Bellevue Fact Sheet, Lead Sheet, & Character Descriptions

FACT SHEET

Title: BELLEVUE

Episode Format: Original one-hour drama series

Premiere Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Rating: TV-MA

Synopsis: A brazen cop who has always been at odds with her hometown, unravels the disappearance of a transgender teen with the help of a dangerous mystery man.

Cast: Anna Paquin as Detective Annie Ryder

Shawn Doyle as Chief Peter Welland

Allen Leech as Eddie Roe

Creators: Jane Maggs & Adrienne Mitchell

Writers: Jane Maggs (Eps 1, 2, 3, 4, 8)

Jane Maggs & Thomas Pound (Ep 5)

Waneta Storms (Ep 6)

Morwyn Brebner (Ep 7)

Directors: Adrienne Mitchell (Ep 1, 2, 7, 8), April Mullen (Ep 3, 4), Kim Nguyen (Ep 5, 6)

Executive Producers: Janis Lundman, Michael Prupas, Adrienne Mitchell, Jane Maggs, Morwyn Brebner, Anna Paquin

Director of Photography: Eric Cayla, CSC

Production Designer: Donna Noonan

Produced by: Muse Entertainment Enterprises and Back Alley Films Productions

LEAD SHEET

WGN America’s recently acquired, thrilling crime drama, “Bellevue,” premieres on Tuesday January 23, 2018 at 10:00 p.m. ET / 9:00 p.m. CT. The gripping and eerie original series is set against the backdrop of a small town with big secrets. Twenty years ago, the murder of a young woman traumatized the community of “Bellevue.” Now, the killer is back. Or is he/she? When a high school hockey star, who is wrestling with his gender identity, goes missing and all signs point to foul play, Detective Annie Ryder (Anna Paquin) must unravel all the pieces to this gripping mystery before her own life falls apart. As the case pulls her further away from her family, she is also confronted by a mysterious person from her past with disturbing answers to lingering questions and a terrifying need to play mind games. Along the way, Annie must navigate a complicated relationship with her on again, off again ex, Eddie (Allen Leech) and her boss on the force, Chief Peter Welland (Shawn Doyle).

The eight-episode, one-hour series stars Academy® and Golden Globe® winner Anna Paquin (“True Blood,” “Roots”) as Detective Annie Ryder; Shawn Doyle (“House of Cards,” “Fargo”) as Police Chief Peter Welland; and Allen Leech (“Downton Abbey,” The Imitation Game) as Eddie Roe. In addition to Paquin, Doyle and Leech, rounding out the “Bellevue” cast are Madison Ferguson (“The Stanley Dynamic”) as Daisy Ryder; Sharon Taylor (“Ghost Wars,” “Supernatural”) as Virginia Panamick; Billy MacLellan (“Defiance,” “12 Monkeys”) as Brady Holt; Vincent Leclerc (“Being Human,” The Revenant) as Tom Edmonds; Janine Thériault (“Degrassi: The Next Generation,” “Being Human”) as Mother Mansfield, the Mayor of Bellevue; Joe Cobden (“The Art or More,” “Blindspot”) as Father Jameson; Victoria Sanchez (“Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan”) as Maggie Sweetland; and newcomer Sadie O’Neil as Jesse Sweetland.

Paquin also serves as an executive producer alongside co-creators and showrunners Jane Maggs (“The Offering”) and Adrienne Mitchell (“Bomb Girls,” "Durham County”), and executive producers Janis Lundman, Michael Prupas, Morwyn Brebner and Jesse Prupas. “Bellevue” is produced by Muse Entertainment and Back Alley Film Productions. The U.S. premiere of “Bellevue” follows the series’ lauded debut on Canada’s CBC.

Follow the series @BellevueWGNA | #BreakFreeWGN | #BellevueWGNA

CHARACTER DESCRIPTIONS

ANNIE RYDER (Anna Paquin)

ANNIE RYDER, 28, is a detective in a small mining town. Her father was also a cop in the same town and had killed himself 20 years earlier over a case that he couldn’t solve. At the start of the series, a disturbingly similar case evolves for Annie when a young transgender person goes missing and the case becomes her single-minded obsession. At the same time, she begins to receive riddles to help solve the case from a mysterious Riddler who is from her past and is back to haunt her.

