The Changeling begins in 1968 with the meet-not-so-cute of white parole officer Brian West (Jared Abrahamson) and recent Ugandan immigrant Lillian Kagwa (played by Alexis Louder in flashback and Adina Porter in the present). Brian asks Lillian out on a date, and she refuses him, but he persists, asking and asking until she finally relents nearly 10 years later. They marry and have a son named Apollo. Thirtysomething years later, Apollo (played by a number of actors at different ages but finally LaKeith Stanfield in the present) has his own chance encounter with the lovely, hard-to-get Emma (Clark Backo). Their early relationship uncannily echoes that of Apollo’s own parents: Emma, like Lillian, agrees to her suitor’s overtures only after multiple rejections; on the first date, Apollo, like Brian, very bluntly declares that his main goal in life is to have children and be a good father; both couples appear to fall instantly in love. You may find these gestures a bit aggressive, though it’s sometimes unclear whether the show finds them romantic, threatening, or some mixture of both.
The wrinkles in these parallel stories are the source of the show’s main mysteries. In the earlier timeline, the main puzzle is Brian’s abandonment of Lillian and Apollo, as well as the later arrival of a box of his belongings labeled IMPROBABILIA, which contains, among other things, an eerie children’s book about fairies who like eating babies. The wrinkles in the present timeline both focus on Emma. In between her first date with Apollo and their eventual marriage, Emma goes on a months-long journey to Brazil. There, against the advice of locals, she visits a witch who ties a red string around her wrist and grants her three wishes. Upon her return, Emma relays this story to Apollo, who utters his catchphrase—“I am the god Apollo”—and cuts the string from her wrist. “With me, all three of your wishes will come true,” he tells her. Again, it sounds like a threat.
The two soon marry, and Emma announces she’s pregnant. In a harrowing and surprisingly funny set piece, Emma gives birth in a subway car—a crew of subway dancers provide moral and logistical support—but life after baby is no fairy tale, or at least not a Disney one. After her brief parental leave, Emma begins to exhibit symptoms of postpartum depression, anxiety, and even psychosis. She also begins to receive strange text messages with pictures of her baby that appear to have been taken from a distance, and which disappear from her phone before she can show them to anybody. During this time, Emma comes to believe that her son has been replaced by unseen forces, and that the baby she and Apollo now care for is a changeling.