Synopsis for
"The Cleaner"
Pilot (2008)

"The Cleaner" -- not to be confused with "The Closer" or "Intervention" -- starts NOW.

We begin with a title card: "William Banks has saved 257 people from addiction to drugs, sex and gambling. He's not a cop. He's not a superhero. He's just a man with a Calling. This is his to story."

BAM! We're smack dab in the middle of a pee-wee football game. William, a coach, sends in the next play. Suddenly, his cell phone rings.

"If you've got the opening, then take it," William tells the boyish voice on the other line.

SPLIT SCREEN. Arnie Swenton plants a blinking device on the underside of a car while William prowls the sideline.

William gets another call. SPLIT SCREEN. It's Mickey Efros. "I'm in position," Mickey growls. "You tell her majesty I'm ready to make the grab."

Another call. SPLIT SCREEN. Akani Cuesta is sitting at a bar, watching an attractive blonde make out with a man at a nearby table.

"We've got a bit of a problem," Akani says. "She's banging her bookie."

"Well, lose him," William barks.

Akani makes eyes at the bookie, who gives them right back. The blonde notices and leaves in a huff. She drives off in a sports car ... only to be intercepted by Arnie and Mickey. They herd her into Mickey's truck.

"Guess who's going to rehab?" Mickey asks.

The sting a success, William concentrates on the game. Turns out his son Ben is the kicker lining up for a potential game winner. Ben seems less than interested in the game and just wants to go home.

"Son, you can nail this!" William says.

Ben boots. The ball bounces off the goal posts ... and then falls through. They win! Ben pulls off his helmet and passes his father without a word.

William looks to the heavens. "You had it make it hit the goalposts twice," he muses. "Subtle."

The next morning, Arnie calls William at home, complaining that the he got stuck with switching out the GPS signal while Akani got to sit in a five-star restaurant.

"What are you bitchin' about?" William asks. "We got paid great to make that grab. The kids are going to get their mom back in a month."

William's wife Melissa gives him a kiss. She's jonesing for a cigarette, but William refuses to tell her where the cigs are hidden. He finally relents. She runs for them, heads to the porch and lights up. William takes a pull as well.

The Cleaner and his wife have an addiction, after all.

Later, the family frantically gets ready for the day. William drives his daughter, Lula, to school in a worn-out truck. The precocious 14-year-old comments that she rather likes the ol' beater.

"Why?" William asks. "It always stinks."

"Yeah, but it stinks like you," Lula says.

Awww! They truly do love each other.

William drives into a car dealership. He meets a smiling Darnell McDowell, who holds the keys to the new Ford truck that William desperately desires.

"I'm going to have your money for you soon," William says.

Darnell laughs and then asks William for a job on the team. We get the feeling that this is an old request. William says there is "only one way" that Darnell could get a job -- and it would mean tragedy.

"Keep me in mind," Darnell says.

William dons a welding mask inside a chop shop and works on a car engine. A young man.

"I'm looking for William Banks," the man says. "You know you're near impossible to find."

"Well, that's sort of the point," William quips.

The young man, Aaron, has a proposition: locate and bring in his cousin Zach. William agrees.

They pull up to Zach's house. Williams cell phone rings. It's Arnie. He has been arrested for arguing a little too strenuously when his car was towed. William tells Arnie to hang tight and heads inside the suburban home.

Zach's mother explains that the teenage boy is an all-conference basketball player. Aaron explains that Zach started "getting high" after the boy's father passed away. Mom and William go upstairs to look in Zach's room.

Another suburban home. A window breaks. A strung-out Zach and his girlfriend enter and begin robbing the place.

Back in the bedroom, William searches a bookcase ... and finds a small plastic baggie containing drugs.

SPLIT SCREEN. Zach smokes crystal meth on a rooftop while William makes a call.

"Get the team together," William says. "We got a kid in trouble."

William meets Akani, who poses provocatively with the Lamborghini taken from the woman the night before. He hands her an envelope.

"Why do you keep giving these to me if you know that I never open them?" she asks.

"Because they're addressed to you," William says with a grin.

The letter is from her father. Akani tears it up.

William gets in the truck, but it doesn't start. He looks to the heavens.

"OK, so I also slept with her, but Melissa and me were separated, you know that," he says. "And I'm sorry."

The car starts.

William and Akani arrive at the police station. An older cop in a tie is balling out a younger cop in a uniform for arresting Arnie.

"William's people get a pass," the older cop explains.

Why? It turns out that William helped someone close to older cop. Perks of being The Cleaner.

Moments later, Akani, Arnie and William leave the station. Akani and Arnie bicker like an old married couple until she speeds off in the Lamborghini.

"All I want to know is, when do I get a decent gig? "Arnie whines. "I'm sure as hell not going to bang you like she did just to get a gig."

William stares daggers. He tells Arnie to "get out" of the truck. Tail between his legs, Arnie limps out.

Back at base, William, Akani and Mickey banter like an old married threesome. Then it's down to business.

"Listen up now, we got a 15-year-old tweaker," William says. "His mother is in total denial."

