Tune into tonight’s premiere of “Pure,” a new crime drama on WGN showing the struggles that a Mennonite pastor is facing in the world of drug trafficking.
About “Pure”
“Pure” takes us deep inside the insular world of the Mennonite community and the double life that one pastor must adopt to protect his family from a crime syndicate. At the center of “Pure” stands Noah Funk (Ryan Robbins), a newly elected Mennonite pastor seeking to rid drugs and corruption from his community, but he gets pulled into the very drug ring he is fighting. Hand in hand with his devoted wife, Anna Funk (Alex Paxton-Beesley), they battle a world of violence and greed from the inside out.
Starring Ryan Robbins (“Arrow,” “Falling Skies,” “The Killing”) and Alex Paxton-Beesley (“The Strain,” “Murdoch Mysteries”), the one-hour drama takes viewers on a journey down a secretive subculture through the eyes of a conflicted, good-hearted man trying to shield his family and preserve his faith. Also starring is AJ Buckley (“SEAL Team,” “Murder in the First”), Rosie Perez (“Rise,” “Search Party”), Peter Outerbridge (“Taken,” “12 Monkeys,” “The Expanse”) and Gord Rand (“Orphan Black”).
“Pure” is produced by Two East Productions and Cineflix in association with WGN America, Super Channel, Hulu and the CBC. The series is created and written by Michael Amo (“The Listener”) with Ken Girotti (“Orphan Black,” “Vikings”) as series director. Amo and Girotti will serve as executive producers for the second season, along with Brett Burlock, Peter Emerson and David MacLeod (“Call Me Fitz,” “Haven”). Cineflix Rights has the exclusive worldwide distribution rights to “Pure.” For more info https://www.wgnamerica.com/series/pure/
“Pure” Premieres January 23rd on WGN America
Cast
Ryan Robbins as Noah Funk
Alex Paxton-Beesley as Anna Funk
AJ Buckley as Bronco Novak
Gord Rand as Abel Funk
Dylan Taylor as Joey Epp
Peter Outerbridge as Eli Voss
Rosie Perez as Phoebe O`Reilly
Creator Michael Amo
Episode Guide for WGN’s “Pure”
101 – Ordination Logline: Under pressure from his congregation, Noah takes matters into his own hands to ensure that Gerry Epp and his drug dealing crew go to jail.
Synopsis: As the newly ordained pastor for his Old Colony Mennonite community in Southern Ontario, dairy farmer Noah Funk discovers his congregation wants more than a spiritual leader. They need someone to stand up to Gerry Epp and his brother Joey. They’ve been smuggling cocaine into the colony under the supervision of their uncle Eli Voss who runs the “Mennonite Mob” from his headquarters in Mexico. Noah struggles to keep his battle with the Mob a secret from his wife Anna even as he breaks with tradition to seek outside help from his former high school nemesis Detective Bronco Novak. Eager for redemption, Bronco recruits his partner Jay Gates and El Paso DEA Agent Phoebe O’Reilly. Noah succeeds in sending Gerry Epp to jail, but this victory triggers an ultimatum: Noah must take Gerry’s place as Voss’s man in Ontario or his family dies.
Meanwhile, Noah’s and Anna’s children react to their father’s ordination in different ways: devout son Isaac vows to set a good example in the community and at school; daughter Tina finds herself drawn to a handsome young auslander Ben Novak – Bronco’s son.
102 – The Singing Logline: Forced to join the Mennonite Mob, Noah decides to destroy it from within. At the same time, he must help a plane loaded with cocaine-packed cheese wheels land safely.
Synopsis: Forced to choose between keeping his family alive or following the orders of Eli Voss, Noah agrees to work for the Mennonite Mob. Struggling to transform himself from a pacifist farmer into a drug smuggler, Noah turns to his cocaine-addicted brother Abel for help. Buying burner phones is a first for a man who has never made a phone call, but his new double life also forces Noah to do something he’s never done before: keep a secret from his wife Anna, who already has her hands full dealing with Justina Epp, the scheming, embittered wife of the recently incarcerated Gerry Epp.
