After returning home from rehab, a guilt-ridden father struggles to rebuild trust with his estranged family, unaware that someone from his past has followed him back, threatening to expose the secret that drove him there.

SYNOPSIS:

BROKEN BONDS – Pilot Synopsis

After a year in rehab, Evan Atkin, a recovering addict haunted by guilt and unfinished apologies, returns to his small hometown hoping to rebuild what’s left of his family. His mother, Grace, welcomes him home with wary compassion, a woman who’s forgiven more than most and trusts less than she pretends. His sister, Sarah, carries the scars of holding the family together while he was gone. And his teenage daughter, Cassie, barely recognizes the man who once tucked her in at night.

Evan’s return unsettles the fragile balance they’ve built in his absence. Grace believes in redemption, Sarah believes in boundaries, and Cassie doesn’t know what to believe. Every conversation feels like walking barefoot over broken glass, fragile hope beneath a layer of resentment.

As Evan tries to prove he’s changed, he begins receiving cryptic text messages from an unknown number, reminders of a night he’s tried to forget, a tragedy that sent him running and into rehab. The messages suggest someone knows the truth about what really happened before he came home.

While Evan quietly unravels under the weight of his secret, Sarah struggles to keep Cassie from being pulled back into her father’s orbit, and Grace fights to hold her fractured family together by sheer will and faith.

By the end of the pilot, a mysterious car begins appearing outside Grace’s house. When a photo arrives showing his family through the kitchen window, Evan realizes his past isn’t finished with him, and that the danger he thought he left behind has followed him home.

Tone & Style: A slow-burn, character-driven drama rooted in realism, family tension, and moral suspense. The pilot explores themes of guilt, forgiveness, and the limits of redemption, blending domestic intimacy with psychological unease, a family drama where the ghosts aren’t metaphorical, they text back.

BROKEN BONDS