Before they can get much farther, the banter begins again. Mickey's workout habits are raised. William makes a crack about "the juice" compromising Mickey's sobriety (although we can see that William is actually quite serious).

All goes quiet. Mickey is offended. He empties a coffee cup and then urinates in it. He sets the cup on William's desk.

"Here's my piss, asshole," Mickey says.

Zach and his girlfriend have wondered into a kind of thieves' bazaar. They are introduced to a creepy criminal type by a young man named Theo. The pair tries to sell their stolen items, but the out-of-date merch isn't good enough.

"Speakers don't pay for this," says a creepy criminal, holding up a small vial of drugs.

Zach brings up the safe in his mother's house. This seems to pique the creepy guy's interest.

William arrives home to find his wife and daughter none too pleased with him for forgetting an important date.

"It's OK, dad," Lula says. "I can dance next week."

William sighs. Melissa shakes her head.

Zach arrives back home. He enters the code to the safe and begins stuffing his pockets with his mother's jewelry. Mom steps into view from behind a corner. Caught red handed, Zach stares at his mother .... and then pushes past her. She puts her face in her hand and cries. Zach then runs into his little sister, who puts a handful of coins in his hands.

"It's all I have," says the sad little girl.

Horrified ... but needing a fix, Zach sprints from the house.

William, meanwhile, is hearing it from his wife, who is fed up by his long hours.

"We get it, you help a lot of people," she screams. "All you did was replace one fix with another!"

His cell phone rings. It's Zach's mother. She needs help, after all.

The next day, William sends Akani out to find Zach and his girlfriend, Heather. Arnie arrives pleading for a second (or 100th) chance. Arnie can't explain why he wants his job back, which infuriates the idealistic William. Surely, Arnie understands that this line of work is nothing short of a calling.

Later, William receives a call at home. It's Akani. She has found Heather ... and it doesn't look good. Arnie pulls up too. Akani called him first. The trio carries Heather into William's garage. William takes a needle out of a black bag and jams it into Heather's neck. She awakens.

"Where's Zach?" she asks groggily.

William tells Akani to take Heather to a recovery home ... and then tells Arnie to simply get out of his way. Melissa suddenly emerges from the house and shares a very awkward look with Akani.

Back inside, William gets a call from Mickey, who has found Theo. William tells Mickey to meet him in the shop in one hour ... and then lights up a cig.

"What you got there?" asks Ben, who has been sitting at the kitchen table the entire time. William quickly puts the cigarette out. The topic of William's frequent talks with God comes up. The teenage boy clearly doesn't feel comfortable with the concept of divine intervention.

"I just want to make sure you're not banking this family's future on the idea of someone who doesn't even exist," William says before storming out of the kitchen.

Mickey introduces William to Theo. Theo then takes William to the thieves' bazaar, dubbed "Ghost World." Creepy criminal guy, who goes by the name of J.W.B., is a skinhead and a dealer.

The next morning, Zach returns home to find his cousin Aaron waiting.

"You're killing them," Aaron says. "You know that, don't you?"

Aaron offers to take Zach to rehab. The two start screaming and shoving each other. Mom enters, telling them both to stop. Zach leaves in a huff.

Back at the garage, Arnie pleads for his job. William relents ... under the condition that Arnie takes whatever case he is offered. Arnie agrees and the two leave.

Mickey, meanwhile, gets a call from his estranged wife, who explains that the two need to move on with their lives. Mickey is crushed.

William and Arnie arrive at Ghost World. William calls Officer Herman, the young cop from earlier.

"I'm about to give you the one that sticks," William tells the eager cop.

William and Arnie enter Ghost World and quickly spot Zach negotiating for drugs. They grab the boy and stick with him a needle. Zach goes limp. Unfortunately, all this has attracted the attention of J.W.B. The skinhead kicks William, who goes down in a heap.

Just then, Officer Herman arrives in a squad car. All of Ghost World scatters. Arnie drags Zach away while William catches up with J.W.B. and hits him in the face with a 2x4. Problem solved.

Later, Zach lies in a hospital bed, recovering.

"What do you think?" asks his worried mother.

"I think it's all uphill from here," William says. "At least now he can see daylight."

William arrives home to find his family waiting. They argue over how many times William has been to rehab. William admits that the day Lula was born, he was down the hall "slamming dope."

"I made a deal that if He got me through that day, got us all through it, that I would become, I don't know, his avenging angel," William says. "It's just that when I made that deal with Him, I didn't know how hard it would be ... on you."

Ben leaves the table in a huff. Lula and Melissa stand by their man.

Later, William arrives at Mickey's apartment. The two are going to go to a baseball game. William finds an empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the floor.

"This the way you gonna win your wife and kids back?" an upset William asks.

Seemingly asleep, Mickey doesn't answer. William turns his friend over ... to discover a needle sticking out of the man's arm. Mickey is dead. Overdose.

Some time later, a red-eyed William pulls into the car dealership. He can barely speak due to grief.

"What is it you were put on this Earth for?" William asks Darnell.

"I won't let you down, man," Darnell says.

A new member of the team has been added.

William returns home. Melissa tells him not to blame himself, but of course he does. The not-so-happy-couple then head to their separate bedrooms.

One day at a time.