Overview
A 30-minute
crime horror
Transitions is a crime drama that offers a variety of meanings and debates. It explores the realistic portrayal of mental illness and the opioid epidemic through the lens of complex characters set in the world’s most powerful city, Washington DC — the origin of the American nightmare.
This next generation police procedural exposes the hypocrisy and corruption at various levels of politics, Big Pharma, law enforcement and the illegal drug trade. The plots are adapted from recent and current headlines, showing extreme sacrifices retaining characters are willing to make in order to prevail. The unbearable suspense keeps viewers emotionally engaged through shadowy intentions and riveting plot twists.
Unlike no other TV show, this groundbreaking drama explores the failed “War on Drugs” and a collapsing health-care system that neglects those who pledge allegiance to a flag, but that same flag hasn’t pledged allegiance to them. In this sense, Transitions doesn’t glorify drugs, sex, money and violence; it merely puts a magnifying glass on mental illness and drug addiction. Why is the U.S. the No. 1 nation in the world for illegal drug use? Why does one-third of all Americans suffer severe mental problems and only twenty percent seek help? Transitions depicts those questions through complex characters to propel a gripping narrative. Each story arc ultimately reveals the character’s change (hence the title) from one condition to another. Viewers who invest in watching this emotional journey of American culture… are rewarded with a major payoff in the end.
Each season exists as a stand alone journey of ten episodes that zero in on high points of the hero, the antagonist, love interest and companion. Their heartfelt journeys have unexpected twists with intricate challenges throughout the plots of the storyline.
Transitions novelistic structure forms multi-layered narratives with each episode serving as a single chapter. In the first story-arc, some characters progress throughout the seasons while others have their stories resolved in an episode or a single season.
The seasons work together to offer a larger narrative with literary themes, intertwining mental illness and drug addiction. The core of the show encompasses the federal investigation of a mentally-ill narcotics trafficker held responsible for a fatal opioid epidemic.
Future Seasons
Tone & Style
Lead Characters
Adonis Blackwell
Played by Anwan Glover – black, mid-late 30’s, suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. The hardship of his past created who he is today; a mentally ill, Machiavellian narcotics-trafficker and haunted man. Adonis was psychologically damaged at nine-years-old after witnessing his father’s death from a fentanyl overdose, the same drug that became his very own cash-cow. He runs a well structured narcotics business and will commit murder in a New York minute to protect it.
His unquenchable thirst for power fuels his deepest desire to be on top of the narcotics food chain, but several obstacles mount in the process. He frequently uses deception, intimidation, murder and fear as his methods to power.
After distributing multi-kilograms of fentanyl-killing addicts in suburban and rural communities across America, he’s suddenly confronted with life-altering dilemmas while struggling with his own mental issues.
Rahman Abdul
Played by Wali Johnson, an arrogant, black Muslim with an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. The Washington Post labeled him “THE MICHAEL JORDAN OF KILLERS.” He cycles between guns, knives, bats, anthrax, fire, cyanide, waterboarding and most grotesquely of all, hungry rats to murder his victims.
At the age of ten, Rahman developed a social phobia after his parents were brutally murdered. He was immediately sent to a foster home where he began to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. His first murder came at the tender age of twelve when he shot Rambo; the neighborhood stick-up man in the head. At the age of twenty-two, he was convicted for murder and sentenced to life in federal prison. After serving eight-years, his sentence was overturned on a technicality.
Faithfully reading the Quran and James Bond books in captivity, his killings became “justified homicides” in his mind as well as others. Rahman’s surveillance equipment and strategic planning rivals the likes of government agencies (FBI, CIA, Secret Service). Rahman is rumored to be personally responsible for over a 100 murders and his greatest struggle is with his conflicted consciousnesses.
Lloyd Blackwell
Played by Michael Wright is the father of Adonis and Peaches Blackwell and several other estranged children. Lloyd was a Washington D.C. heroin kingpin throughout the 70’s and mid 80’s. After being robbed and gunned down — he suffered from a life threatening hip injury that started a downward spiral for the Blackwell family. The excruciating pain resorted into him abusing heroin which eventually led to him overdosing. Before his tragic death, he gives Adonis a book that would impact his cunning son’s life, “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli.
Richard "Priest" Lewis
Played by Glenn Plummer, a well-distinguished Los Angeles, California businessman; he’s more than meets the eye. He’s one of the richest Black American men in the country with political CIA ties and powerful street connections. He’s married to Carmen Lewis; a businesswoman, civic leader, motivational speaker, author, and lawyer. They both share two daughters and their only son was murdered while incarcerated.
