The Identity Synopsis
LAUREN DANIELS has spent her whole life in Philadelphia, bored of working in the same dull job, meeting the same people and living the same old life, she craves adventure. But when she discovers that her idyllic mother, HELEN DANIELS, isn’t who she thinks she is, she learns that she was stolen from her real parents in London. This adventure could prove to become bigger than she hoped for.
When secretive friend CHRIS HILLMAN confesses to changing Helen’s identity, Lauren abandons her so-called family and heads to London. The attractive, kind stranger ETHAN BRIGGS insists on following Lauren on her journey, but with his secretive texts about her, he clearly isn’t what he seems.
Tracking down Lauren’s birth father FRANK PORTER, the seedy middle-aged man proves to be a disappointment when they catch him cheating with a young woman. Sickened, Lauren’s dreams of her perfect parents crash and burn even more when she discovers that he and her angel-faced mother KATHLEEN PORTER, now have a pretty young daughter; AMANDA PORTER.
In the darkening streets of London, Lauren’s world caves in further when she finds out that Ethan was sent by Chris to stop her from finding her family. But with his decision to turn his back on his mission, and confessing to caring for her, she forgives his truly kind heart. The pair spend the night together, but Lauren decides to return to her own mission alone.
Tracking down the pristine home of her disappointing family, Lauren meets the surprisingly scruffy-looking Amanda. Soon realising in conversation that they’re not related, Lauren discovers that this new daughter was her replacement. Frank and Kathleen confess that the actually Romanian orphan Amanda, was illegally adopted. Sickened to her stomach, Lauren leaves, vowing to never see this mess of a family again.
But when the drug fuelled Amanda later lures Lauren to her house. Amanda brutally attacks and ties up Lauren, planning to kill her. Arriving in the dark hell hole of a house, loving mother Helen is fatally stabbed by Amanda, causing Lauren to finally put her down and kill her too. When the life she knew vanishes before her eyes, Lauren reaches out to Ethan, and they decide to start over.
Changes Made
- Removed unneeded detail that didn't serve the overall story-line, visuals, character descriptions or atmosphere.
- Narrowed this synopsis down to the most key moments within the series, accompanied by descriptive writing on the characters and scenes.
- Adapted the changes made to each episode.
Episode One Synopsis
Its England 1989, an excited and well-presented couple by the name of Kathleen and Frank Porter are preparing for their unborn baby. The couple have put her trust into a gestational surrogate; the gentle young American, Julia Drennen. Although she has no biological relation to the baby, Julia constantly looks down lovingly at her stomach throughout her pregnancy. One day, when Kathleen mentions that if the baby is a girl, she wants to name her Amanda. Over time, Julia loses her grip on reality, convincing herself that she can’t part with the child, and becomes panicked. Soon, Julia packs her bags in her cluttered London flat, and decides to go into hiding in order to steal the child and raise it as her own, while Kathleen and Frank start becoming more and more panicked over not being able to reach Julia. Eventually, Julia leaves and arrives at an airport. She hands over her new passport, which shows her photo next to the name ‘Helen Daniels’. With a relieved look on her face, she disappears into a crowd of people.
Its twenty-seven years later; 2016. An attractive young woman cleans the bar of a run-down diner, making witty jokes back and forth with the customers, her co-workers address her as Lauren. She finishes up for the evening and walks to her car in a dark, urban street. She sighs as she looks at her boring, dull hometown in Philadelphia. She arrives at her warm but shabby looking house, to an aged Julia (now known as Helen) and addresses her as ‘mom’. The pair talk about their days in routine, with Lauren once again pretending that she’s not bored out of her skull to keep her mother happy. The pair carry on with their evening at home, going through their day to day life that Lauren’s grown so tired of.
The next morning, Lauren smells the sweet smell of her mother’s pancakes. Helen greets her with her usual upbeat tone, but this time Lauren catches sight of occasional pained looks on her face. Helen serves up Lauren’s pancakes with a trembling smile before clutching her chest and crashing to floor, knocking herself unconscious. As Lauren cries down the phone to 911, an ambulance races to their home. Once at the hospital, surrounded by glaring lights and empty space, Lauren is told by the doctor that her mother is stable but is suffering from anaemia which caused her chest pains. With the option of giving Helen some of Lauren’s blood in a transfusion to initially help her, Lauren agrees and undergoes a test. But when the results come through, Lauren is told that her blood type doesn’t genetically match her mothers, signifying that they are not related.
