Scribblings of a Law Student

Person of Interest - "Legacy"

2012-01-22T14:13:00.000-05:00

Person of Interest 1.12: “Legacy”

“I give you an address and you promise me no one would get dead. And what happens?”
- Detective Carter

Detective Carter is sitting in a coffee shop, anxiously looking around at every well-dressed guy with dark hair that walks in. She’s obviously looking for Reese. And in typical fashion, he just appears behind her. She wants to know more about how they get their intel and all Reese tells her is that they get information about people about to be involved in crimes or commit them and he asks her to unseal a juvenile record of this week’s number (Andrea Gutierrez). Reese also gives Carter a phone so he can call her when he needs to.

We next see Andrea walking into the courthouse (getting knocked over by some guy and having to rip off the bows on her shoes when one rips). She’s not had the easiest of upbringings but she fought her way through law school and is now trying to carve a niche in the legal field representing ex-cons and inmates with grievances against the State. Sadly she’s 0-6 and her current case isn’t going well. Her client’s parole officer found drugs in his apartment but he tested clean. She heads over to the Department of Family Services to try and get a copy of the blood test but gets shooed away by the supervisor.

That night, Reese is tailing Andrea and she stops for drinks with some friends. This gives Carter time to call him and share what she found about Andrea’s juvenile record. In a somewhat comedic scene, Lionel calls Reese to tell him Carter’s up to something. Finch makes the comment that it will get really complicated keeping both detectives in the dark about each other but Reese isn’t worried. I have to say I was thinking the same thing as Finch. Whenever they do find out about each other it’s going to be great. As Reese ends his call with Carter, he spots someone else following Andrea. He manages to catch the guy in a great locked off comedy shot and starts to pummel him but the other guy has a little fight training and Reese is still recovering from his gunshot wounds. But Andrea is safe for now.

The next morning, Reese shows up at HQ and tries to log on to Finch’s computer but obviously has no luck. Just as Reese starts telling Finch that they need Andrea’s files to see if the guy he ran into the night before is a former client, Finch gets a call and races off to bail out a young man named Will. It’s quite obvious they have some kind of past. It turns out that Will is Nathan’s son and he’s going to be sticking around for a while. He was a doctor traveling around the world but he wants to get to know his father (even though daddy is dead). It looks like we have someone else who is interested in trying to find out more about the Machine. Meanwhile, Carter’s been tasked with finding out where one would buy the brand of steroids Reese found on the thug as he goes off to meet with Andrea.

Reese tells Andrea he wants to sue his manipulative, eccentric boss for bad working conditions. It’s kind of amusing the way he describes Finch so well. Andrea says she can help him (he promises he can pay up front) but she has to go tend to her current case by bringing her client’s son by. He’s been in foster care since her client got arrested. Reese is outside the prison in his car listening when Carter calls with information on the steroids. She gives him three locations with the condition that she’d better not be called to any of them as a crime scene. Yeah, that doesn’t work so well. At the third place, Reese finds the guy and chases him right into the path of an oncoming garbage truck. So much for that lead.

Well, Reese and Finch manage to find the connection between the dead guy and Andrea’s current client. They share a parole officer and the dead guy had just under $10,000 on him. Looks like a payoff and Reese says so as Carter calls to berate him for getting someone dead. Reese has more pressing matters. He’s found the parole officer, Galuska, shaking down another parolee. So of course Reese has to intervene. Carter is rather annoyed about Reese framing Galuska for threatening a parolee but she is going to interrogate him as several of his parolees have claimed he planted evidence. And Reese has given Lionel a new job. Carter’s interrogation doesn’t go well and Reese pays another visit to Andrea just to check on her. Well, and he also stopped by Galuska’s apartment to “borrow” his computer. He and Finch find some interesting data in Galuska’s checking account. He got deposits every time he sent one of his parolees back to prison. And he made withdrawals of just under $10,000 the night the dead guy first tied to take out Andrea and he’s just made another one. Reese tracks Andrea down at the NYU law library and takes out another assailant just in time.

Reese takes Andrea to a safe house and kind of explains the situation. Once he’s satisfied she’ll be safe, he goes to meet Carter. She’s found a pattern in the parolees Galuska sent back to prison. They’re all single parents. Now it’s time to look at someone in the Department of Family Services. Carter brings in the couple fostering the son of Andrea’s current client. They eventually admit that most of the kids listed as being in their care don’t exist. Finch interrupts the investigation to tell Carter she should let the couple make their phone call. He and Reese have a plan for catching the DFS member in action by installing a scanner inside the document shredder. Unfortunately Reese realizes it’s not the person they thought (he followed the head of Foster Placement after she left work early) just as Andrea gets a call from her client telling her he’s going to be moved to Attica. Andrea promises to fix it and goes to DFS where she runs into her contact (Chris) and realizes he’s Galuska’s partner.

