(Adapted from the Beloved Childe novels by Wessel Ebersohn)
Thriller | Drama | Detective
Series log line
Witnessing her father’s murder and losing her mother at seven, she knows that you lose whoever you love and avoids any permanent relationships thereafter.
Alternative log line
She sees her father being murdered and as an adult spends the rest of her life relentlessly tracking his killer determent to avenge his murder
Beloved Childe
Synopsis
The Beloved series is based on four thrillers written by Wessel Ebersohn. The copyright to all his books has been granted to the screenwriter.
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SERIES SYNOPSES (Episodes 1, 2, 5 and 6 available. Episodes 3 and 4 in progress)
BELOVED CHILDE is American, blonde, beautiful and sexy and she knows how to exploit it to get what she wants.
As a toddler she is witness to her father’s murder in an African country and loses her mother in a car accident at the age of seven. A subconscious belief that you lose whoever you love is born and it prevents her from allowing any serious relationship.
At the age of nine she becomes obsessed with tracking down her father’s killer and revenge his death. She qualifies as a Criminal Psychologist and Profiler to gain easier access to prisons where she believes the killer will be found.
Although she remembers the actual killing, she has no memory of the killer’s face and never knew his name until something identifying is slowly revealed in recurring nightmares which occurs in every scene.
SYNOPSIS OF ALL EPISODES
EPISODES 1 and 2: The Gathering: Beloved starts her career working in the American prison system but she spends most of her time with SPECIAL AGENT NEEDHAM of the FBI and his team, in helping to solve complex cases. She becomes close to him, and although he wishes for more, she keeps the relationship on a strict platonic basis.
In the first two episodes she puts her own life in danger when she infiltrates The Gathering, a murderous cult.
EPISODES 3 and 4: Signature:Beloved helps to catch the Granny Slayer, a serial killer. She realizes that the unconscious signature left behind at the murder scenes is his preference for killing older women who resemble each other in looks. She again puts her own life in danger when she goes undercover and dresses up as an older woman.
For the first time in a nightmare something is revealed about the killer’s identity. The horrifying tattoo of a snake points a gun at her father. The head with large, poison-dripping fangs on the back of his hand, the body curls up around the arm and disappears under his sleeve. Any movement makes the snake appear alive.
EPISODES 5 and 6: The Top Prisoner in C-Max. Under the guise of doing research for her doctoral thesis in Rehabilitation Programs in Developing World prisons she eventually gets authorization to do her research in South Africa’s main prisons. She teams up with quirky, intuitive and loveable Prison Psychologist, YUDEL GORDON.
Addressing parolees in C-Max prison, she sees the snake tattoo. She has found the killer and now knows his name, OLIVER HALL and that he is soon to be paroled. After his release she lures him to a cottage where she sets a trap for him. She suffers a shoulder wound. Although also wounded, Hall gets away. The hunt continues.
EPISODES 7 AND 8: The Prison Doctor. The killer has changed his name to MAGNUSSEN and is awaiting execution on death row in a Botswana jail where GILLIAN, Beloved’s friend, is the prison doctor. He convinces Gillian that he is innocent and a sensitive soul, believing in his innocence, she falls in love with him and he convinces her to help him escape.
Beloved discovers that Magnussen has the snake tattoo on his arm, she has found her faceless and nameless killer. She knows Gillian will take Magnussen to a secluded hide-out in a forest that belongs to her ex-husband. She waits for him there and when he arrives, she killed him. She is ready to go back home, and now perhaps back to Needham.
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EPISODE 1 and 2
SYNOPSES OF THE GATHERING
TEASER: On a two-wheel track MARTHA ROBINSON runs after her daughter, JEANNE, to stop her from leaving but Jeanne gets away. Hidden from Martha’s sight, in a stream a few meters away from her, is the pale, almost translucent body of a woman lying in a little stream. On her thigh the tattoo of an upside-down cross with a body hanging head down.