Lauren bursts into Helen’s hospital room, full of emotion she demands the truth. Helen feels unable to continue to lie to her daughter now that she knows, and in a panicking flood of tears admits to her that she’s not her biological mother. Disgusted, Lauren runs out of the hospital, only to bump into Chris Hillman, a friend of Helen’s since childhood who’s known Lauren her whole life. Lauren falls into his arms and tells him what she’s learned. But Chris reveals that he knew, as he was the one that helped her mother change her identity. The pair sit in the cafeteria, talking over a tasteless cup of coffee, Chris reluctantly tells Lauren her mother’s real name, and tells her that all he’s ever known is that her parents are called Frank and Kathleen Porter, that Lauren’s real name was supposed to be Amanda Porter and that Helen ran away from London.
Lauren decides that she needs to find her parents and know who she is, she says an angry goodbye to her mother, grabs some money and hurryingly packs a bag. Then gets on a bus to the airport, once she arrives she stops in a dark and dismal bar and has a drink, looking at her missed calls from Helen. Soon, a seedy looking man approaches her and attempts to grope her. A young, attractive man sitting nearby sees this and goes to step in, but Lauren is quick to jump up and backhand the seedy man across the face. The young man tells him that he should leave and then takes a seat next to Lauren, he introduces himself as Ethan Briggs with a warming grin. They make small talk and Ethan attempts light-hearted conversation, but Lauren leaves once her flight number is called for boarding.
Ethan finishes his drink and leaves soon after. Later, Lauren sits on the plane and notices Ethan. He sits next to her with a smile, and Lauren rolls her eyes in annoyance. But the pair pick up conversation again and he asks her where she’s going, Lauren hesitates but tells him that she’s going to find her family. She looks out of the plane’s window, taking a last look at the town she now despises, as they prepare to take off. With Lauren distracted, Ethan quickly takes his phone out by his side and sends a text to a private number that reads “I’ve got her”. Lauren looks back at Ethan as he puts his phone away and smiles at her again. She looks away once more and Ethan looks forward, his smile fades.
Changes Made
- Removed unnecessary dialogue and specific details of actions that were not needed.
- Transformed the entirety of Lauren finding out that Helen isn't her mother, by changing this from grandmother Joyce (who has now been removed from the story) telling Lauren about her mother, to a more dramatic and more likely situation of Helen collapsing and needing a blood transfusion. Leading Lauren to discover that her blood type doesn't match her mothers - meaning that they are not related. I think that this works as a much more dramatic and emotional scene, starting the story off in an exciting way, and allows the scene to be set in a hospital - creating a dark and fearful atmosphere.
- Incorporated much more descriptive words where appropriate to bring to life people and places with visual impressions.
- Altered Ethan's initial representation of the good guy to appearing slightly mysterious, by creating a cliff hanger moment of him sending someone a text saying that he has Lauren, and watching his smile fade. I think that this allows for the audience to be surprised that the nice guy isn't who he says he is, and want to find out in the next episode what he's up to, along with being interested in seeing Lauren arrive in England with him.
Episode Two Synopsis
Lauren arrives in England, having told Ethan about her life’s secret and why she’s travelling to England on the plane, he stays by her side as they go through airport security checks, asking her questions and talking to her. Once they leave the airport Ethan offers to buy her breakfast, Lauren agrees. The pair sit in a busy café, talking over hot coffee, Ethan offers to help Lauren find her parents. Suspicious of his generosity, she asks him why he travelled to England, he tells her about a job interview in London and goes on to tell Lauren that she seems nice and that she’s interesting, so he wants to help. With his soft voice and gentle smile, he convinces her to accept.
The pair move on and decide to go to a public library and use a computer, as Lauren knows her parents’ names she decides to look them up and track them down. In a corner of the echoing, dusty library, they hunch over a computer together and search for Frank Porter, a number of results appear, but one important one. Lauren opens a social media page with Frank’s name, picture, workplace, and relationship status that says: ‘Married to Kathleen Porter’. Ethan expresses doubt that they’ll find him but Lauren excitedly prints his picture and work address, and the pair leave in a hurry.
