Fragments (season 1)

Season One
Background information
Original channel	CBS (US), Sky 1 (UK)
Main characters	Elle Winters, Emma Winters, Anna Handler
No. of episodes	10
Original run	26 September 2014 - 21 November 2014
Season chronology
Season 2

Fragments is an American action thriller show developed by CBS, starring singer-songwriter Ashley! in the main role as Elle Winters, who plays a school teacher devastated by an explosion at her place of work, which turns out to be a bigger plan to extract her from revealing potentially deadly information about a corporation cover-up that shrouds the disappearance of her parents when she was younger. She enters a game of cat and mouse where allegiances are constantly called into question and people lurk in the shadows.

Featuring an ensemble cast, the first series is made up of Ashley Adams, Tatiana Maslany, Claire Danes, Andrew Garfield, Bitsie Tulloch and Idris Elba as the central cast. Ashley's signing to the lead the newly created series was announced in January 2013 with shooting set for later that Autumn. In the lead up to production, Maslany was confirmed to be playing a Winters sibling and other casting announcements were made.

The first series debuted on September 26th 2014 as a double-bill with the second episode. It became a critical and commercial success, becoming the network's highest rated new season of the 2014-15 calendar and leading for the show's renewal for a second series of ten episodes.

Synopsis

The series surrounds Elle Winters (Adams) who is arrested whilst taking a class at her place of work by unidentified men. Moments after her extraction from the school, it bursts into flames as she watches the flames swallow everything she knew and love - friends, possessions and security. Her oldest sister - and best friend - Emma (Maslany) theorises the link back to the disappearance of their parents, who were reported missing twenty years to the day. The pair begin to build research and connect the dots as a dubious corporation emerges from the woodwork offering answers in return for a partnership. Unsure who they can trust, the Winter siblings attempt to run and buy time but many more are hunting for the siblings along the way.

India Wentworth (Tulloch), a supposed distant relative, offers to take the girls under her wing and keep them from Anna Handler (Danes), a company who were employed to monitor the girls as they grew up. Battle lines are drawn and companies and corporation vie for the girl's attention. At the end of the fifth episode (mid-series), Emma is abducted by an unseen figure. The finale ends with Emma being drugged and taken once again, Anna disappearing in a police shoutout and Elle's lover, Alex, being shot by a hitman thought to be ordered by India Wentworth.

Cast

Adams, Maslany and Danes

• Elle Winters (Ashley Adams) - After her world comes crashing down, having escaped a bomb plot that kills the people she thought she could trust, she is forced to go on the run from men in masks, with only her sister as a confidant. After living with her grandparents whilst growing up after her parent's supposed deaths, she discovers that her parent's may still be out there, hiding in a cover up mission that has now found their children. She is a resilient girl who has been thrown blindly into a mission that has seen her world in ruins. Can she really trust anyone and is she really alone out there?

• Emma Winters (Tatiana Maslany) - Elle's older sister, she is the only one whom she can turn to, being just as in the dark as Elle. She appears to be less emotionally involved with discovering her parents whereabouts, but vows to help with the investigation. She is kidnapped by an unknown antagonist in the mid-series finale.

• Alex Laurner (Andrew Garfield) - Elle's childhood sweetheart. She tracks him down and reunites with him while investigating her parent's disappearance. It is revealed that their parents tried to separate them to avoid them growing up and finding too much about their parents from each other. He acts as a romantic interest for Elle throughout the series. He is shot in the first series finale. His fate is unknown.

• Anna Handler (Claire Danes) - One of the leaders of an agency called 'T.W.P' who have been hired to overlook the Winters family situation. Anna appears to be the leader, but it is revealed she is working for a higher power she cannot control. It's revealed the company plan to extort Elle and Emma, but Handler attempts to flee the company, until releasing she can work as an insider to pass information to the pair. She is missing for the last episode of the series, with her last appearing on a train station CCTV camera.

• India Wentworth (Bitsie Tulloch) - A supposed relative of the Adams family, her allegiance is unknown, but introduced in the first episode of the first series, offering Elle a path and offer that she simply 'cannot refuse'. She offers to give Elle confidential information in return for her assistance in following through the mission, although her plans are unknown, At the end of the series one, it is implied that it is her that ordered the hit on Laurner, Elle's love interest.

• Olivier Tate (Idris Elba) - A leader of 'T.W.P'. He initially appears to be supporting the Winter girls, but is eventually becomes apparent that he has an interior motive for the situation. Acting as the bad cop as the series progresses, it is revealed that he uses the girls for bait to uncover the mysterious kidnapper and find the Winters parents.

