Touch

Seasons

2012

7.3

TV-PG

A widower struggling to raise his emotionally challenged son discovers that he can predict events before they happen.

Episode List

S1 • E1

Pilot

For the third time in three weeks, Jake has run away from school and climbed atop a cell phone tower, breaking the tower's security alarms at precisely 3:18 in the afternoon each time. For Child and Family Services, they, who have previously diagnosed Jake as autistic, see Jake's behavior as Martin not being able to handle Jake on his own, they who send Clea Hopkins to investigate. To perform a proper assessment, she removes Jake from the home and places him in an institution for two weeks where she can monitor him. Martin not only finds that move contemptible, but also believes that Jake is trying to tell him something, especially as the numbers Jake is scribbling seem to pop up elsewhere in their lives, as Jake makes the stray cell phones that Martin has found for him ring simultaneously, and after the lottery ticket Jake temporarily steals ends up being the multimillion dollar jackpot winning numbers. In his search to find out if Jake is just mute or if he has some other condition affecting his behavior, Martin finds Arthur Teller of the Teller Institute, he who tells Martin his theory of Jake's condition. Clea begins to believe that their autism diagnosis is incorrect when she views Jake first hand. Meanwhile, one of those cells phones which almost made it into Jake's possession makes a 'round the world trip from London to Ireland to JFK to Japan to Baghdad where it ends up making it full circle from its owner, a distraught father, to the wannabe pop singer to the enterprising prostitute to the teen who wants to help his family by buying a commercial oven for their baking business.

S1 • E2

1 + 1 = 3

Despite she witnessing Jake's possible communication through numbers and despite Jake having run away to home, Clea is still convinced that Jake is better off under Child and Family Services care. Before Clea whisks Jake away, Jake gives his father what Martin believes is a local telephone number. That number does lead Martin to a pawn shop owned and operated by Arnie Klepper. After visiting the shop, Martin believes that part of his purpose was to prevent the armed robbery that occurred while he was in the shop. Arnie is however ungrateful for Martin's appearance as Martin's action led to Arnie suffering a gunshot wound - a superficial one but a gunshot wound nonetheless. Meanwhile, Jake is able to run away once again, he who ultimately leads Martin to the rationale for the number, which will include in its story a Russian boy who wants the friendship of his classmates but who doesn't understand why they don't like him, a peanut vendor with serious money problems, a flight attendant whose current task is to track down a dog that was scheduled to depart on one of the flights but who escaped, a South Asian man who is in town to spread his dead father's ashes in the center of New York Stadium, an oft stolen seventh game league winning home run baseball, and the power of magic and second chances.

S1 • E3

Safety in Numbers

Jake is still in the custody of Child and Family Services. Despite Martin knowing that Jake is now communicating with him via numbers, Martin is still concerned that the review will find him an unfit parent as he chases these numbers. He gets some help from Arthur in this matter. Martin is also concerned about the news that Jake feels pain until the issue with each of these numbers is resolved. Regardless, Jake is able to provide Martin with another number, this one scribbled on a piece of paper with the picture of a dragon. At an accident scene where a woman is hit by a vehicle, Martin runs across a seemingly homeless and off kilter man calling himself the Invisible Prince. Martin eventually learns that this man has a special connection to numbers like Jake as witnessed by the same number Jake provided him scribbled over and over in a notebook. This leads Martin to a class action lawsuit and a former junior colleague at the New York Herald. He just has to figure out the connection between these situations and the homeless man's ramblings about slaying the dragon with a magic sword, which the King buried. These goings-on have a further connection to the World Championship Dance Battle being shown and conducted online, a South African villager who wants to move to the city but equally wants to get her friend out of an abusive relationship, someone from Clea's troubled past, and the move-it-forward cell phone which goes from the hands of the two Japanese girls to a stood up girl in a red dress.

S1 • E4

Kite Strings

Jake's voice-over reflects on the human love of communication. Martin and Jake visit a cemetery. A man is at the grave of Martin's wife; he leaves before Martin can learn why he's there. In Iraq, a teen wants to show off his comedy chops; a female soldier is in a firefight and tries to rescue a wounded colleague. A lotto winner who hasn't cashed his ticket looks for redemption and chances on a young minister who delivers disorganized sermons in a church in disrepair. At 9:50 in the morning, Jake lets go of a kite, and he and his father follow it. The kite, the Internet, two men burdened by guilt and shame, wounded soldiers, and Jake's single-minded focus come together.