Lauren hires a rental car and they drive through London, parking outside of Frank’s office. Ethan tells Lauren that they don’t have to do this, but with a determined look on her face, Lauren jumps out of the car, enters the reception and asks for Frank, but is refused. Meanwhile Ethan makes a phone call to the private number, telling them that he’s not sure this is going to work. Seeing Lauren, he quickly hangs up, Lauren returns and decides to wait for Frank to come out and follow him, she soon recognises Frank from his picture, getting into his car. Against Ethan’s judgement, Lauren starts the engine and follows Frank through London, seeing him stop at a shop and pick up a huge bouquet of flowers, then drive and park outside of a quiet, well preserved house. Lauren parks at a distance and watches Frank. He gets out of his car and answers his phone, the conversation seems to be with Kathleen. Frank hangs up as a young, blonde woman runs out of the house and lovingly wraps her arms around him. He leaves his phone on the roof of the car and forgets about it as they walk into the house, arm in arm.
With the colour drained from her face, Lauren sees that Frank is cheating on her birth mother. Ethan appears sympathetic and places his hand on hers. He begins to suggest leaving, but Lauren suddenly bursts out of the door and snatches Frank’s phone from the car. She and Ethan look through Frank’s phone, finding messages from Kathleen, flirtatious messages from a woman named Sarah, and messages from someone named Amanda, addressing Frank as ‘dad’. Lauren’s eyes widen as she sits in shock for a moment, hit by the revelation that the family she’d been dreaming of are far from what she’d imagined; her father is cheating on her mother, and she has a sister that she’s never known. Lauren looks at a photo of Frank with what seems to be Kathleen and Amanda. She’s suddenly filled with emotion as she repeatedly hits the wheel of the car in anger and curses. Ethan grabs her and calms her down, they look at each other as a tear rolls down her cheek, and decide to leave.
Parking at a hotel, the pair decide to have a drink at a nearby bar. Under the low lights and depressing music, Lauren looks down at her second drink, with the hope drained from her eyes, she says that she doesn’t want to meet her family. Ethan agrees that nothing good can come from meeting them now, but Lauren looks at him with suspicion, finally realising that he’s seemed to be against this the whole time. Ethan goes to the bathroom, not noticing that his phone was left on his chair. Becoming rapidly suspicious, Lauren grabs the phone, finding the messages between him and the private number.
Lauren’s face becomes filled with rage, she drops the phone on the table, and runs out of the bar. Ethan catches sight of her leaving and sees his phone, making the connection. His eyes become panicked and he chases after her, managing to grab her in the street. She angrily pushes him away, realising that he was trying to stop her instead of help her. Angry and emotional she demands to know who he really is. He looks down in shame, and tells her that Chris sent him, as he owed him. He goes on to tell her that Chris could have busted him for identity fraud when he and his mother ran away from drug dealers as a kid, but he didn’t. So in return to Chris, he agreed to try to stop Lauren from finding her parents, so that Chris’s secret of illegally changing Helen’s identity wouldn’t be found out.
But he tells Lauren that he cares about her now, and that he truly wants to help from now on, he says she’s more important than his debt to Chris, and proves it by launching his phone into the air and down the street. Lauren is shocked, but believes his words. She admits to caring for him too, and they soon decide to get some sleep. Getting separate rooms at the hotel they say goodnight, but Lauren changes her mind. Knocking on Ethan’s door, he answers confused. Lauren lightly kisses him on the lips, then they continue to kiss and eventually sleep together, spending the night in his room. Ethan wakes up the next morning to see that Lauren isn’t beside him anymore, just a note saying goodbye.
Lauren sits on a bus, looking hopeful at Frank’s address on his phone. She arrives at the tall, pristine house and nervously approaches the front door. A young, attractive, yet scruffy-looking woman answers; Amanda. After going inside and building up courage through small talk, Lauren tells Amanda that she’s her sister. Amanda doesn’t believe her, but Lauren tells her what she’s learnt so far about their family and that she was stolen as an unborn baby. Amanda sits in silence, processing the information and clenching her fists, while Lauren looks at her, noticing that she looks of a similar age. She asks Amanda when she was born, and realises that her birthday is only a month after her own, meaning that Amanda can’t be her sister. Lauren begins to remember what she’s learnt; that Kathleen couldn’t carry a child, that no known investigation was ever made to find Julia Drennen or a stolen unborn baby from London, then her face turns pale as she realises. At that moment Frank and Kathleen enter the room, Lauren turns to them with devastation across her face and says “you replaced me”.
Changes Made
- Removed unnecessary dialogue and specific details of actions that were not needed.
- Incorporated much more descriptive words where appropriate to bring to life people and places with visual impressions.
