nemo…

• The Little Mermaid: The Little Mermaid is a fairy tale by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, further popularized by an 1989 adaption as an animated Disney movie.

A.C.: …and the Little Mermaid for me?

• Starbucks: An international chain of coffee shops, Starbucks has a stylized siren as its logo.

Eva: Well, they always look so friendly on the Starbucks cups.

• A Nightmare on Elm Street: Wes Craven's popular and influential 1984 slasher film introduced Freddy Krueger, one of the most recognized horror villains ever, whose trademark is a glove with straight razors attached to the fingers which he uses to kills his victims in their dreams. When Nadia raises her clawed hand after stabbing Eva, it looks just like Freddy's glove.

Quotes

• Eva: You know there is something ironic about watching five cardiologists have a heart attack when you tell them their dive instructor is in jail.

• A.C.: Yeah, and what's my true destiny, huh?
  McCaffrey: To defend this world you've embraced as your own and protect the ocean from which you were born.
  A.C.: So you want me to fight sirens and Standard Oil?