Courtesy of FOX
Warning: Spoiler Alert
This week we pick up the pieces of Mark Solano’s infidelity (and follow-up poor choice) and the reverse phone number search they left us on. The phone number belongs to Lars Pierson. A more direct and immediate problem is where did Chloe get the cocaine from? That answer has been obvious for a couple of weeks now. It’s the boyfriend and you should have picked that up a couple of weeks ago. I do love how the teenaged girl believes the almost adult guy is such a good guy because he’s getting his GED and has a plan. Everyone has a plan, whether everything goes according to that plan or not is a different story. And having a plan does not counter balance the fact that if she wants cocaine, he can get it for her.
The crazy lady living in the trailer has to play a role. If we get to the end and discover that the show runners of Gracepoint just wanted to throw us off the scent with a painfully creepy lady, I’m going to be disappointed. Further canvassing gets us back to Jack Reinhold (Nick Nolte). The only person who has been any sort of help. Earlier he mentioned a hiker. After seeing the photo of Lars Pierson, Jack is certain Lars is the hiker.
I want to give Anna Gunn the benefit of the doubt. No one liked her on Breaking Bad because she played a disliked character exceedingly well. However, Skylar White keeps showing up on Gracepoint. Some people are Tom Hanks and some are Denzel Washington. A topic for another day.
Smart move. Police arrive and you run. Dean, Chloe’s boyfriend and coke supplier, just ran from the Detectives. Has he never watched Cops? Carver is losing it. In the pursuit something happened that caused him to fall. He still has his gun on Dean long after it wasn’t necessary. Carver has some condition (that was referenced last episode) that we still don’t know about.
Follow the drugs. We go from Chloe to her boyfriend Dean to now this Micky guy. Micky tells the story he knows. And that story involves the cocaine, Dean AND Danny. This is the first sniff of anything resembling a lead. And with Dean in the cuffed in the car, this just got a little more interesting.
Vince, Mark Solano’s apprentice and the crazy lady apparently have a connection. A connection that Vince clearly wishes wasn’t there. She informs him that they will be having dinner tonight, and Vince doesn’t have a choice. Important to remember, the crazy lady has a skateboard remarkably similar if not the same as Danny’s. Vince has a connection to Mark. They have something “to work out together”. Could be nothing, but it could also be something.
Raymond Connolly (the electrician medium) is approached by the good Reverend. There seems to be a clear interest from Rev. Coates and Beth Solano. I don’t expect this scene to end well. It started off innocent enough. But than Raymond pushed back (verbally not physically) which then forced Coates to strong-arm (again figuratively) Raymond. I’m sure that’s not the last time these two will be a thorn in each others side.
Dean is in the interrogation room and while not excited about it, does cooperate. Or at least that’s what it sounds like. He has an alibi for the night Danny was killed. However, their relationship was not that of “I hardly knew him” as Dean said earlier. After leaving the room Det. Miller confronts Carver about his ‘episode’ on the docks. He ducks out before having to answer.
Earlier Beth stormed out when she returned from her run after Mark showed her the picture of Lars Pierson. Now we catch back up with that. The problem with murder investigations is that the police are governed by a compulsion to ignore emotion, while the victims only operate with emotion. They can’t tell Beth any more than they have to per protocol. Beth wants hourly updates. Beth believes she should be the fly on the wall. With all of that said, Beth has met Lars Pierson.
Beth is adamant that the man in the photo is a man who came to the visitor center where Beth works. She was incredibly detailed in her description of him. Even down to the detail that he pointed out a picture of Chloe and Danny from her desk.
Oh Mark you are a piece of work. Mark drove past Paul Coates’ church and saw the flier for Danny’s memorial. Because Beth and Paul have a history, Mark has never been alright with that. So, Mark charges in with the anti-Paul rhetoric. There’s one MAJOR problem. Mark cheated on Beth with Gemma. Very recently. And like a person who perpetrated the wrong doing, he is projecting that onto Beth. The problem is that Beth saw him getting fresh with Gemma. Clearly, Beth is holding onto that little nugget. Waiting to see where things go. She’ll use it I’m sure. I just don’t know what she’s waiting for.