Reese shows up just in time to stop Chris from hurting Andrea and Carter arrives to arrest him. They make a pretty good team. They’ve got this really funny banter where Carter sort of brags about what she can do to move the case forward without having to shoot anyone. Andrea settles her client’s case for $10 million (I’d take a $300,000 fee too). We end with Lionel checking in with Reese while on his new job; tailing Finch. This is going to get interesting.

Body of Proof - "Sympathy for the Devil"

2012-01-22T10:49:00.001-05:00

Body of Proof 2.13: “Sympathy for the Devil”

“This is never a place where the living disparage the dead so keep your opinions to yourself and focus on the facts.”
- Megan

We begin this week with a new program reporting on a woman named Hilary Stone who has just been acquitted of murdering her 5-year-old son. Interestingly, the sitting judge on the case was Megan’s mother. The next thing we see, rain is falling on dirt and obscuring a face. Megan, Peter and Bud arrive and Megan quickly deduces that the dead body is in fact Hilary Stone. In short order, news crews, including Sheila Temple (whose news program was on at the start of the episode) are trying to get a statement out of Kate but blows them off. Bud comments that they have 1.5 million suspects (the population of Philly). Megan and Kate are more focused on Hilary’s injuries. She has a wound on her head and bruising on her neck that might indicate she was strangled. Unfortunately, the media circus has followed our crew back to the office. I can already tell I’m going to want to reach through my computer screen and strangle the reporter. Ms. Temple is commenting on whether Megan doing to autopsy is a conflict of interest seeing as her mother presided over the case.

Inside the lab, Ethan tries to get Curtis to check out Sheila’s website for information on their victim and her prior court case but Curtis isn’t interested. And he kind of goes badass on a reporter and cameraman who are trying to sneak in the building. Ethan heads into autopsy and makes a rather rude remark about Hilary, to which Megan promptly reminds him to keep his opinions to himself. They start the external exam and Ethan finds some abrasions on her back and a cut on her leg. And Peter needs them to run a sexual assault kit. Just as Ethan heads off to collect some trace and start the kit, Megan finds dirt under Hilary’s eyelids. She was buried alive.

Megan tells Kate that she’s got a preliminary cause of death and kind of flips out on Ethan (again) when he points out that Hilary has no defensive wounds. She tells him to section all of her organs and write up the autopsy report so he can get to know Hilary, not what he’s heard about her on news programs. Meanwhile, Bud is down helping Hilary’s mother into the building. She’s been mobbed by people and I honestly thought Bud might punch Sheila Temple as she tried to get a comment out of Hilary’s mom. Kate and Megan are very sympathetic to Hilary’s mother as she explains her daughter’s history. Things get a little awkward when she spots Megan’s mom. Guess there might be a conflict after all depending on what Joan has to say. It turns out a reporter did an op-ed piece on Joan and since her election is the next day, she wants Megan to keep her mouth shut. Over in the break room, Ethan is being kind of a brat. He’s watching the news as Megan comes in and he says he’s finished all his work and he’s just waiting on the sexual assault results. Too bad Megan yanked his iPad away and sees he got the results five minutes earlier. He throws kind of a hissy fit about the fact that he thinks Hilary did kill her son and that the child never got justice. Megan tells him basically to grow up. Curtis swings by Kate’s office with an update on Hilary’s toxicology panel. She had alcohol and some drugs in her system.

Over at the station, Bud is fending off people claiming they killed Hilary. Peter’s in the thick of it too until Megan shows up and tells Bud that the DNA from the sexual assault kit belongs to Hilary’s ex-boyfriend (and the father of her son). He’s doing an interview on Sheila Temple’s show and it looks like he’s asking for justice for both his son and Hilary. Until Bud and Megan show up and claim it’s their turn to talk to the killer. Craig claims that after Hilary was released, she showed up at his place, they had a few drinks and had sex. He claims he didn’t kill her and that when he woke up, she was gone. Next we find out that there is evidence in Hilary’s brain tissue that she was strangled and Ethan reveals that the trace from the cut on her leg was from sealant around a window on a boat. Megan sends Peter and Bud to the marina and they find a prison guard cleaning up glass on her boat. She knew Hilary while she was in jail and locked Hilary in when she showed up. She also drugged her with some sedatives. This case is really complicated!

Megan and Peter are processing the boat and Peter finds some skin cells on a pillow. There was also a combination lock on the door. So Hilary couldn’t get out but if someone knew the combination, they could get in. Turns out the skin cells had dandruff. And Megan has an idea of who that is. After a little deflecting about her mother’s judgment in Hilary’s case, Megan outright accuses Sheila of Hilary’s murder. Sheila admits to being at the boat and to providing the prison guard with incentives to get close to Hilary. But when Sheila and crew showed up at the boat, Hilary was gone. All of which is backed up by the footage Bud demands to see. Meanwhile, Megan shows up at the polls and she and her mother are accosted by a jerk in front of them in line. Bud and Sheila are watching more of the footage she shot at the crime scene and Bud recognizes one of the people who came in saying he’d killed Hilary. They bring him in and his story sounds pretty good, including an injury to the left kidney. That wasn’t in the press but something’s off. Megan and Peter are looking at the kidneys and x-rays. The left kidney has a puncture but the right rib is broken. Ethan screwed up the report. Big time.