Episodes

#	Title	Original airdate	US Ratings (in Millions)
01	Scattered Pieces (Pilot)	26 September 2014	7.1
Elle Winters usual daily life is shattered when she is arrested in the middle of teaching a class, followed moments later (as she is being lead away) after an explosion at her place of work causes her to lose everything she knows and has worked for. She is stopped from leaving by men in suits, who promise to lead her to safety as soon as they have gathered information from her. She manages to evade their capture and make contact with her sister, Emma Winters, who suspects it it related to her parents disappearnece when they were younger, having been reached out to weeks before the event. Aware that their whereabouts is likely being traced, they set off to escape the city, where they are contacted by a lady who promises to help them discover the secrets hidden from them.
02	Secrets and Lies	26 September 2014	7.1
Undecided whether to follow the bait left by the lady, the girls are cohered into an alley by a lady called India Wentworth, claiming to be a distant relation to the Winters. Elle offers to visit the offices to discover more information while Emma keeps watch and investigates Wentworth. Submerged in the deceit left before them, Elle initially doubts the information, but various footage and home video reveal some evidence to support the idea what there parents weren't killed, but forced into hiding. Meanwhile, Emma discovers camera in India's apartment, watching them.
03	Deep in the Darkness	3 October 2014	6.9
Confronting India, Emma is surprised to learn she is part of a company intent on protecting the Winter siblings, employed by their parents before their disperse and suspected death. She reveals that months before their disappearance the Winter's mother, Sally, was involved in a shooting of a citizen who had ties with one of New York's most prevalent and dangerous gangs. . Meanwhile, Elle tracks down childhood sweetheart (Garfield) who disappeared from her life at the same time as her parents.
04	Trouble's a Fire	10 October 2014	6.6
Following a shootout at Alex's property, Elle runs with him to the last place they would think to look - her childhood village. They visit her house where she grew up and realise the clues are still there. The house has supposedly remained vacant during the fourteen years, but is it all a trap? Emma begins to make a breakthrough having accepted the help from the mysterious India Wentworth.
05	Run Forever	17 October 2014	6.8
Elle returns to meet Emma to share the information they have, but with people on their trail, they must continue to do their best to avoid them, and stop the information they carry, falling into enemy hands. Elle visits her grandparents grave, which she discovers to have been damaged in an attack to retreive information, and decides it may be an act of warning. Meanwhile, Emma is kidnapped by an unknown figure.
06	Prisioner to Ransom	24 October 2014	7.2
Being unaware of her sister's situation, Elle begins to dive deeper into her family background, finding an article that leads her to the discovery that her father was part of the Secret Service and tried to cover up the civilian death left by his wife, which only put more blood on his hands and blurred his case even more. She begins to connect this with the disappearance and something Alex told his parents having to do the same with him when he was much older. Were they being controlled by the government. At the end of the episode, Elle receives a call to collect a video tape from a basement, with the screams of her sister ending the phone call.
07	The Tape	31 October 2014	7.4
Retrieving the tape, Elle is forced to turn to T.W.P who offers to help them if Elle carries out a mission for them, of which she agrees. Emma is located in a derelict building in the countryside, but they refuse to send out troop, forcing Elle to go on the mission with just a small back up squad. Heading for the building, they realise that Emma is alone, but has been knocked out with the figure having just fled. Elle is warned by Anna that she was only used as bait to bring the figure into the open, and they did not care whether she lived or died.
08	Bigger Picture	7 November 2014	7.9
Thrown into a whole new scandal, Anna begins working on the Winter's side as an uncover rat, to help keep them one step ahead of the game. With Emma still unconscious, Elle continues to piece together the day of the disappearance, where it was revealed that plan was initial meant to involve the girls, before they were hidden and claimed dead following an explosion at the Winter's residency. Despite receiving a call from Doctor's that Emma has come round, she is revealed to still be lying unconscious and is implied to be having nightmares of the figure who took her.
09	Enemy Lines	14 November 2014	7.8
Finally awakening from her trance-like-sleep, it is revealed that Emma was drugged to forget details of the people who took her and the case grow cold, as it is believed the men have fled the country. Along with Alex and Anna, Elle is taken to a safe house with fears of being tracked to delete all possible witnesses to Emma's abduction. With Anna leaving to collect supplies and resources, as well as throwing any possibly followers off the trail, Alex and Elle are left to have a heart to heart, revealing that he was made to promise never to look for Elle, by his family who have been 'forced to move' for business. As they continue, helicopters are heard approaching the house, and they attempt to flee the perpetrators.
10	One Last Time	21 November 2014	8.6
It is revealed that India Wentworth set up the speakers to draw out Elle and Alex, as they are needed to give information to help track down Emma's captors, as it is believed they hold classified and exclusive information to help track down the Winter's parents. Wentworth appears shifty, which she puts down to nerves of the mission. Having previously arranged a meeting point to regather evidence with Anna, she does not return and it is revealed a manhunt is under way to capture the 'mental damaged' woman, who was last seen at a trainstation. After being discharged from the hospital, Emma rings Elle from the taxi on her way to her location, but begins to panic when she recognises the man in the windscreen mirror. Elle makes a run to her location, but finds the abandoned taxi in the middle of the road. India Wentworth is meanwhile seen making a phone call. In a post-credit scene, Alex, who is making his way to Elle, is shot by an unknown figure, implied to be ordered by Wentworth. His condition is unknown.