Cutter explains the three acts of a magic trick
The opening narration lays out the Pledge, the Turn and the Prestige over a field of top hats and a birdcage demonstration.
S1E1 · The Prestige
25 moments · 53 min of essential viewing in a 131-minute episode.
Moments, in order
Owens offers Borden a deal for his tricks
In prison, a solicitor for Lord Caldlow bids for Borden's secrets, dangles his daughter's future and hands over Angier's diary.
Borden sees through Chung Ling Soo's total devotion
After the goldfish-bowl trick, Borden explains the old magician lives his act every day, and Julia christens Angier the Great Danton.
Never show anyone: Borden's lesson to a boy
A child weeps that the bird was killed; Borden brings it back and warns him that the secret impresses no one, only the trick.
Cutter shows the judge a machine built by a wizard
Among the trial evidence, Cutter tells the judge Angier's machine has no trick and that the tank's lock was switched for a real one.
Julia drowns and Borden cannot say which knot he tied
The water escape goes wrong at the Orpheum, Angier breaks the tank too late, and at the funeral Borden admits he does not know the knot.
Borden teaches Sarah the bullet catch, but not today
Borden shows his pregnant wife how the bullet catch works, says he loves her, and she tells him some days he does not mean it.
Angier shoots off Borden's fingers at the bullet catch
A hostile crowd heckles Borden's act, a disguised Angier volunteers for the bullet catch and demands the knot before firing.
Tesla: man's grasp exceeds his nerve
Over a meal, Tesla warns Angier he recognizes an obsession and that it will destroy him, then admits he has already begun building the machine.
The greatest trick Angier has ever seen
Angier watches Borden's Transported Man, calls him a dreadful showman, and vows to steal the trick while Cutter insists on a double.
No one cares about the man in the box
Angier debuts his own Transported Man with a double, then sulks that the audience only cares about the man who comes out.
Olivia walks into Borden's workshop with Angier's secret
Sent as a spy, Olivia tells Borden the truth about who sent her and offers him Angier's drunken double instead of stealing his method.
A humble admirer buys the drunken double a pint
In a pub, a disguised Borden flatters Root into bragging about his power over the Great Danton and warns him about trusting a double.
Borden hijacks the New Transported Man on stage
Root comes out of the cabinet to a stranger's bow: Borden takes Angier's applause and the double's secret collapses in public.
Olivia brings Angier the notebook and admits her love
Angier accuses Olivia of improving the enemy's act; she calls him a blind fool, hands over Borden's cipher diary and confesses she loves Borden.
Buried alive: Angier demands the keyword
Angier digs up Borden from a staged burial and trades Fallon's life for the cipher keyword; Borden says the keyword is the method.
They are all your hats: Tesla's machine was working
Angier accuses Tesla and Alley of swindling him, then finds a field of identical top hats and a dozen black cats outside the lab.
Tesla's farewell: destroy the machine
Tesla's letter urges Angier to drop the machine into the deepest ocean; Angier tests it anyway with a pistol in hand.
Sarah demands no tricks, no lies, no secrets
Sarah tells Borden she knows what he really is and asks him to be honest; asked whether he loves her, he answers not today.
The Real Transported Man premieres
Angier introduces a trick he says killed the woman who taught it, invites the audience to inspect the machine, and reappears across the hall.
Angier drowns below stage and Borden is sentenced
Borden slips under the stage, finds Angier locked in a water tank, cannot find the key, and is later sentenced to hang for murder.
Lord Caldlow visits with Jess and unmasks himself
Borden's daughter arrives with Lord Caldlow, who turns out to be Angier; Borden gives up his secret and screams that the dead man is alive.
Agony, not going home: the hanging and Abracadabra
Cutter corrects his sailor story as the machine is delivered, and Borden answers the gallows with a single magic word.
The twin reveal: two men sharing one life
Borden explains the brother, the swapped turns, the halved loves, and tells the wounded Angier that sacrifice is the price of a good trick.
The look on their faces: Angier's last words
Dying among the tanks, Angier says it took courage to enter the machine and that the point was always the audience's wonder; Cutter closes the trick.
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