- Transformed most of the second episode's story as a whole. By removing Lauren and Ethan travelling to different workplaces in search of Frank (as this read as dull and unrealistic due to how easy it can be to find someone with today's online search abilities), and replacing this with Lauren finding his photo and workplace, and deciding to spy on him and follow him. Only then to find out that he's having an affair (which immediately allows for the impression that her parents aren't going to be what she hoped for) and that he and Kathleen have a daughter (creating another plot twist that makes Lauren think she has a sister). I think that by dramatically changing the content of this episode, it creates more suspense and excitement and creates less of a flat feel to the middle of the episode.
- Changed the reason of Ethan accompanying Lauren on her journey from looking out for her under Chris's instructions, to trying to sidetrack her from finding her parents, so that Chris's identity fraud secret isn't revealed.
- Created a new ending for the episode. As Lauren is now already aware of Amanda's existence, she decides to tell her who she is when they meet, creating more of an interaction and altercation between them. This also develops the cliff hanger to be more interesting and suspenseful when she figures out that Amanda was her replacement at the moment her parents walk in. And allows for the next episode to start immediately continuing this drama.
- Created the idea of a flashback montage moment, where Lauren pieces each piece of evidence and information that she's gathered so far to realise that Amanda was her replacement, allowing for her conclusion of this to make more sense.
Episode Three Synopsis
Kathleen and Frank stare at Lauren with confusion and ask who she is. Lauren tells them that they’re her parents, but Amanda, hysterical and angry, refuses to believe Lauren and wants her parents to deny what’s being said. Kathleen tells them both the truth, while Frank remains silent. Looking ashamed, she tells Lauren that she wanted to find her, but if they wanted to save their family the shame from trusting a woman that ran away with their baby, they were never going to tell the police, and were going to have to pretend that a different baby was the same one they were expecting months later. So they flew to Romania, and illegally adopted a two month old orphan; Amanda.
Frank insists that Lauren isn’t their daughter anymore, and they don’t want to know her. Feeling hurt, Lauren bites back by saying she knows more than he thinks, hinting at his affair as she hands him his phone. Frank realises what she means and appears furious, he suddenly backhands Lauren across the face, stunning everyone into silence. Lauren looks at him with disgust and runs out of the house. Kathleen chases after her, begging her not to leave in floods of tears, but Lauren realises that this isn’t her family.
Lauren walks back to her hotel, she realises that she shouldn’t have gone in search of her so-called parents. She arrives at the hotel, planning to check out and go home, but realises that she left her bag behind at the Porter house. Meanwhile, sat in a dark, disturbing room of a different house, Amanda drinks vodka from a bottle, looking through family photos with disgust, while Lauren’s bag rests next to her, she becomes angry and throws the bottle against the wall, watching it smash. Back at the hotel, Lauren is handed a note left in her room. She leaves and walks along the street, reading. Written by Ethan, the note tells Lauren that he understands why she left, but he’s glad that he met her, and leaves her his new phone number, she smiles faintly and puts the note in her pocket.
Suddenly, Amanda turns up in front of her, looking manic and angry, and wanting to talk. Lauren takes her bag back, not wanting to talk, and walks past her. Amanda grabs her arm, stopping her in her tracks, but Lauren pushes her away and Amanda stumbles, causing a bag of cocaine to fall from her coat. She scrambles on the ground in a panic to pick it up, and Lauren looks at her with sadness. Sympathising with her, Lauren suggests that she gets help, but Amanda aggressively says “fuck you” and storms away. Elsewhere, Frank is still seeing his other woman at her house, while Kathleen searches through his things at their home, finding evidence of his affair, she bursts into tears, smashing a photo of her family.
As the sun sets, Lauren gets into a taxi and heads for the airport, but receives a call from Amanda, crying for help and sounding panicked. Feeling concerned, Lauren gets her address and makes a detour to her house. Once she gets out of the taxi, she receives a call from Helen and finally answers her. The pair reconcile and Helen seems relieved, she asks Lauren where she is, so she tells her Amanda’s address and says it’s complicated. After hanging up, Lauren approaches Amanda’s house, noticing that the door is ajar. There’s no one to be seen in the rooms, but she’s surrounded by trash, broken items and the sound of loud music as she walks through the dark halls, calling out for Amanda. Looking at the drug den-looking living room, Lauren’s face fills with fear, when suddenly Amanda appears behind her, smashing her across the head with a lamp.
