Disney+’s National Treasure: Edge of History season one episode one, “I’m a Ghost,” introduces the key players in this series spinoff of the popular National Treasure films. But before we meet the new batch of treasure hunters, we pop back in time to 2001.
National Treasure‘s Harvey Keitel reprises his role as Peter Sadusky and is shown recording a message, instructing whoever he’s making it for to only listen to the tape when no one’s around.
Speaking into the recorder, Peter asks if they remember the stories he used to tell them about gold and libraries from Emperor Montezuma’s palaces. We’re treated to a reenactment of a battle that took place in 1519 as Peter describes what went down. Although many people assumed the treasure was a myth, Peter reveals the Freemasons had information that Indigenous women hid Montezuma’s treasure.
After spiriting away the treasure, they divided the clues to its location into three relics – one each for the Incans, the Mayans, and the Aztecs. Up until now, the relics have been lost. Sadusky explains he’s received confirmation a band of treasure hunters is close to finding the Aztec relic.
Another flashback shows a man dressed as a nun descending into a church and feeling around a statue of the Virgin Mary. He discovers what he needs to open a secret hiding spot, but before he can get away, men grab him. They claim he double-crossed Salazar. Who’s Salazar? We don’t know at this point.
After fighting the men off, he grabs the relic and runs.
Returning home, the man frantically packs while explaining things to his wife. He hands her a paper with the name of a man who will make sure she and their baby get to safety. After giving her his necklace, he promises to come find her just as Salazar’s men show up. He puts up one hell of a fight and even manages to set fire to one of the men. His wife drives away as flames engulf their home. She tells her baby in Spanish, “Don’t you dare grow up to be like your papi!”
21 years later, that necklace is now hanging from Jess’s (Lisette Olivera) neck. As the camera pans out, Jess and her friends are locked up in jail. Fortunately, it’s actually an escape room and the gang’s busy trying to break out. Oren (Antonio Cipriano), a pessimist, thinks they can’t get out. However, Jess is whipsmart and really into solving puzzles, and she fairly easily figures out the code.
The action zooms to Madrid, Spain, where Billie Pearce (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is in a lavish mansion whose previous owner had secrets not even his children knew about. She tells her right-hand man that she recently learned the previous owner had a collection of conquistador plunders that he denied owning. Luckily for her, he had an “unfortunate accident.”
They break down a wall and discover a hidden stash of paintings and statues. But they don’t find the Aztec relic they’re specifically hunting for. Billie receives a phone call from someone who sounds extremely disappointed that she hasn’t located it.
Back in New Orleans, Jess, Tasha (Zuri Reed), and Oren are looking for something important to Jess. In walks Ethan (Jordan Rodrigues) with the ingredients to make Empanadas and the item Jess was searching for: the Empanada recipe that belonged to her mother. Her mom passed away a year ago and they’re making Empanadas in her memory.
Later, Jess attempts to work up the nerve to ask her boss at the storage facility for a raise. Instead of giving her one, they head to a unit that’s six months behind on rent and cut open the lock. The unit’s full of items that catch Jess’s interest, and her boss reveals he can’t track down the person who rented the unit. Jess laughs when she reads the person’s name and explains it means “I am a Ghost” in Latin.
Her boss isn’t amused but gives in when she requests to be made assistant manager if she can figure out who this “ghost” is.
Jess quickly determines the ghost is a Freemason.
Tasha confides in Jess that she and Oren broke up. (That explains the tension in the escape room.) Tasha’s worried that now that they’ve broken up, he won’t help pitch in with rent. And, of course, their rent was just raised. Jess tries to ease Tasha’s mind by revealing she’ll get a raise after she tracks down the Freemason who abandoned his storage unit. She believes the American flag she found in the unit was meant to be draped over a coffin, and that should help her narrow down the list of 20,000 Freemasons in Louisiana.
The list includes a Jack Sadusky who passed away and is survived by his son, Liam, and his father, Peter Sadusky – a Grand Master Mason.
Jess thinks she’s on the right track and shows up at Peter’s house uninvited. His home health care nurse warns her that Peter has dementia and thinks everyone is a spy.
Jess meets with Peter and gets right to the point, handing over the American flag. She explains that her boss is going to throw out all his stuff from the storage unit if he doesn’t pay his back rent. She also explains how she figured out his name. Sadusky is impressed. Jess reveals she wants to work for the FBI’s Cryptanalysis Division but can’t because she isn’t a US citizen.
Jess makes Peter laugh and then suddenly he turns serious when he notices her necklace. He asks where she got it, and she replies that it was her dad’s. She doesn’t know much about him since he died when she was a baby, but her mother used to call him a thief and a good-for-nothing.
Peter believes everything she knows about her dad is a lie. Jess disagrees, reminding Peter he never knew her dad. Peter remains convinced that what her dad did wasn’t wrong, and once again, Jess disagrees and calls her dad a criminal. Peter points out this country was founded by criminals. Touché.
Peter asks what she knows about “the treasure.” Jess has no clue what he’s talking about, and Peter informs her that her father’s medallion was worn by a secret network of treasure protectors that goes back centuries.
“I’m pretty sure my mom would have mentioned that,” says Jess in disbelief.
