What happens in episode one, ‘The White Ridge’?
WARNING: Major spoilers for season one, episode one ahead.
On New Year’s Eve 1999, a teenage Séamus and Wendy slip off for some alone time in the woods. However, as the millennium turns, things quickly go awry with bizarre lights going off around them and birds dropping from the sky.
Fasting forward to the present day, Wendy is now a weed-smoking TV executive for HWAT (History with a Twist) Pictures, living the high life in America. At a planning meeting for their new project, an adaptation of the novel ‘Am I Celt?’ she discusses heading to Ireland to scout locations. It’s down to two places: Boyle, and Wendy’s hometown, Drumbán.
Her co-workers discuss worries about her having a vested interest, with one, Brad, patronising Wendy by telling her to “go with her head and not her emotions” because it’s “such a big choice”.
Meanwhile, at a school in Drumbán, a teacher, Catherine, discusses the potential film crew heading to their town, and what the book is about with her students. The teacher notes they’ll probably pick somewhere else and ‘they can remain a little secret from the world’.
Séamus, now an adult, heads off on his duties as an on-call doctor, getting pooed on by a bird as he does so. At an appointment, he jokes with one of his elderly patients, Betty, who is excessively blunt and rambling, telling him they’re “coming for him”.
Catherine later slips off into the supply closet for a secretive triste with a co-worker, but it comes across more awkward than sexy. As she emerges from the room, we see she is in a wheelchair.
As Wendy prepares to leave, she calls her mother, who asks if she’s ready to go back to Drumbán, and discuss if she will be visiting her father, who still lives in the town.
In the evening, Séamus is training kids at football practice but is blinded and uncomfortable by the floodlights as they switch on. A pal talks to him about the potential TV crew. Seamus is dismissive of it but agrees to head to a committee meeting about it anyway. As he gets into his car, more bird poo coats his windscreen.
At the meeting down the pub, the committee talks about how to win the bid for the show over rival town, Boyle, which is south of the border. They agree the town needs the money but are divided over whether they want it.
Heading home, Séamus picks up his son, Sonny, on the way, and arrives to greet his wife, who is revealed to be Catherine. He carries her to bed, and while they’re on good terms, there’s a notable distance between them as they go to sleep. They worry that Boyle is too ‘charming’ to fight against. One local, Keith – the local petrol station owner – offers to go down for a recon mission to see what’s going on there.
After landing in Ireland, Wendy is picked up by a taxi driver, with their first stop being her father and stepmother’s house. She comments about wanting to leave after half an hour, but after knocking they don’t answer the door.
At breakfast, Seamus jokes with his teenage daughter, Leia, about smoking weed before she heads off to school. She offers to ride a bike to school, but he doesn’t want her going through the woods.
In Boyle, two location scouts arrive to take photographs, but are caught off guard when they see a pig's head in the town centre next to a sign saying ‘Death to Infidels’. Meanwhile, Wendy goes for a walk through the woods while talking to Brad in LA. She ends up at Séamus’s house and watches him from behind the trees as he receives texts from the committee about their sabotage plans.
Wendy is surprised by a pair of dogs cornering her, but their owner, Shelly, calls them off. After a frosty start, the pair eventually crack jokes together, but Shelly notices that Wendy had been staring at Seamus’s house and is curious about it.
At the school, Catherine goes to see her fling, Mr Magee, but Leia is in his class and thinks she’s there for her. She panics and instead talks about Sonny’s decision to drop out of medical school.
In Boyle, Wendy arrives to see the pigs head, but locals think that it doesn’t make sense that someone from their town would do this, warning the team to be careful of the folk from Drumbán.
Back in Drumbán, the committee meets in a farmhouse to discuss Keith’s sabotage stunt but note the wicker man next to it was already there. Barbara, the local butcher who supplied the pig head, points out that they may have an advantage with one of the producers living in Drumbán years before, having overheard some gossip at the pub. Séamus realises who it might be, but Barbara didn’t get her name. The team decided to make one last appeal with the producers at the hotel they’re staying at to try and pitch for the town.
Séamus thinks back to his time with Wendy, and how he had hopes for the future away from Drumbán. As they drive to the hotel, he appears deep in thought.
When they arrive at the Manor hotel, the production team is getting ready for a press conference. Séamus recognises Wendy, and the gang realise they may have a history. He feels sick but is encouraged to be the spokesperson for the group and speak to Wendy.
Their reconnection is awkward, with Wendy bring up how Séamus ghosted her after she left Drumbán. She asks if he told them what happened in the woods on Millenium night, but he laughs it off and confesses they were behind the pig head stunt. She asks why he never left, and he replies that he didn’t have a choice. He asks how the reverend, he father, was doing but she doesn’t respond, blinded by the flash of a camera.
As Seamus returns to the group, a dead swan falls out of the sky and lands on Keith’s head. The gang later watch the press announcement at the pub, with Wendy confirming they will be filming in Drumbán. Séamus watches from home with his wife and kids.
In another flashback to Millenium night, it’s revealed that Wendy ran away from the light, but Séamus didn’t. He chases after her, and the pair have no doubt that they have witnessed a spaceship.