S1 • E5

Entanglement

The authorities will be doing their evaluation of Jake and Martin to see if Jake should remain under state care or be returned home. Both Martin and Clea are hopeful that Jake will be able to go home as Jake's behavior is much more "normal" when his father is around. A potential obstacle is the yet unopened package sent to Martin via the facility from Abigail Kelsey, Martin's sister-in-law who once tried to get custody of Jake following Sarah's death. Martin is suspicious if only because he did not tell Abigail about Jake being taken away or about the evaluation. On the way to the evaluation meeting, Martin's laptop is stolen by a career petty thief. Martin chases the thief onto a bus, the thief who is able to escape. However, it doesn't look like Martin will make it to the evaluation meeting on time as the young woman who he sits next to on the bus clandestinely pulls a gun on him, she who will not let him go. As Martin learns of her plan, he has to decide if he should try to escape to the meeting, or if the bigger picture, based on the latest number Jake provides him which is through a "new language", is to get this woman to her true end goal, whatever that may be. Martin will ultimately learn certain parts of Jake's grand plan with this number, which includes two Saudi girls masquerading as boys as they come across a pregnant woman in distress, a Montreal based medical intern who is engaged to a woman from back home in an arranged marriage situation set-up by his parents but he who would rather get to know the woman he sees on the subway every day, and a patient in his hospital requiring a life saving bone marrow transplant. Meanwhile, Arthur tries to reconnect with his daughter because of Jake. Their estrangement was due to issues surrounding Arthur's current work, which may make her resistant to hearing him out about Jake.

S1 • E6

Lost & Found

Martin provides Teller with all the leftover numbers that Jake has thus far provided him, these numbers with the exception of the last three missing from Jake's list matching Teller's own list which he calls "the Amelia sequence", named after one of his former patients who he is trying to find. Teller knows that his sequence of numbers is still incomplete and wants Jake's help to complete the sequence in order to find Amelia. Martin is reluctant to let Teller speak to Jake at this time if only to stay under the radar of the authorities who want to find any reason to take Jake away. Meanwhile, Clea receives news that her schizophrenic mother, who she has not seen in six years, is in hospital for psychiatric evaluation following being picked up for shoplifting. Clea's mother is able to escape from the hospital. Based on Martin's recent stops, including at the hospital when Clea is there, and information from Clea about her mother's recent ramblings, the two believe that her mother has taken a young boy, now reported missing, confusing the child as her own. Martin and Clea embark on a quest to locate her mother and the missing boy, which requires Clea to revisit some painful memories from childhood. Their quest ends up being connected to a jazz aficionado working for a real estate developer he who is regretting his latest deal, an Asian lesbian couple who are trying to conceive a child through artificial insemination but who have so far been unsuccessful in this endeavor, and a recurring dream that Martin has of Jake on a playground swing.

S1 • E7

Noosphere Rising

Following Arthur's death, Martin and Clea review the surveillance tape of his visit with Jake. They notice some missing footage from the tape. But what they do notice on what remains of the footage takes them to the fact that Arthur gave something to Jake - a key - with the numbers 1188, which Martin surmises are the next numbers in Amelia's sequence. Martin goes on a quest to find what that key unlocks, which he believes will lead him to the dearth of Arthur's research. Although she is initially reluctant to help, Arthur's daughter Maggie provides information which takes Martin down a road which doesn't lead quite to what he was expecting, namely an underground high stakes poker game. Martin will learn that the poker game has a connection to a university math professor, with further unknown connections to the unusual bequeath in a will which isn't as easy to carry out as the beneficiary would like, and a video blog of a recently dumped girl who believes in the course of true love. Meanwhile, Martin's sister-in-law, Abigail Kelsey, makes a request to see Jake. Her request continues the antagonistic relationship between herself and Martin, which started when she first tried to get custody of Jake following Sarah's death.

S1 • E8

Zone of Exclusion

Most of the people at the facility are going on an outing to the museum. Clea warns Martin that Sheri will be watching them closely for the upcoming evaluation. This day, Jake is continually playing cat's cradle by himself, always stopping at the triangular figure. Clea notices that the symbol matches the logo of Abilgail Kelsey's company, Aster Corps. At the live video link section of the museum, the link currently to the feed outside of the Louvre in Paris, Jake makes a connection with a young woman through the video link. That woman, named Veronique, notices another woman in the background at the museum in New York that she swears solely from a photograph that she has that she is her biological mother, who she was told died in childbirth. After seeing the look in Jake's eyes, Martin is certain that that woman is indeed Veronique's mother. As Martin tries to track her down, he finds another part of the Veronique side of the triangle. Later, still at the museum, they are treated to a video feed from an astronaut at the International Space Station, she who talks about triangulation. The numbers that she talks about leads to Martin finding the third part of the triangle, which itself has two parts, both of which were in a cab driving through New York City. By the end of the outing, Clea and Sheri confront each other about secrets each believes the other is keeping, Clea's accusations specifically about the patient in room 6 and Abigail Kelsey's connection to the facility.