Megan calls Ethan down to autopsy and rips into him quite ferociously about screwing up the findings and the report. Kate appears and hauls Ethan off for some more verbal battering but ultimately tells him to go home and come back in the morning. It seems that Megan is trying to cool off by checking the latest on the poll results and finds her mother lost (to no one.) Her mom is pretty upset and shell shocked but Megan doesn’t have much time to help her through it. She has to go reexamine Hilary’s body. Megan looks at the evidence again and realizes that Hilary didn’t walk to the construction site where she died; she caught a ride with her killer.

Ethan is back and acting like a normal person and he finds skid marks and tire treads at the crime scene that least to Hilary’s mom’s car. She begs to see Hilary’s body before she explains and Megan lets her. It turns out Hilary told her mom (after getting picked up at the marina) that she only went to sleep with Craig to have another baby. In that moment, Hilary’s mom knew she’d killed her son. But she hadn’t meant to kill Hilary. It really was very sad. We end this week with Megan stopping by her mother’s place to find her making jam. She’s recused herself from the bench and it seems that she and Megan might have a stronger relationship because of it.

Person of Interest - "Super"

2012-01-19T12:45:00.001-05:00

Person of Interest 1.11: “Super”

“Possible Threat Detected. Subject: Ingram, Nathan C.”
- The Machine

With our first episode of 2012, we’re right back where we ended the last episode. We see Reese get shot and then we end up in a Coroner’s office where Finch pays the Coroner (who was a well-respected surgeon in his home country but can’t afford a US license) to stich Reese up with no questions asked. The next morning, Carter leaves her apartment building and spots a green truck on the street and a few guys in suits standing around. Agent Snow appears and tells Carter that they’re watching her to see if Reese contacts her, since it was odd that he managed to get away. After some posturing where Carter and Snow remind each other that threatening a cop and lying to a fed are crimes, Carter heads to work and uses Lionel’s computer. Guess she’s concerned the Feds are bugging hers. She finds the picture of Finch from the bank robbery and realizes she had his cell number the whole time. Too bad it’s been disconnected. Regardless, she puts in a request for all the data on the number.

We have some interesting flashbacks this week, to 2005. They involve Finch and his partner, Nathan Ingram before Nathan died. Nathan is meeting with a woman named Alicia who is from one of the alphabet agencies and she tells Nathan that if they don’t see progress, the funding will be pulled. So he gives her a 9-digit number (a social security number) as Finch watches. Finch assures Nathan that the number will pan out. The Machine just knows. Back in the present, Reese is wheelchair bound and moving into an apartment. The super, a guy named Trask (Sergeant Batista from Dexter) is kind of rambling on about how he used to have six night clubs down in Miami with a mansion and exotic pets. Once he leaves, Finch materializes (breaking that space-time continuum again) and says that given the situation, he thought Reese should be somewhere low profile. Besides, Snow is focusing all his attention on Carter.

And of course, Reese isn’t really there to rest. Trask is their latest number and Finch has verified the guy bought an untraceable handgun. So Finch hacks the entire building’s Wi-Fi signal. We get a really amusing scene where Reese comments on one of the tenants doing yoga, saying she’s “healthy” with an accompanying head tilt of interest. What made it even better was Finch did it, too. Speaking of, Finch has gotten Reese some house-warming presents including books and donut to sit on. Reese’s expression when he sees the donut is great. Meanwhile, Snow and his buddy are watching Carter but all she’s doing is paperwork. She knows what kind of game they’re playing and she’s not going to make it easy for them.

Back at the apartment building, Reese notices that Lily (a cook) appears to be dating Rick, the guy who lives in the penthouse. Finch has managed to verify some details about Trask’s history but says he’s likely got a wild imagination since he didn’t actually have all the luxury he said he did. Reese picks up on the security guard who has been trying to find a jewelry thief. That could a potential victim for Trask. The only way to know who the intended victim might be is for Finch to do a little leg work. He gets into Trask’s apartment easily enough, thanks to Reese taking a hammer to his bathroom, but gets caught when Trask realizes he needs a different wrench. Finch does plant a few cameras and find lots of pictures of Lily.

They solve one mystery as Finch is trying to escape and get back up to Reese. The security guard is coming out of an apartment when he spots Finch and Reese rolls back the video to see the guard is the one stealing the jewelry. Finch gives the guy a choice, they can call the cops or each go on their way like they’d never seen each other. Obviously the security guard takes the second option. And we head in to our second flashback of the week.

Finch races into Nathan’s office and disables his computer just as Alicia and her boss arrive. The social security number indeed panned out. They caught a traitor in the government selling weapons-grade uranium to enemy governments. But Alicia’s boss (Weeks) doesn’t like that there’s not control over the Machine. But he’s really got not choice, seeing as price isn’t an issue (Nathan is developing the Machine for $1). In the next room, Finch is listening in to the conversation while the Machine analyzes the situation and determines that Weeks is a threat to the system. I like that the Machine is becoming its own character, with a little bit of personality.