Everything Dean told them has checked out. Up to but not limited to the fact that Danny was not the ‘angel’ everyone thinks he was.
The crazy lady purchases her chicken (for cooking) from an equally creepy lady. It was like a bad drug deal, but with live chickens.
We aren’t getting much headway on a court order to search Lars Pierson’s residence. A factor that seems to outright enrage Carver. While the military discharge is virtually impossible to crack through, the chief of police did connect a few dots that lead to Pierson was on anti-psychotic medication.
Tom, Miller’s son and Danny’s best friend show up to Vince’s place. They have a cryptic conversation about what Tom’s mother knows and doesn’t know. Vince walks towards the door of the shed that houses his ‘shop’, asks Tom if his mother knows he’s even there. Tom says no and Vince looks outside, then closes the door. The very next scene following the break has Tom at home playing a handheld video game or something and completely acting anti-social to his mother. If you didn’t think Tom has something to do with this on some level, then I don’t know what you’re watching. While his mother serves up ice cream and rejects her husband’s suggestion of killing Carver with kindness, Tom goes through her work stuff looking for something. He finds Lars Pierson’s phone number and memorizes it.
Carver and Miller pay the Solano’s a visit. They wanted updates. They wanted to be kept up to date. So Carver’s plan is to give them exactly what they asked for. Starting with the security tape of Danny stealing from a gas station. There is a reason why the family of murder victims don’t have rights pertaining to the case and definitely aren’t provided a figurative ride along.
And here’s where the fiber of the family truly begins to unravel. Beth can’t process any of this. Then she asks how Danny even knows the guy that took him to the gas station much less to buy cocaine. Mark knows. Mark was all too eager to mention that the guy in question is Chloe’s boyfriend. Then came the screaming. Chloe marches out. Let me just say as a point of reference, I couldn’t walk out on my parents if they were scolding me about my grades. Chloe marched out because she didn’t want to talk about it right then. I can’t even wrap my head around that. Moving on.
Mark follows Chloe and what follows is a 15-year-old girl talking to her father as if the roles were reversed. Is Mark a bit of a p.o.s.? Sure. You don’t get to keep secret details that could affect the death of your brother and hide behind your father’s infidelity. Or at least I can’t imagine that happening in real life. Another case of the lack of realism in this show so far. Beth has shown glimpses. But there is a realism, a believability issue that I keep coming back to.
Miller: I hope you’re happy.
Carver: Why does everyone keep saying that to me today? I’m never happy.
Miller: You deserve to be as miserable as you make everyone else.
Carver: I didn’t say I was miserable, I’m just…
Miller: Do you know what you just did? All that family had left was the memory of their son and you just shattered it.
Carver: Maybe it deserved to be shattered.
Miller: WHAT? Who says such a thing? How can you even justify…
Carver: Because they want to know everything. I have one goal. One goal. To find Danny’s killer. Maybe you don’t share that goal.
Renee shows up at Owen’s door. This is not good. Somehow it feels like they will have a nice night and Renee will come away with some sort of information she shouldn’t have.
Vince did not show for the forced dinner date with the crazy lady. I could use her character’s name, but until she proves to be anything else, I want to call her the crazy lady.
Mark walks into the dining room where Beth sits lost in the middle distance. He apologizes for not telling Beth about Chloe. Her body language suggests that is not the thing he should be apologizing for. She runs through a litany of things that would admittedly bother anyone in that situation. Danny, Chloe, and the sense that she doesn’t even know her own family. She looks at Mark and says, “promise me there is nothing else I don’t know about.” Alright Mark, don’t make that promise. We are headed into a point of no return territory.
The last scene of this memorable episode that began to string together details of the case and drama beyond it, reveals a boat on fire on the water. The presumption is that Danny indeed was on a boat. So far we’ve assumed maybe it was Mark’s boat. Now it looks like that may not be the case. Stay tuned for next week’s recap of Gracepoint as I imagine the snowball rolling down the hill should gain even more speed and momentum.