CHIEF PETER WELLAND (Shawn Doyle)

PETER WELLAND is the Chief of Police in Bellevue. He used to be the junior partner to Annie’s father, Clarence Ryder. When Clarence dies, Peter tries to look out for Annie and oversee her life. When she begins to act out and gets into trouble, he redirects her energy and helps her become a police officer. But Peter, while competent, strong and authoritative, is also deeply conflicted with events of the past.

EDDIE ROE (Allen Leech)

EDDIE ROE is an unemployed miner, Annie’s on and off again boyfriend and father of her child, Daisy. They have a volatile relationship and are also very possessive of each other. Because he’s so loyal and prepared to see things through, he finds himself still hanging around Annie, unable to escape their constant vicious cycle – tearing each other apart - and then coming back together again for a sense of emotional connection. While he should have left a lot earlier, he finds himself with no job, still living in Bellevue. He wants a job and new life for them so that they can properly raise Daisy, but Annie’s recklessness, and his own bad choices, make change difficult.

JESSE SWEETLAND (Sadie O’Neil)

JESSE SWEETLAND is Bellevue’s top hockey player at the high school. The townsfolk believe Jesse is good enough to become an NHL star. The town is going through tough times since its lifeblood, the mine, shut down, and the citizens need something or someone to root for. But Jesse is silently struggling with his gender identity and wants to transition from male to female. One night he suddenly goes missing.

DAISY RYDER (Madison Ferguson)

DAISY is not your typical 12- year-old on the verge of adolescence. She’s wise beyond her years, forced to grow up too fast and constantly surrounded by the weight of her mother’scriminal cases that often consume her life. In some ways, Daisy is the grown-up in the relationship. Daisy likes things tidy and orderly while her mom is more chaotic. She deeply loves her mom and her dad, Eddie, and somehow understands that her parents’ relationship is messy and imperfect, but they’re family.

VIRGINIA PANAMICK (Sharon Taylor)

VIRGINIA is a fairly new addition to the Bellevue detective squad. She grew up on the neighboring reserve but left the area early for a career in the big city. She is meticulous, and smart, she colors inside the lines and finds Annie’s chaotic form of policing maddening.

BRADY HOLT (Billy Maclellan)

BRADY is a hard partying detective with a slacker attitude towards his job most days. Other days he can surprise you. He is born and raised in Bellevue. He is a former teen hockey player with a strong Catholic faith and a habit of womanizing. He is witty and isn’t as dismissible as he would have you think.

TOM EDMONDS (Vincent Leclerc)

TOM EDMONDS is the coach of the hockey team in Bellevue which is the pride of the town. He had been a talented young hockey player himself, but an accident had ruined his chances at a professional hockey career. Because of this – he throws himself fully and intensely into coaching the boys. In a lot of ways he sees himself as still one of them. He laughs and jokes with them, adores the comradery and cares about the players deeply.

MOTHER, BELLEVUE’S MAYOR (Janine Thériault)

The MAYOR OF BELLEVUE, affectionately known as “Mother,” is trying to fix the economy of the town that has fallen on hard times because its main industry, a mine, shut down. People are jobless and businesses are failing, so Mother is wooing the investors of a micro-brewery to build a plant in town. She schemes and deals to have Bellevue’s glory days again.

FATHER JAMESON (Joe Cobden)

FATHER JAMESON is Bellevue’s Catholic priest and one of the three pillars of the town along with the hockey coach and the mayor. He has a kindness to him but is rigid in his beliefs and sticks to them.

MAGGIE SWEETLAND (Victoria Sanchez)

MAGGIE SWEETLAND is Jesse’s mom. She is a hard-living but loving mother devastated by the disappearance of her child. With Jesse’s father having been killed in action, Jesse is everything Maggie has. Out of fear and being unaware of how to relate to Jesse, Maggie ignored the gender identity issues that Jesse was facing before his disappearance.