Matrix (TV series)

Before Carrie-Anne Moss also starred in The Matrix she also starred in a Canadian TV series called Matrix which had nothing to do with the "The Matrix."

Steven Matrix (played by Nick Mancuso) was a high priced Mafia hit man, who, one day, met a pretty girl, went to dinner with her, and then she shot him in the head.

While on the operating table, hovering between life and death, Matrix has a vision of himself in Hell. Among the other damned souls, he sees an old man who stands out from the crowd. Matrix senses that there is something special about this person, and calls out to him for help. Back in the real world operating theatre, Matrix, who had been clinically dead for a moment, comes back to life.

Later, in recovery, Matrix has another vision of the same old man, who tells him that he has much to atone for, but he's been given a new lease on life to make up for all the that evil he has done.

Matrix recovers, thinking that he had a couple of weird hallucinations from his near death experience, until one day he gets sucked through a wall into "the City In-Between" where a girl on roller skates gives him an assignment to save a troubled soul. Matrix enlists the help of his Black Best Friend -- the man who had until now always worked as his scout in all his hit-man assignments, but had never directly participated in his actual killings -- and Carrie-Anne Moss -- a woman whose health club he had been using to launder the money he had been making from Mafia hits.

Each episode had Matrix being sucked back into the City In-Between, where a new guide would hand him a new assignment.

Tropes present in the series:

 * The Atoner: Steven Matrix.
 * Black Best Friend: Billy Hicks, who was Matrix's aide and helped him set up his hits, and later helped him in his assignments to help people.
 * Career Killer: How Matrix made his living, before the series start.
 * Contract on the Hitman: How the series began.