A man is being chased down an alley. He ends up in a shelter without any recollection of who he is, just that his memories are stored in a small box he is carrying.
Opening narration
| "Do our memories define our identity? If we are merely the sum of our experiences, what do we become if those experiences are lost?" |
Plot
Hope Wilson (Robbi Chong) knows there's something different about the bruised and breathless man who stumbles into the homeless shelter she runs with her mentor, Jack Parsons (Larry Musser). He looks like a junkie, but his hands are soft and his fingernails manicured. Tom Cooper (Dale Midkiff) doesn't know who he is, where he is and why two well-dressed men, Vincent (Michael Tiernan) and Cole (Brian Jensen), are chasing him.
He only knows that the small metal case that he defends so fiercely contains five vials that hold all his memories, reduced to crystal form, as well as a specially designed injector that can delete or restore those memories.
With Hope's help, he uses the injector to restore his memories in an attempt to piece together his identity. But there are unforeseen consequences to this. With each injection of memories, Tom' s personality becomes slightly darker. As he injects one crystal and then the next, Tom recovers his unhappy childhood and adolescence, his time in medical school and, to Hope's dismay, his memories of his marriage to his high school sweetheart Paula. With the injection of the fourth crystal, Tom remembers some terrible things. First, that Paula is dead, killed at the hands of a random rapist and murderer. Second, that he was the doctor who developed the process to delete and restore memories, which explains why the government agents are so eager to recapture him. And third, that the government has been testing his device on homeless people without their consent. Horrified at how his invention has been abused, and fearful that the last crystal will change him so much he will lose the new love he has found with Hope, Tom destroys the fifth crystal along with the knowledge it contains, vowing to start life anew with Hope.
As Tom and Hope flee the clinic where tests are conducted on homeless people, they are captured by agents from Tom's employer. Government agents from Tom's former research facility erased his memories to prevent the technology from getting out, but he entrusted a copy of his memories to his current employer so his memories could be restored. They inject Tom with the final crystal while Hope is sedated. Later, Hope awakens strapped to a chair as Tom prepares to erase her memories like he erased the memories of numerous other test subjects. She pleads with him to stop, but his fully restored memories have also returned him to his unethical and heartless pursuit of his research. He tells Hope that she won't remember a thing and begins the procedure.
Closing narration
| "The same qualities that make each of us unique can also prevent us from changing who we are, even if it might be a change for the better." |
Notes
- This is the only episode written by Will Dixon or directed by Lou Diamond Phillips. The latter previously played Captain Cotter McCoy in "Identity Crisis".
Cast
- Dale Midkiff as Tom Cooper
- Robbi Chong as Hope Wilson
- Larry Musser as Jack Parsons
- Brian Jensen as Cole
- Michael Tiernan as Vincent
- David Palffy as Kramer
- Dean McKenzie as Kellar
- Carmen Aguirre as Vagrant #1
- Jimmy Herman as Mickey
- Jeff Burnett as Terry
- Harmoni Everett as Older Paula
- Chelsea Jonasson as Younger Paula
- Jerry Walliser as Father
- Chris Moras as Young Brother
- Kevin Conway as the Control Voice (voice)