Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Disappearance’ On WGN America, Where A Boy Vanishes And His Family’s Secrets Are Revealed

WGN America’s spotty history with original scripted series has been more about their indecision about what kind of strategy to follow, rather than the quality of the shows they’ve commissioned or bought. Lately, they’ve aired good shows created for Canada and other countries, but even there, their programming strategy has been a head-scratcher. Case in point: The Disappearance, which was made in 2017 for CTV and was set to air on WGNA a year ago. It’s finally making its debut in the States; was it worth the wait?

THE DISAPPEARANCE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A shot of the outside of an elementary school. Inside, a girl is finishing up her presentation on the people of a particular culture. Then a boy gets up and has the teacher help him put up a map of his neighborhood.

The Gist: The boy, Anthony Sullivan (Michael Riendeau) looks like he put a lot of research and detail into this project, where he decides to study the culture of his neighbors. But then we see that he’s dug up things like discarded bills, then he passes around photos he sneakily made of neighbors who thought they were in private. Interspersed with the reaction of his teachers and classmates, we see Anthony sneaking around with his old Polaroid, taking those photos.

Anthony is a smart kid who isn’t into the usual stuff other kids his age are into; much of that is encouraged by his grandfather Henry Sullivan (Peter Coyote), who is a retired judge and former prosecutor. Since his wife Maggie died, he moved into the house next door to where Anthony lives with his father Luke (Aden Young) and visits all the time. Another wrinkle: Luke and Anthony’s mother Helen (Camille Sullivan) have been separated for a year and is on the way to getting a divorce. So it’s been a rough year for the kid.

As we see Luke and his father grapple over how to encourage Anthony’s curiosity, we also see flashbacks to Anthony being inside someone else’s house uninvited. Henry feels that Luke hasn’t been a present father for some time, and that the separation is affecting the kid more than Luke and Helen realize.

This also happens to be the night before Anthony’s birthday, and Henry has set up the annual treasure hunt, with notes that have drawings as clues to where the next clue is. The night before, though, Henry gives Anthony a picture of a young Maggie when she was a physics student, and talks about the story of how they met. Only, it’s a white lie. Henry didn’t walk into the wrong room and met her; she was a rape victim and he prosecuted the case, as we see in flashbacks. The rape caused her to get pregnant, and after he falls for her, Henry agrees to care for the baby — a healthy boy — as if it’s his own. So now there’s at least one secret that the Sullivans have: Luke’s biological father is a rapist.

On his birthday, Anthony giddily sets out after school to start the treasure hunt. But he doesn’t come back in time for his birthday party. His parents, who finalized their divorce that day, start to panic and Henry throws his weight around to get a particular detective, Lieutenant – Detective Susan Bowden (Micheline Lanctôt), on the case. It seems like he disappeared between steps 2 — at Maggie’s gravesite — and 3, at the local church. Eventually, Anthony’s bike and camera are found in the woods, and the real mystery begins.

Our Take: The Disappearance has had a circuitous route to American television. Originally produced for CTV in Canada, the miniseries aired up north in late 2017 to good ratings. WGN America was set to air it in July 2018, then their programming strategy changed, moving away from original scripted fare. Thankfully, they saw an opportunity to air it a year later, because, while far from perfect, the show is an entertaining summer diversion that’s right in the sweet spot between a brainless network procedural and a heavy prestige drama.

It helps that showrunner Joanne Forgues saw fit to cast Coyote as Henry Sullivan. He’s gotten to the point in his career where people likely know him more from his advertising and documentary voice overs than his acting, but Coyote give Henry a presence that is necessary in a show like this, where holes in the plot would become more glaring surrounded by lesser performances. Young, who most of us last saw in Rectify, does his usual good job playing a brooding guy just struggling to be a good dad to his unusual son. Sullivan is also fine as Helen, but right now playing the concerned mom is fairly limiting.

But this show is likely going to come down to Coyote and Young, and the secrets that Henry has kept from Luke for his entire life. As we saw during their argument after Anthony got in trouble for his project, the issues between the two of them will create the most interesting drama on the series. We’re not sure how much more we’ll see of Riendeau as Anthony in the six-episode series, but he did a good job as the gifted and creative young man; we just don’t think the show will be as much about him in the subsequent episodes as it is in the first one.

Sex and Skin: Nothing. Both Luke and Helen are dating others — Luke with Anthony’s teacher and Helen with her boss — but the first episode just saw these people flirting and texting about dates.

Parting Shot: As investigators spread out in the park where Anthony’s bike is found, we see the picture of a Sullivan family during happier times.

Sleeper Star: Joanne Kelly plays Catherine, Anthony’s “cool aunt”. There’s obviously going to be a lot of tension between her and her father Henry and brother Luke, so hopefully there’s more to her character than just the “cool aunt” thing. We liked the few scenes she was in, though.

Most Pilot-y Line: Why in the world would the Sullivans finalize their divorce on their son’s birthday, even if they don’t tell him? Why not just move it by a day? Feels like a contrivance.

Also, Henry’s gift to Anthony is an encyclopedia. When Helen asks why, considering there’s that thing called the internet, Henry rants, “The answers, of course, but it’s the research that matters. How is a boy going to remember something he finds with one click? I guess it’s to be expected; people don’t seem to make the effort these days.” What a transition, from a treatise on encyclopedias to a rant about the Sullivan’s divorce.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Like we said, The Disappearance has a fair number of plot holes, but the performances of all the main actors will keep your interest.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream The Disappearance on WGN America