S1 • E9

Music of the Spheres

Jake's voice-over reflects on the music of the spheres. Jake leads his father to a 13-year-old from the Bronx intent on robbing a violinist. In Brazil, a street musician who dreams of moving to New York City expresses his love for a café owner - she's nearly broke and the café is all she has of her family. Clea, then Martin and Jake, meet a diamond dealer who says that Arthur was his best friend. Jake uses his tablet computer to show an accident victim how to communicate. Martin comes to a new accommodation of Jake's silence, and Jake reminds us where the music of the spheres originates.

S1 • E10

Tessellations

For Jake's sake in more ways than one, Martin extends an olive branch to his sister-in-law Abigail, which she seems to accept. However, Abigail's support may not be enough in getting Jake back as Martin follows the next set of numbers provided to him by Jake in Amelia's sequence. Jake points Martin to the docks and a shipping company called Möbius, which they learn was funding Teller's research. A case of mistaken identity leads to Martin helping some of Möbius' dock workers steal an unknown but lucrative shipment coming into the Port of New York. Martin does provide his assistance as who the dock workers believe is "Mike" despite knowing that if they are caught and he is sent to jail, or that if the dock workers find out that he is not really who they think he is, that he will lose Jake for good. Through the process, Martin comes to the realization that he was meant to help specifically one of those dock workers, Joey Deluca, who is committing the theft because of a personal issue. Other connections to the story unknown to Martin include Abraham's young cousin Tomer in the Middle East who is in love with a Palestinian woman, and whose relationship is threatened by the greater Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Meanwhile, Clea catches Sheri giving Jake a developmental test using dodecahedrons, which Clea later learns from Abraham was developed by Teller to test if the subject is one of the thirty-six righteous ones in the universe. Clea does whatever she can to find out for who Sheri is doing this work and why Sheri is using Teller's research which she previously dismissed.

S1 • E11

Gyre, Part 1

As the Aster Corporation increases their interest in Jake, Martin joins forces with Abigail as the stakes of Jake's custody escalate. When Avram reiterates to Martin that Jake and Amelia, a presumed dead girl with similar characteristics as Jake, are connected, Martin sets out on a passionate mission to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, circumstances intensify when Lucy enters the picture and seemingly unrelated events are tied together.

S1 • E12

Gyre, Part 2

Jake's voiceover reflects on the constants of motion and change. Child protective services seems intent on taking Jake from Martin; the final decision may depend on Clea's recommendation. A recording engineer seeks to bring Jamaican brothers together to sing again; he's on the West Coast and gets a ride from Amelia's mother, still looking for her daughter. Martin is desperate to stop CPS from moving Jake; he buys a gun from Arnie. Randall has finished his work renovating the church, and although he's established the beginnings of a relationships, he believes he must keep moving. With all this movement, will the ensuing change be positive or tragic?

S1 • E13

The Road Not Taken

In their escape from New York, Martin and Jake pass through Martin's old stomping grounds of the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Although he has no intention of stopping in his old home town of McMinnville, Martin is forced to stop and stay because of car problems in part initiated by Jake. Old memories die hard as a story that he wrote at the beginning of his reporting career twenty years ago created some hard feelings amongst the townsfolk, many who do not welcome him back. One person who does welcome him is Henry Williams, the editor of the local newspaper and Martin's mentor who sees Martin's time at the newspaper as its glory years. Someone who provides a more reserved welcome is Martin's old girlfriend, Beth Cooper née Young, who now works for Henry. Shortly after Martin's arrival, Henry goes missing with evidence pointing to someone trying to kill him. Martin is pretty sure that it has to do with whatever the latest story on which Henry is working. As Martin reads through Henry's notes, he finds a story that isn't all it appears on the surface of those notes. Martin and Jake's stay in McMinnville also intersects with a story of a teen-aged boy trying to help his family by proving he's a man. It also coincides with the cell phone that Martin retrieved at JFK Airport month's earlier that belonged to Brit Simon Plimpton arriving in the area, and which makes another electronic trip back to its original owner and his distraught wife, Nell.