Back in 2012, Finch and Reese need to get eyes on Lily at work and at home. Unfortunately for her, someone else has been watching her. Finch finds a wireless camera in her heating vent. Poor girl just can’t get away. Over at the precinct, Carter gets the cell phone data on Finch’s phone and sets out to lose her FBI tail and does it pretty well. She commandeers a guy’s coat and hails a cab. Finch has made it to Lily’s work and is watching her and sees her receive some flowers that she immediately tosses in the trash. It’s safe to say she knows that someone is stalking her. Reese isn’t having much luck on his end with the tech side of things. I think he prefers to hit people. Finch has also enlisted Lionel to help throw the CIA off Reese’s trail by giving him a pill bottle with Reese’s prints. It works, too. The CIA get the hit and head off to Connecticut.

Later that night, Carter ends up at the last location Finch’s phone was used and Finch ends up calling a meeting. Carter wants answers but Finch isn’t going to give them up very easily. He does give her a target to focus on, a drunk named Derek Watson. She does a little digging and ends up stopping him before he shoots the guy that foreclosed on his house. She’s got a little bit of an idea of what our dynamic duo does. And things are finally coning to a head at the apartment building. Finch and Lily are on the way back and Reese realizes (thanks to some video watching) that Trask is after Rick. We see Trask confront Rick but Reese does a little MacGuyver-ing and sets off the fire alarm to divert Trask’s attention. Reese confronts Trask but just as he think he knows what’s going on, Finch finds out the hidden network was from Rick. Reese is going to have to whip a can of whoop-ass on Rick to save Lily. Fighting on crutches with gunshot wounds is tough but Reese manages it and Rick ends up flying out a window and going ‘splat’ on the ground. No more possessive stalker guy. We find out that Trask is in WITSEC after testifying against the Cuban mafia. So everything he said was true.

We end this week with our final flashback to 2005. Finch pops the hood as it were on the Machine to explain how it picked out the traitor. It was the tiniest thread linking him to his contact and Finch seems glad that Nathan is the only person to know how it works. Finch is fine with the world not knowing he created the Machine because that’s the only way he can ensure the government uses it properly. Too bad he doesn’t realize his brother-in-arms could be the next victim or perpetrator.

Body of Proof - "Shades of Blue"

2012-01-16T15:11:00.000-05:00

Body of Proof 2.12: “Shades of Blue”

“Would you do an autopsy on a friend?”
“I’d prefer not to.”
“Well that’s what you’re asking me to do to Meeks.”
- Peter and Kate

This week we find ourselves at a truck stop late at night where a driver finds a dead body after nearly running over a guy. Megan rolls up with an extra coffee for Peter but he was thinking the same thing. Guess it’s good if you like coffee. Bud’s not on scene because his wife is having a bad bout of morning sickness. The other cops on scene are kind of jerks, saying the dead guy is likely a dealer or an addict. Either way, the victim (Johnny Vasquez) was killed execution style. Back at the lab Megan and Ethan are doing the external body exam and find some hairs (Vasquez is bald so it’s likely the killer). Peter stops by with some information on the sawdust on Johnny’s boots. Bud immediately identifies it as used in dive bars to clean up beer and he and Sam head to one of the two near the crime scene. The waitress is high but Sam agrees to not arrest her if she gives them the names of Johnny’s associates. Meanwhile, back at the lab, Megan’s autopsy is unremarkable. Johnny wasn’t an addict but he had drugs in his system. Turns out, once Peter tries to call the guy’s parole officer, Johnny isn’t really Johnny. He’s an undercover cop named Eddie Castillo.

The undercover cop unit is pretty gung ho about finding Eddie’s killer and Megan and Kate are a little surprised. Bud and Sam get back from the bar only to get a call that the waitress they just talked to got caught trying to rob the place. She claims it was because she’d ratted people to the cops. She was afraid for her life and didn’t want to stick around. Back at the lab, Megan and Peter are talking to Eddie’s wife. Not much of value comes out of it, other than that he didn’t break his wrist in a prison fight. Ethan and Curtis are in the lab and Ethan finds some non-biological material in the knuckle wound from Eddie’s hand. Curtis bemoans the fact that it’s going to be a lose-lose situation with a cop killer case until Ethan says he identified who the hairs belong to, a 2-time felon named Quinten. Meeks (Eddie’s current and Peter’s former partner) is really pissed off when he hears the news. His captain agrees to let Meeks go as back up to bring in Quinten.

Megan’s not sure things are all squared away. Quinten tested negative for drugs consistently after his last arrest but the hair found is positive and all the same length. They came from police evidence. Things are not going to go well at the raid. Meeks sort of sneaks off from the group and gets into Quinten’s apartment just as Peter calls Bud and Sam to tell them that Quinten’s being set up by a cop. The SWAT team busts in and stops Meeks from shooting Quinten. Too bad their captain is really pissed off at Kate and Megan for interrupting the operation. He doesn’t think their evidence was compelling. So Megan goes to get a fresh hair sample from Quinten. Ethan finally figures out what the trace was from Eddie’s hand wound: gold from a dental filling. There’s another strike against Meeks. Peter ends up at a bar where Meeks is wallowing in his suspension. Peter is a little horrified to find out that Meeks doesn’t have an alibi for the time of Eddie’s death. He was five miles from the crime scene.

