If you’re not watching Forever on ABC, you should be. It’s such a delightful Tuesday night treat.
Forever Season 1 Episode 3 saw the duo investigating the case of a doctor proclaiming to have discovered a way to reverse aging. Naturally, the idea of people seeking eternal youth piques Henry’s curiosity.
The premise of Forever, in case you don’t know, is this: a doctor who cannot die studies death in hopes of finding out how he might one day stay dead. Abe, his trusty sidekick (and son), urges him to live instead of spending his days chasing his eventual end.
After forming a friendship with Detective Jo Martinez (Ilana de la Garza), Henry, who works as a medical examiner, begins helping the NYPD solve strange murder cases.
When a body with the face of an old man but the body of someone half that age ends up on his exam table, Henry and Jo are lead to a medicine called Aeterna.
Aeterna reverses the signs of aging, turning back the biological clocks of those who take it with shockingly effective results. But it advances their brain ages, killing them slowly. Henry is instantly curious, partially because he can’t die and will forever be 35 and also because he find’s Abraham’s name on a list of potential clients.
He and Jo learn that the doctor marketing the Aeterna isn’t actually a doctor at all. He’s a con-man. His girlfriend is the brains behind the operation, and she really does want to help people. But the methods they use to make the treatment employs human brains and pituitary glands stolen from John and Jane Does out of morgues around the city.
What’s fascinating about Forever isn’t so much the Whodunits as it is the interactions between Henry and those he loves and knows will leave him if he can’t find a way to undo his curse of immortality.
He advises others to live while not truly living himself, though he does seem to see some merit in practicing that which he’s preaching. Jo isn’t interested in opening herself up to the same, which makes the budding friendship and eventual chemistry between them the kind of slow burn viewers love.
Think Peter and Olivia on Fringe, but with slightly less weird science. (But only slightly.)
With only three episodes aired so far, now is the time to watch Forever online to get caught up.