The Pretender 2001 is the first of the two The Pretendertelemovies to air after the series was cancelled by NBC. It originally aired on TNT on January 22, 2001.
Plot
The story reunites the entire cast from the series, effectively picking up where the season fourcliffhanger ended. Jarod Sur Venom, Ethan, and Miss Parker are alive after the bomb explosion on the train. Jarod is now posing as an agent of the National Security Agency; he is part of a task force assembled to find the "Chameleon", a killer who displays all the adaptive traits of a Pretender. The Centre is forced to put its hunt for Jarod on hold after its administrator, Mr. Parker is abducted. Miss Parker discovers that William Raines is still alive, despite allegedly being shot dead by her father. Her brother, Mr. Lyle, attempts to finish Raines off, but Miss Parker manages to spirit him away and hide him in her house. In return, Raines agrees to shed light on who might have kidnapped her father. Jarod begins receiving taunting clues from the Chameleon, which leads him to believe that the killer holds a grudge against him personally. This revelation takes Jarod back to the days leading up to his escape from the Centre; he did not originally plan to leave alone. Jarod hatched a plan with two fellow Pretenders, including a man named Alex, to escape from the facility together. Unfortunately, Alex was captured during their escape. He was swiftly sent out of the country and endured hideous torture by his captors; Alex now wants revenge on Jarod as a result. Observing that Jarod's search for his biological family has allowed the Centre to continue to dominate him, Alex took the opposite path by finding his own family and then murdering them. From his perspective, this has 'freed' him from the Centre's control; however, he is still not satisfied and kidnaps Mr. Parker with the intent of killing him too. After incriminating evidence that points to Jarod is left behind by Alex, Jarod's partners at the NSA suspect him of being the "Chameleon." The Centre's programmer, Broots, is on Jarod's trail when he is swept up in the NSA investigation and thrown into an interrogation room. Jarod immediately recognizes Broots, but decides to cover up for him rather than risk exposing them both. As Jarod is escorting Broots out of the NSA building, Jarod's partners move in to arrest them both. Jarod flees in a vehicle with Broots in tow, then later ditches him by the side of the road. At the climax, Jarod thwarts Alex's next assassination and helps free Mr. Parker. Before he commits suicide, Alex gloats that the truth of Jarod's true identity will die with him. Mr. Parker is injured during the struggle and rendered catatonic. As Jarod and Miss Parker exchange words over the phone, both of them receive an anonymous email simultaneously; the message contains an image of two women, the mothers of Miss Parker and Jarod, standing together. The email is revealed to have been sent by Mr. Raines himself, apparently as a show of thanks for rescuing him.