Before Peter can say much more Megan summons him back to the lab. She’s not happy she found out from Ethan about the filling being a match to Meeks. Peter pretty much tells her that he believes his partner and that if they go after Meeks, he (Peter) can’t be with them. I kind of feel bad for Peter. But only a little. Next thing we know, Megan is demanding to see the murder weapon to see if Meeks planted it or not and threatens to have the entire homicide division drug tested to do it. Kate steps in and demands Peter do it, even if it makes him uncomfortable. She tells him that he needs to pick a team.

It looks like Peter has chosen the lab when he tells the captain he doesn’t want to go back to the force. But he only gets the gun by telling the captain about Megan. I’m not sure I really want to know what Peter told him. It seems a little creepy. Before Peter gets back, Bud brings Jeannie by the meet Megan. She’s been having some difficulties (frequent urination and drinking lots of orange juice). With a quick blood test, Megan guesses Jeannie has gestational diabetes. Peter drops off the gun and Megan has a bit of a problem firing. The gun recoils and the slide catches her between her thumb and forefinger. To make matters worse, the two cops from the crime scene show up with a bottle of urine with a bow on it. Really mature. Not.

But there is some good that comes of the bottle of urine. It proves that none of the cops in the homicide division were taking illegal drugs. Unfortunately, the test Megan did on the gun came up with no new evidence. Curtis found a minute trace of latex with partial DNA in the box it was processed in. Megan gets Peter begrudgingly to bring Meeks in to take a blood sample. Meanwhile, Bud and Sam meet up with the waitress. She’s been let go and told that the record producer that Eddie called wants to meet with her if she can get clean. Guess there’s one happy ending.

Bud stops by Megan’s office to tell her that she was right. Jeannie has gestational diabetes but it’s manageable. Megan is glad and when Bud says he owes her, she gets him to go and arrest Meeks. I’m not 100% sure that he did it. The two other cops that were at the scene are kind of jerks and a little sketchy. Anyway, the captain tells the whole squad to write down statements regarding Meeks’ involvement in the case. All is not as it seems though. Peter busts in to find out that arresting Charlie was just to get the others on camera signing their names so they could find the real killer. And I totally called it. One of the two cops from the crime scene was the killer. We end with some encouraging moments. Bud and his wife bond over beans and he promises everything will be fine and Megan and Peter are back on good terms.

Body of Proof - "Falling for You"

2012-01-07T11:12:00.001-05:00

Body of Proof 2.11: “Falling for You”

“Since when do you need an invitation to commit murder?”
- Bud

We find ourselves at a Jewish wedding shortly before the ceremony is to start. We hear a scream and the bride comes flying out of a hotel window and crashes to the ground. Not the best way to start a wedding. Meanwhile, Lacey keeps asking her mom cosmetic stuff (is she fat, does she need a nose job). Megan tells Lacey she’s perfect the way she is just in time for Lacey to run off with a friend. Luckily, Megan gets the call about the dead bride-to-be. Megan is not a fan of weddings (well she is divorced). The bride-to-be’s name is Melissa. She’s got multiple injuries (duh). There’s some debate on whether she was pushed or it was a suicide. Peter and Dani are thinking suicide but Bud’s in the “murder” camp.

Things at the lab are kind of awkward. Curtis is on a diet so he’s cranky and Ethan tries and fails to get Dani to go on a date with him (though she agrees to a Sunday matinee of a movie). Poor guy. There’s just no competing with Peter. In autopsy, Megan and Kate are going over Melissa’s body and find residue and particles consistent with crashing through a tree branch and the wedding canopy. Bud’s in a mood that no one seems to know where it’s coming from. But he’s a little happier when Megan discovers a Melissa had a black eye. So he is going to check out the groom. Bud finds the father of the bride slugging the groom and blaming him for the bride’s death. Bud and Sam take them back to the precinct for a chat. The groom says that Melissa was traditional so he hadn’t seen her since the rehearsal dinner the night before and he had no idea about the black eye. Melissa’s father is still gung ho about blaming the groom.

Meanwhile, the antics around the lab get worse. Ethan sees Peter and Dani flirting. And Curtis considers liposuction as Megan and Kate go over all the work Melissa apparently had done. And she’s apparently had her thyroid removed. And she had alcohol and anti-depressants in her system. Bud and Sam are off to talk to the maid of honor. Apparently Melissa was having second thoughts and maybe it had something to do with her ex-boyfriend being back in town. The next morning, Megan threatens Lacey with no computer if she doesn’t eat and gets a call from Ethan about the missing thyroid. She had to have it removed. She was given meds to stabilize her hormones but they didn’t show up in the labs Ethan ran. No wonder she was depressed.