Peter ignores her comment and reveals her necklace represents an ancient oath to unbury the lost history of entire civilizations. Jess remains skeptical and chuckles. Undeterred, Peter claims that if her father had that necklace, it was because he was protecting a treasure. He adds, “And so must you.”
Peter tries to give Jess a letter addressed to his grandson, Liam, that holds a clue to something important. She doesn’t want the letter, and he warns her he doesn’t have much time left. If he dies, the secret will die with him.
And here’s a new twist… Billie has surveillance on Peter’s house and is curious as to who Jess is and why she was visiting Peter, a recluse, for 10 minutes.
Back at home, Oren thinks Jess is crazy for not wanting to take the secret letter about lost treasure. Jess remains unconvinced that anything Peter said was true. She thinks he has dementia. However, when she opens her bag, she discovers Peter slipped the letter to Liam in there without her realizing it. Oren and Tasha want her to open it, and Tasha even suggests they do it live on her YouTube channel. Jess shuts them down, reminding them she’s not a treasure hunter.
Jess returns to work and informs her boss she figured out who owns the storage unit. He confirms he already knows the owner’s identity because the FBI’s currently looking through his stuff. And the agents want to have a chat with Jess.
The agents claim they were informed by Peter’s nurse that Peter tried to give her a letter. She admits that’s true but says she didn’t take it. (Technically, that’s true.) The agents don’t buy it and resort to threatening Jess over her undocumented status. Jess eyeballs their badges and suddenly geeks out, going off about wanting to join the FBI. They claim that if she helps them, they’ll put in a good word for her. Jess doesn’t let on that she knows they’re lying since she can’t work at the FBI because she isn’t a US citizen. She continues to insist she doesn’t have the letter.
Billie’s on a private plane with a sword that Peter possessed that once belonged to Cortés when the FBI agents call her. They couldn’t locate the letter and don’t think Jess has it. Billie correctly deduces that Jess figured out they weren’t real FBI agents and lied about the letter.
Meanwhile, Jess tells Tasha the fake FBI agents are probably treasure hunters. Tasha is sure they need to open the letter and see what they’re dealing with.
When Jess and Tasha return home, they discover their apartment has been broken into and ransacked. The box with Peter’s belonging (and the letter) is missing but, fortunately, that’s Oren’s doing. He accidentally took it with him when he moved out. Oren’s shocked by the state of the apartment and Jess rushes him out without answering his questions.
Jess gives in to Tasha and opens the letter. Inside is a photo of Peter with his family along with a letter to Liam. Peter wrote to Liam asking him to find it in his heart to one day forgive him.
Jess decides to find Liam and deliver the letter.
It turns out Liam’s on Instagram, which makes the search easy. Jess learns Liam’s a musician and takes Tasha with her to the bar where Liam has a gig.
Liam (Jake Austin Walker) refuses to take the letter and suggests that Jess should just burn it.
The next morning Jess decides to throw the box away but then takes one last look at the photo. She notices the gavel Peter’s holding in the picture and that prompts her into taking the gavel out of the box.
Jess interrupts Tasha’s live-streaming on YouTube to tell her she thinks she found a clue. She needs to visit a Masonic Lodge and Tasha volunteers to join her.
They catch the bus and Jess realizes they’re being followed by the fake FBI agents.
The heat’s really turned up in the final minutes of the first episode. The girls exit the bus and are immediately chased by the fake Feds. Jess and Tasha manage to shake them and make it to the Masonic Lodge. Jess performs the secret handshake she saw in a photo and a man lets them in.
Jess and Tasha enter the meeting room where Peter’s photo was taken. Jess holds the gavel just as Peter did and realizes the reflection is pointing to the altar. The handle fits one of the stars carved into the altar and after turning it, she realizes the reflection now points to a box. She opens it and although she doesn’t realize it, she’s found one of the hidden relics.
Tasha points out the symbol on Jess’s necklace matches the symbol on the box.
They decide to tell Ethan about what’s happened. Ethan doesn’t want any part of this and reminds Jess she shouldn’t do anything that could get her deported.
Jess receives a call from Billie who cuts to the chase and reveals she thinks Peter pointed her right to the relic she’s been looking for. Jess says it’s not for sale, but Billie has a trick up her sleeve. She’s kidnapped Oren and is holding him hostage in exchange for the relic.
The series premiere of National Treasure: Edge of History ends in Mexico City with Salazar in prison and drawing Jess’s necklace.
- National Treasure: Edge of History Episode 2 “Treasure Map” Recap
- National Treasure: Edge of History Episode 3 Recap: “Graceland Gambit”
- National Treasure: Edge of History Episode 4 Recap: “Charlotte”
- National Treasure: Edge of History Episode 5 Recap: “Bad Romance”
- National Treasure: Edge of History Episode 6 Recap: “Frenemies”
- National Treasure: Edge of History Episode 7 Recap: “Point of No Return”
- National Treasure: Edge of History Episode 8 Recap: “Family Tree”
- National Treasure: Edge of History Episode 9 Recap: “Meeting with Salazar”
- National Treasure: Edge of History Episode 10 Recap: “Treasure Protectors”
- Interview with Series Stars Antonio Cipriano & Zuri Reed
- National Treasure: Edge of History Stars Jake Austin Walker and Lisette Olivera Interview