Eventually, Lauren wakes up on the living room floor, realising that her hands and feet have been tied up. She sees Amanda, lent over a table, snorting a line of cocaine. Lauren starts to wriggle and scream, but it’s muffled by the blaring music that fills the house. Amanda hears her and turns around, appearing paranoid and emotional, she looks at Lauren with glassy, unfocused eyes, taking out a knife. With tears rolling down her cheeks, Lauren continues to try to wriggle free. Amanda leans over her with the knife and tells her that she won’t take her family away. Lauren’s scream echoes through the house and Amanda quickly puts her hand over her mouth. But at that moment, Helen bursts into the room, she runs to her daughter but Amanda panics and lunges at her with the knife, stabbing her in the stomach. Lauren manages to free herself, jumping up to reach her mother. Amanda turns to attack Lauren, but Lauren picks up a nearby bat and smashes it across her head. Amanda falls to the floor, killed on impact.
Lauren rushes to her mother and holds her as she lay dying. In floods of tears, Lauren tells her how sorry that she is and that she loves her, and Helen responds with the same emotional words, and soon dies in Lauren’s arms. Sat crying and holding her mother for a moment, she looks over at Amanda’s body, and realises that the police will have been called by neighbours. She’s forced to pull herself together and cleans up evidence of her being there, and has to leave her mother and Amanda behind. Lauren runs out of the house and slows down as she walks down the street. A police car speeds past her with its sirens on, but Lauren goes unnoticed.
The following morning, Lauren stands at a distance from her birth parents’ house, and watches as the police tell them that their daughter Amanda is dead. As she watches her parents react in devastation, a tear roles down her cheek, and she turns and walks away. She later calls Chris and tells him what’s happened, he eventually hangs up and bursts into tears. Lauren then makes another call, asking Ethan if he wants to see her, he answers, sat in the café where they first ate breakfast, and says he was hoping that she’d say that. Lauren later meets Ethan at the café, and he says “let’s start over”, she faintly smiles with hope.
Changes Made
- Removed unnecessary dialogue and specific details of actions that were not needed.
- Incorporated much more descriptive words where appropriate to bring to life people and places with visual impressions.
- Altered the beginning of the episode, changing from Lauren running from Amanda's house to her parents' house and confronting Kathleen. I have changed this to a continued scene from the second episode, where the entire family finally get everything out on the table, building to a dramatic slap from Frank. I think that in order to fully connect the characters, it helps to see all four of the 'family' members in a scene together, along with creating suspense of that moment that Lauren wanted finally happening.
- Created a number of and variety of story arcs within the episode to give it more depth, detail and excitement, as opposed to building towards the end of the episode and series with simplicity. I did this by extending Lauren's interaction with her parents, creating drama when Lauren hints to Frank that she knows about his affair, causing him to slap her. Witnessing Frank continue this affair, while Kathleen finds out that he's been cheating, causing her to smash a family photo. Along with Ethan leaving Lauren a note at the hotel, which allows him to still remain significant in the episode before the end. And importantly, a singular scene of Amanda that further establishes her character, a new altercation scene between her and Lauren. And Amanda calling Lauren to come to her house in a twisted trap (all to be discussed below). I think that adding all of these extra but relative story arcs to the episode gives it much more depth, chaos and an exciting build up for a climactic episode.
- The above changes also allow for the story to fully establish that Lauren's biological parents are not what she hoped for, and that her 'family' is a completely broken down unit.
- Lauren and Amanda have been made a large focus within the episode. By firstly, beginning the family conversation together, where Amanda instantly feels a hatred for Lauren when she comes into her life and changes everything. Then through witnessing Amanda in what seems to be her typical life, sat in a dirty and dark room, taking drugs, drinking and resenting her life - which gives the audience earlier insight into what her character is really like and feeling. Then also through Amanda tracking Lauren down and arguing with her, but growing to hate her more when Lauren sees that she has a drug problem, building an intense relationship between them. And lastly, through witnessing that Lauren feels concerned about Amanda when she agrees to detour from going home and come to her rescue, at the same time as realising that Amanda is devious and conniving when she decides to lure Lauren into a trap and attack her. All of these extended and added interactions between Lauren and Amanda allow for Amanda's character to be explored further and build a more in depth relationship between the two characters.
- Moved the climactic scene of Amanda's attack and Helen's death to the darker, more dismal and more isolated location of Amanda's creepy, run-down home to get a more intense atmosphere from the scene. This also allows me to remove a high chance of the police suspecting Lauren after the two deaths, as no one would know that Lauren went to Amanda's house - giving her a higher chance of freedom after the story.
- Changed Ethan's line from "let's go home" to "let's start over". As I feel that the character's don't really have a safe place anymore, so it seems more appropriate for them to start a new life.