Megan and Lacey are out shopping and Lacey tries on some rather provocative clothing (for a thirteen-year-old). Megan also nixes Lacey wanting to dye her hair. We then head over to the lab where Megan and Kate are meeting with Melissa’s father and step-mom. They say she was shy and overweight after her mother’s death. But after she had her thyroid removed she was more out-going. Her dad didn’t want her to have all the plastic surgery and it strained their relationship. Bud and Sam go to talk to the ex-boyfriend, Zack. Bud is still in a mood and kind of snippy with the guy and outright says he was so pissed when he came back to find Melissa engaged that he helped her off the balcony. Zack says he’s done talking and shuts the door in their face. Apparently Bud’s wife has been up all night lately because of the pregnancy. So he’s cranky.

We have our much needed Ethan/Curtis comedy bit. They’re trying to figure out the trajectory of Melissa’s fall and Ethan whines about Dani dating Peter. They do discover, however, that she didn’t jump. And they find her missing earring. Over at the plastic surgeon’s office, Megan is in a funk, too. She brings up her father’s suicide and that he never left a note. So she’s trying to understand. She’s also pretty hostile with the doctor. Not surprising given Lacey’s latest kick. As they leave, peter asks who paid for all the plastic surgery. Turns out ex-boyfriend Zack bank-rolled it. Not looking good for him. Back at the lab, Ethan is eating pizza and bolts when he sees Curtis coming and ends up in autopsy. He and Kate find a bit of metallic something in Melissa’s leg wound. Ethan makes the connection that he and Curtis saw paint chip on the bridal suite balcony. She broke her leg before crashing to the ground.

Bud has obviously hauled Zack in and has gone through the guy’s emails. Zack admits to trying to keep in contact and get Melissa back but he denies being at the wedding. He wasn’t even invited. That doesn’t seem to deter Bud. He also gets the groom to drop off some pictures from the wedding. And all is not well in paradise. Peter foolishly decides to go to a hockey game with a friend instead of out with Dani. I think she might be heading Ethan’s way. As they’re looking at the photos Megan sees a picture of the maid of honor giving Melissa aspirin. Combining Botox with aspirin inhibits coagulation and causes black eyes. The maid of honor was jealous of the fact that Melissa got the groom first.

Megan is not having any luck on the Lacey front. Especially when her daughter comes home having dyed her hair with over the counter product. And Lacey refuses to change it. I hope this doesn’t last too long. It’s kind of irritating. Bud has news for Megan. The hotel finally let him see footages from the elevator security tapes and Zack was on it. He went to try and talk Melissa out of the wedding and bolted when he saw her father. Apparently he hated Zack for paying for all the surgeries. Bud and Sam hit a similar road block with the father. Though they did find a shiny motived for murder. A clause in his late wife’s will. Meanwhile, Ethan finds Curtis chowing down on some cake after Kate sort of flips out on him for not doing what she asked. It was a touching little scene of bonding. I have to say those two are some of my favorites on the show and whenever they have scenes together it’s always great.

Ethan tracks down Dani and asks what’s wrong with him. She apologizes for leading him on and he cancels their movie Sunday. However, there is some good news at the lab. There was hair on Melissa’s earring and it matches her father’s DNA. They head over to the funeral to stop Melissa’s father from leaving town after the funeral. But Megan deduces it wasn’t her father that did it. It was the groom (based on his boutonniere). He admits to it, though he says it was an accident. She tried to call off the wedding and he pushed her away when she tried to hug him and she fell. Ethan finally confronts Peter and while there’s not much he can do to keep Peter from seeing Dani, he tells him to not break her heart. And we finally figure out what Lacey’s so upset about. She was invited to a party and so thought she wasn’t one of the ‘cool’ kids so tried to change how she looked. Megan assures her that she is perfect and they laugh about the awful color she’s turned her hair. They’ll be taking a trip to the hairdresser to fix it.

Person of Interest - "Number Crunch"

2011-12-26T18:35:00.000-05:00

Person of Interest 1.10: “Number Crunch”

“Finch, you said the machine would give us the number in time. It didn’t.”
- Reese

We begin this week in the Machine’s POV for once and we see a car flip and crash on an empty road. We also hear some kind of phone conversation between two men who are looking for a kid. We jump to HQ where Reese wanders in but doesn’t find Finch. He heads to one of the bookshelves and finds a picture of Harold and his partner from back when they first starting the whole project. Finch materializes (sadly not out of a break in the space-time continuum) and says they have 4 numbers. Three women and a man, all seemingly unconnected. Finch sends Reese off to find Claire, she was the first number.

Over at the police precinct, Carter is dealing with an inquiry over the shooting between her, Bottlecap (her CI) and Reese. She maintains she thinks it was Reese who saved her but that she doesn’t know and she didn’t see him. She tells them she won’t talk again unless her union rep is present and slinks back out to her desk where she’s been placed until everything is sorted. Lionel says that maybe it’s good she didn’t see Reese’s face because she wouldn’t know whether to thank him or arrest him. She says it would be easy to arrest him. Speaking of Reese, he shows up at Claire’s apartment to find it crawling with cops. He somehow manages to slip on a CSU jacket without anyone noticing and getting into the crime scene. Claire is dead.

