Warning: Spoiler Alert
Although NYPD Medical Examiner Henry Morgan, keeps his private life private, the same can be said for his partner on the ABC series “Forever,” Detective Jo Martinez, keeps her off-duty life to herself. We found out in the pilot that her husband died in an accident a few years ago, but precious few details of her life are known by fans of the show. That curtain of mystery, surrounding her, cracked open just a wee bit in the series latest episode, as we got our first glimpse of her late husband New York District Attorney Sean Moore.
Our first image of the evening is a New York City jewelry store, where we see all types of diamond jewelry, as we hear Tony Bennett singing “Rags To Riches,” on the soundtrack. Along with the song, we soon hear the sound of breaking glass as a man in a ski mask’s breaking the display cases and stealing the jewelry. The thief then finds the shop’s lock-box, quickly breaks it open and finds a velvet bag filled with loose diamonds. After he pockets the bag, he reaches above him with his crowbar and smashes the security camera.
We’re now outside in a different part of the city and we see a young blonde-haired men wearing a stocking cap, running as fast as he can. He runs up the steps of one of the brownstone building and raps on the front door, shortly thereafter we realize it’s Detective Martinez’s home as she answers the door, but nobody’s there.
The next morning, Martinez, Detective Mike Hanson and Morgan check out a homicide, of what appears to be a hit and run and we see the victim’s the guy who knocked on Jo’s door the night before. Morgan, informs the detectives, that this wasn’t a hit and run, the car went out of its way to hit the victim, then backed up over him to finish the job.
After Henry’s done his examination of the body he tells Martinez that the victim’s body shows prior damage leading Morgan to believe that the victim had a criminal record. They identify the victim as Aaron Brown, sent to jail in a case prosecuted by Moore. Hanson looks at the file when Martinez leaves the room and wants to kick himself when he realizes that her husband handled the case, that sent Brown to prison for robbing a jewelry store.
Martinez and Morgan interview Brown’s widow and she said her husband turned over a new leaf after he got released from prison, he stayed on the straight and narrow, trying to provide for his wife and son. Jo asks her if he had heard from any of his old cohorts and Mrs. Brown tells her that Aaron wasn’t involved in crime any more. When the widow leaves, Henry asks Martinez why she doesn’t believe Brown became a new man, she responds that in her years on the force, she’s yet to see a former criminal change his stripes.
We get our first flashback of the episode as a graphic tells us we’re visiting London’s Southwark Prison in the year 1816 and we see Henry in one of the cells trying to adjust to his manacles. Suddenly we hear a voice telling Henry to calm down, he’s been transferred from the Insane Asylum to the prison. The man’s a Catholic Priest and tries comforting Henry, a gesture he’s received from no one in many years.
The Priest says Henry appears to be a gentleman and Morgan says he once was, but after spending years locked away, he’s not sure what he is any longer. The Priest asks Morgan if there’s something he wants to get off his chest and Henry laughs, telling the cleric he’d never believe him. The Priest says when he’s ready to talk, he’ll be there to listen and at that point we realize that the Priest’s a prisoner as well, sharing the cell with Morgan.
Back at the station Jo informs Henry, that Brown’s the main suspect in a jewelry heist the night before. They head to the shop and Martinez sees a familiar face, Detective Hugh Dunn, who she attended the Academy with. Morgan then goes through the motions of the thief and as he concludes he says that Brown didn’t rob the store, but got set up to take the fall. Henry says the actual thief’s right-handed and used his left hand to make it appear to be Brown, he then says that the dead man couldn’t have smashed the camera above him as he had a torn ligament that would have kept him to reach that high.
When Henry and Jo return to the station, Lucas informs Morgan that they found the ski mask worn by the thief. He smells the mask and then asks Lucas to smell it and his assistant says it smells like pancakes. Jo and Mike watch the videotape of Brown being questioned and the man questioning him is Sean Moore. Near the end of the tape, Moore takes a call from Jo and tells her he loves and misses her and Martinez looses it and has to run out of the room. Henry comes in seconds later and sees the paused image of the tape and asks Hanson if that’s Jo’s husband.
Morgan finds his partner in front of a vending machine as the machine takes her money but refuses to drop the gum she selected. Her frustration’s immense and she tells Henry she doesn’t want to talk about her husband. Morgan agrees and she asks him why he’s looking for her and he responds he’d like her to smell some perspiration.
