AllMovie

Based on a novel by Jodi Picoult, the made-for-cable The Pact is the story of two neighboring families, the Golds and the Hartes. Best friends for decades, Melanie Gold (Megan Mulally) and Gus Harte (Juliet Stevenson) have managed to envelop their husbands and their children in this strong and seemingly unbreakable bond of friendship. All this changes in a devastatingly tragic fashion when Melanie's daughter Emily (Meghann Henderson) and Gus's son Christopher (Eric Lively), who have grown up together, enter high school. For reasons that are not fully explained at first, Emily and Gus enter into an apparent suicide pact; ultimately, shots are fired, Emily dies, and Chris is put on trial for murder. Capped by a genuinely surprising denoument, The Pact made its Lifetime Network debut on November 4, 2002.