Suspecting he was duped by the new pastor, Bronco ignores the orders of his boss Chief Anita Kingsley and puts Noah under surveillance. However, he hits a brick wall when he realizes that Mob transactions are conducted in Plattdeitsch – a Low German dialect only spoken only by Mennonites.
Desperate to experience life beyond the colony, Tina sneaks into town with Ben – only to be detained by police for vandalism.
103 – As One Logline: With Anna’s help, Noah must find a way to salvage a drug plane from a lake without compromising his position with his congregation or with Mob leader Eli Voss.
Synopsis: After a plane loaded with a shipment of Mob cocaine overshoots a runway and crashes into a lake, Noah must explain to Anna what he’s really up to: he intends to work for Eli Voss long enough to gather enough evidence to take down the whole Mob. His first challenge: raise the plane without the help of the local biker gang led by Crowbar, who demands a dangerously sweet deal in exchange for their towing services. Taking matters into her own hands, the enterprising Anna goes behind Crowbar’s back to bargain with the wife of a younger biker, leading to tragic results. After discovering the sunken shipment, Bronco hits Noah with his own ultimatum: accept him as his unofficial police handler and take down the Mob together, or go to prison.
As Tina’s romance with Ben blossoms, she discovers that his father Bronco is investigating drug smuggling inside the colony – an investigation that leads right back to her parents.
104 – Funeral Logline: Noah and Anna must find a way to dispose of four dead bodies at the same time as they devise a trap for Eli Voss.
Synopsis: After Anna’s deal with the biker’s wife leads to the slaying of Crowbar and his associate, Noah must figure out how to secretly dispose of four bodies – the bikers and the Mennonite mules retrieved from the sunken plane. Normal crime bosses would simply destroy the evidence. but not Noah. who insists that all four men receive a proper burial. Meanwhile, Bronco tries to figure out the identity of Eli Voss’ spy inside the police department while he devises a way to lure Voss back to Ontario where they can get him on a wire talking business. The answer to all their problems boils down to one simple solution: the offer of a miraculous new method of smuggling cocaine that Voss can’t refuse.
Fearing that her mother and father are honest-to-God coke barons, Tina uses her relationship with Ben to figure just how much Bronco knows about their illegal activities.
105 – Communion Logline: Noah and Bronco’s plan to trap Voss goes awry, bringing one of their own to the brink of death.
Synopsis: Bronco’s plan to lure Voss to Ontario backfires when Voss insists that Noah come to Mexico to give a demonstration. Noah recruits Abel to help and the brothers reluctantly travel deep into the dark heart of Voss’s criminal empire – equipped with a device enabling O’Reilly to track their position south of the U.S. border and record every incriminating word uttered by Eli Voss. Sidelined by O’Reilly in El Paso, Bronco gets a last-minute text message from Abel that reveals that Voss, far from being fooled by Noah and Abel, plans to spring his own deadly trap on his DEA nemesis.
Back in Ontario, after charges are dropped, Gerry Epp returns to seek revenge on Anna for Noah’s treachery. Things go from bad to worse when Anna realizes that Tina has run away from home.
106 – Baptism Logline: Noah must choose between his beliefs and his life in a showdown with Eli Voss.
Synopsis: After a bloody ambush nearly kills Agent O’Reilly – and Voss leaves Abel for dead on a Texas roadside – the Mennonite Mob boss returns to Mexico with Noah and a single purpose: to break the pastor’s faith and force him to accept Voss’s nihilistic view of the universe. A spiritual showdown ensues between an emotionally shattered Noah and Voss, who fears Noah’s faith as much as he despises it. Relieved of her duties, O’Reilly and Bronco go rogue and head south of the border, recruiting a like-minded member of Mexican law enforcement to storm the Voss compound before it’s too late.
Back in Ontario, Anna’s efforts to save her home and family by turning Joey against older brother Gerry succeed only too well. After turning a blind eye, Isaac is forced to confront the truth of his parents’ illegal activities, triggering a spiritual crisis that only resolves at the moment of his baptism and Noah’s safe return from Mexico.