We get another view of the car accident and this time we see 2 cars drive up on the scene and the drivers get out before cutting back to Claire’s apartment. It’s definitely a new way of using the Machine to sort of build the story throughout the episode. Anyway, Reese manages to snag Claire’s cell phone and downloads a little off her laptop before Lionel and his temporary partner (Detective “Happy”) show up. It appears Claire recently came into some money and bought all kinds of things for herself before she got beaten up and shot. Outside, Reese tasks Finch with tracking the guy of their quartet while he plans to put Lionel on one of the remaining women. Back at the precinct, Carter gets called into the Captain’s office and meets a guy in a suit (government type) and ends up admitting that Reese did shoot her CI. She doesn’t seem happy about it.

Reese is following Wendy, a hair stylist and she’s at work at her salon. This is one of the funniest bits of this show to date. He follows a guy on a motorcycle into the salon only find out he’s a messenger and then Reese gets snagged into a haircut. He looks absolutely befuddled at what’s happening. It’s honestly kind of cute and adorable (not 2 words normally associated with Jim Caviezel). Out on the street, Lionel is trying to keep an eye on Paula but she spots him and takes off after possibly buying a gun. Meanwhile, Finch is keeping an eye on the guy (Matt). Unfortunately, Wendy’s also given Reese the slip. Finch sees Matt buy a motorcycle after quitting his job. Just as he gets back in his car, a woman walks by and leaves a baby stroller which turns out to be a bomb. So that’s two of the four numbers down.

Finch is kind of going into overdrive analyzing what he should of done differently to try and save Matt. But Reese tells him that there’s nothing he could have done and they need to focus on finding Paula and Wendy. Finch has figured out that Wendy, Claire and Matt were all at the same car crash (the one we keep getting snippets of). Reese heads off to Wendy’s mom’s address in the hopes of finding Wendy. The cops (thanks to Carter’s boredom) find out that the driver was the son of a Congressman who is friendly with the police unions and auditing the Wall Street banks. Guess that’s one way to hush it up. Reese, Finch and Lionel have a little conference call where Reese verifies what he already knows and Finch tells Lionel to keep his phone on when talking to the Congressman.

The interview with the Congressman yields some interesting information. The Congressman’s son was at a party hosted by one of the men the Congressman was auditing. And Finch discovers that the route from the party to the crash site is nowhere near the son’s house. Things are looking a little fishy. Meanwhile, Reese has found Wendy and Paula. Paula has a gun and Reese is getting ready to shoot her (because everybody carries sniper rifles with them) when the girls embrace. Turns out they’re foster sisters. And Reese has arrived just in time to keep them from getting riddled with bullet holes. Too bad they run off as he’s fighting the shooters.

After a little digging, Reese and Finch discover that Wendy and Paula’s mom was about to lose her house to foreclosure. So at least they had a use for the money they took. Meanwhile, Lionel and Carter get the crash footage and Carters over to the 82nd precinct to talk to a Detective Foster. Turns out it was bogus and Carter makes the 2 CIA guys following her. They head for a café to have a chat. Honestly, I was surprised it took us this long to get to the parts that were used in this week’s promo. The CIA guys explain to Carter who Reese is and claims he killed his partner and went underground. They want to bring him in and since they think Reese trusts Carter, she can help them. Yeah, I don’t trust these guys.

Lionel and Detective Happy talk to the banker and he says the same thing about the Congressman’s son as the Congressman. They’re working something together. Meanwhile, Reese has found Wendy at the hospital and we learn that she and Paula want to give the money back. Finch also discovers that the son was heading to the Caiman Islands on the banker’s private jet. Unfortunately for Wending and Paula, one of the bad guys nabs Paula at the vending machine and demands the money from Wendy as a ransom. Finch pays the Congressman a visit and plants the seed that the banker is going to screw him over with his son’s charity. He gets a video recording of a phone call between the Congressman and the banker plotting to tie up loose ends before moving the money. Meanwhile, Reese calls Carter to kind of apologize for getting her in hot water at work. She thanks him for saving her life and he hangs up on her after telling her about the money exchange in the parking garage. So she’s thanked him and now she’s about to get him arrested (she calls the CIA guys). At least she looks a little regretful while she’s making the call.

Reese wraps up the shooters after Paula and Wendy easily enough (one was a woman who looked like a nurse). Unfortunately, Reese walks out to the roof towards his car only to be stopped by Agent Snow and Carter. Finch rewatches the video feed on Carter and sees she sold Reese out. He’s on his way but it’s too late. The second CIA guy shoots Reese once in the stomach and once in the leg. He manages to get away but he’s not looking hot. He’s all sweaty and bleeding. He tries to tell Finch to stay away but that only makes Finch drive faster. And Carter’s on Reese’s trail. She finally catches up just as Finch is helping Reese towards the car. She recognizes Finch (from one of the bank robbery episode) but ultimately decides to let them go. She even helps Reese into the back seat. This going to be an interesting second half of the season when it comes back from hiatus.