After Jo and Hanson identify the smell as pancakes with maple syrup, Morgan informs the detectives, that the odor’s a symptom of untreated diabetes. He then immediately picks out who he believes is their suspect, Brown’s former accomplice Diego Rodriguez, due to his skin discoloration. Mike says that Rodriguez is still in prison, but a call informs them that Rodriguez got let out three months before on good behavior. They have his address as a warehouse.
The three detectives head to the warehouse and find Rodriguez and another guy, who quickly flees the scene as they go after Rodriguez. The three detectives split up and Mike gets shot in the arm, we hear another gunshot and Dunn tells Jo he killed Rodriguez.
When Henry and Lucas perform the autopsy, they find a diamond inside Rodriguez’s abdomen, then soon discover that he swallowed a condom filled with Diamonds. Henry brings the stones to Abe, who tells Morgan that the stones are flawed and not worth much, contradicting the value that the store owner said they were worth.
Jo and Henry go to visit Mike in the hospital and Hanson says the case’s solved, Rodriguez was the thief and killed Brown, but Henry says there’s something wrong as the stones were supposedly much higher quality than the lot found in the abdomen. Mike asks Martinez to summon his doctor as his pain meds are wearing off, then asks Henry to drop the case, as it’s killing Jo.
Henry decides that he and Lucas will do the detective work and they trace Brown’s steps the night he got killed. Morgan realizes the red paint on Brown’s hand came from a red door of the house they just discovered, he knocks at the door and Jo answers it. He tells her he believes Brown knocked on her door the night he died and she recalls going to the door, but no one was there. They then realize that Brown came looking for Sean.
They interview Brown’s widow again and this time Jo tells her that she believes Aaron was an innocent victim and he might have tried to find Jo’s husband the night he got killed. When Mrs. Brown finds out Sean Moore’s Jo’s husband her face lightens up and says that Sean got Aaron’s cell reduced so he could have a life with her and their son. She then tells Jo, she’s got the greatest husband and Martinez thanks her.
The pair end up in a bar and she tells Henry she just wants to drink and stay silent, Henry says he has to say one thing, a splash of water will bring out the full flavor of the rye she’s drinking. After about ten seconds of silence Morgan tells his partner that she needs to deal with Sean’s death sometime and she says she will, but not tonight.
She wakes up the next morning at Henry and Abe’s and asked how she got there, Henry explains Abe picked them up after the bar closed and they brought her to their place so Abe could give her his famous hangover cure. She takes a sip says it’s awful but her head’s clear. Abe believes somebody robbed a statue from his store and Jo asks how much it was insured for and Henry says nothing because the statue was a fake. Abe then says he can use his blanket policy and likely recoup more than the statue’s worth. Immediately Henry and Jo deduce that the store owner may have set the whole thing up, to get a windfall from his insurance company.
When they arrive at the station, Dunn’s there and Martinez tells Dunn she thinks Phil Fleishman, the store owner set the robbery up and Dunn and Jo drive to Fleishman’s store.
Back in 1816, Morgan’s told the Priest his secret and the cleric not only believes him, he says they were both sent to the prison for a reason and the Priest’s reason’s to help Henry. He talks Henry into hanging himself and tells Morgan, that when he’s reborn to move far away and put this life behind. When Henry’s neck breaks, his body vanishes.
Hanson comes into the morgue and suddenly Morgan questions if it was really Rodriguez that shot him, they act out the scenario and realize that Dunn actually shot Mike, then killed Rodriguez and planted the gun on his body. Hugh and Jo are driving to the store when they get a call that Fleishman’s not at his store and must be at his home in the other direction, so Martinez pulls the car around and starts driving the other way. However Dunn blew his cover when he mentions Jo lives in Washington Heights. Her address was kept secret to keep Sean protected, she slips a blue-tooth receiver in her ear and calls Hanson’s cell phone.
Dunn soon realizes she knows what’s going on and pulls his gun on her. Henry tells her to smash the car into an upcoming barrier and make sure she hits the middle of the barrier. She does and survives the crash with just minor abrasions.
She returns to the station and Mike tells her to head home or she can come to his house and have dinner with his wife and children. Jo says she’s heading home, but she grabs the videotape from Brown’s records. She sits at home playing and rewinding the tape, when there’s a knock at the door, Henry thought she could use some company.
They sit on Jo’s front steps each holding a mug and she tells Henry her lost conversation with Sean was an argument, before he traveled to Washington where he got killed. She says she never got to apologize and Morgan tells her they were in love and Sean knew she was sorry.
The Story Continues Tuesday February 3, at 10:00 pm on ABC.