END OF TEASER.
BELOVED CHILDE in a bookshop signing her newly published book. KNOX, surreptitiously keeps an eye on her while pretending to browse the shelves. Waiting for her signature is BYRON EVERS, the recruiter for The Gathering. At this point Beloved is unaware of the existence of the cult. After she signs his book, he browses the shelves. Knox sidles up to him and tells him to find out everything he can about Beloved. When she leaves Byron follows her.
She gets a phone call from a distressed Martha Robinson who asks her to help her find her daughter. Beloved declines, it’s not her area of expertise.
Beloved, unable to go back to sleep after one of her recurring nightmares, goes to a bar, Byron follows her. In a delivery van, fully equipped for surveillance, CID agents NEEDHAM, GRAVES and FRANK, follows Byron to the bar.
Inside the bar Byron looks around for Beloved, but is distracted when he spots JENNIFER SEDDON, an older woman whom he is busy recruiting for The Gathering. He spots Beloved, joins her and goes home with her. Needham watches them on the surveillance monitors.
The next morning Beloved sees that Byron carries a gun and that he has a large plaster on his thigh, she makes nothing of it.
Needham tells Beloved about the cult and shows her photographs of the victims, everyone has the same tattoo and are as translucently pale as the body in the stream from the teaser. He asks her to infiltrate the cult and to find out who the leader is and that he suspects Jeanne Robinson has been recruited by the cult. Beloved, who loves a challenge and could never resist one, agrees to do it.
She calls Byron and agrees to see him again, then calls Martha to tell her that she will help her find Jeanne. She visits Jeanne’s childhood bedroom and finds a folder with a letter Jeanne wrote to Knox, which raises the suspicion that he might be the leader.
FATHER KELLY, Martha’s priest, tells Beloved of the abuse Jeanne suffered at the hands of her mother.
Beloved goes to a Gathering meeting with Byron. At the meeting BRUNHILDE, one of the cult members, secretly presses a note into her hand which warns her to be careful, things are not what they seem.
Jeanne visits Beloved at home and she is shocked to finds out that Jeanne is in fact the cult leader. She wants Beloved to prove her loyalty by helping her to do something very important, but does not tell her what it is. Later Beloved finds out that the “something important” is to kill Martha for the abuse she inflicted on Jeanne as a child.
Martha is drugged in her home and when she comes out of it, she has the tattoo.
The body that was in the stream (in the teaser) where Martha fell when she was following Jeanne is discovered, it is Jennifer Seddon. While the body is retrieved Knox watches the proceedings through binoculars. He sees Beloved but she is partly shielded by Needham and Knox is not certain that it is her, but he now has doubts about her.
Knox takes Beloved to a second meeting, he is early and his car is not bugged, but Beloved is wearing her body transmitter. In nail-biting scenes Needham and his team try to locate Beloved. They are almost too late but find her in the nick of time.
At the meeting Beloved is expected to take part in The Blessing, a ceremony in which they drink wine mixed with blood. They believe blood is the seat of power and drinking it will pass the power onto them. Needham and his team burst into the hall before they actually drink the blood-laced wine.
Knox shoots one of Needham’s men and is killed. Byron surrenders and eventually becomes a Needham’s key witness. Jeanne escapes and forces Beloved at gunpoint with her to Martha’s house where she instructs Beloved to kill her mother. Beloved manages to escape. She shelters in an alcove in Martha’s kitchen door. Jeanne wounds Needham’s guard and follows Beloved to the house, but can’t get in. Needham has changed the locks.
Jeanne shoots the lock and comes in. Beloved hides in the upstairs bedroom with Martha, she hears steps on the stairs and expects Jeanne, but it is Needham who calls out to her.
Jeanne escapes and Needham promises Beloved that he will help to track down her father’s killer, on condition that he is taken through the justice system. He will not be part of any killing.
The Gathering ends when they find the body of Brunhilde’s in an old fishpond.