Person of Interest - "Get Carter"

2011-12-26T18:34:00.000-05:00

Person of Interest 1.09: “Get Carter”

“We got into this to stop bad things from happening to good people. Carter’s been doing that her whole life. She’s not just another number, Finch. Some people the world can’t afford to lose.”
- Reese

We find ourselves back in time in 2004 in the Middle East in an underground bunker. It turns out the US military has captured a man named Yusef whom they believe to be helping Al Qaeda. He claims to only sell fruits and vegetables but the soldier talking to him isn’t buying it. He tells Yusef he’s going to have to talk to his boss. And in walks Detective Carter. I guess she was military before she was police. Back in 2011, we have a voice over of Elias saying that Carter needs to go. At the precinct, Carter gets in to find a chronic battered wife, Mrs. Kovach, there to bail out her abusive husband. Carter tries to impress upon the wife that she needs to stop making up excuses for the injuries but it doesn’t seem to help. Mr. Kovach does take Carter’s card. Just as she and her husband are leaving, Lionel shows up. It looks like Elias himself tried to take out Carter at the shooting a few episodes ago. So she pays his father a visit in prison. It goes nowhere fast and as she’s leaving, Elias’s father says that from the looks of things, Elias is going after her. Not the other way around.

Later that night, both Carter and Lionel show up at the homicide of a young man, Ronny Middleton. He was shot in what appeared to be a drive-by. And he was a witness against a local thug, Hector Alvarez, in a shooting but recanted and the DA dropped charges. Carter is out for blood now. She isn’t going to let the thug get away. Lionel starts shouting to get people’s attention for potential witnesses but runs into Reese. He can be a little creepy sometimes. Meanwhile, Carter tries to get information out of Mr. Castillo, a bodega owner where Ronny bought a Mexican soda before he was shot. Reese has finished talking to Lionel when Finch gets in touch. They’ve got a new number; Detective Carter.

The next morning Carter is having breakfast at a diner with her son, Taylor. Reese is a little surprised that she has a son but he’s been checking into her and knows the dad has been out of the picture for a while. Finch is installing a camera and GPS tracker in Carter’s car and almost gets caught. Reese tails her on a motorcycle (he gets to not wear his usual suit for this episode. He looks kind of good in leather.) to Alvarez’s auto shop where she confronts Alvarez and promises she’s going to get him for Ronny’s murder. Back at HQ, Finch is inserting a camera into a police bobblehead that Reese is going to give to Lionel to keep an eye on Carter at the precinct. We also learn a few interesting things about Carter; she was an army interrogator (which we saw at the start of the episode), she went to law school and passed the New York bar in 2004 but went back to the police force. And she has 3 major threats that could be trying to take her out; Elias, Alvarez and Mr. Kovach. So Reese has his work cut out for him. He knows he can’t get too close or else he risks getting caught but he can’t let her catch a bullet either.

At the precinct, Lionel has gotten the bobblehead and after a little funny scene where Reese tells him to turn to face Carter’s desk,. Reese also tells Lionel to get in touch with some of his corrupt cop buddies to see what they know about wanting to take Carter out. When Carter finds out the bodega owner never showed, she heads off to have another chat. Reese follows her and she hauls some guy into her car. Turns out the guy (Bottlecap) is one of her CIs. She asks him to check around about Elias and Hector. She gives him a small wad of bills for his time and the really heads out to see Mr. Castillo. Meanwhile, Lionel meets up with the Captain on a roof to inquire about getting rid of Carter. The Captain says that Elias runs a tight ship but it’s organized and low profile. And getting rid of Carter has gone all the way up the chain of command and has been approved. The Captain also tells Lionel to keep his distance.

At the bodega, Carter questions Mr. Castillo again. He says he didn’t see Alvarez’s car that night but he’d been in to buy condoms and beer before. But he refuses to give a statement otherwise. Carter walks outside and Hector rolls up in his purple car. She tells him to get lost and before he drives off, he makes a gun with his hand and points it at Mr. Castillo. Not good. Reese follows Carter to a bar where she confronts Mr. Kovach and he promises that if she goes after him, he’ll exercise his Second Amendment rights. She really needs to stop antagonizing these guys.

Back in 2004, Carter is interrogating Yusef and she’s much calmer and more compassionate than the guy who started the interrogation. Despite her compassion, she doesn’t get very far. Yusef pretty much tells her he’d rather die than help because Al Qaeda would murder his wife and son. Back in the present, Carter is back at the precinct looking at Ronny Middleton’s phone. She and Lionel have a little brainstorming session about why Hector would go downtown for condoms and booze when Lionel says Hector probably has a girl on the side. So Carter is going to make some calls and Reese calls Lionel to put him on Carter watch. Reese is going to have a little word with Hector and his boys. He also promises that if anything happens to Carter, Reese is going for Lionel next. Reese blows the door to the auto shop open with some kind of incendiary device, shoots the workers and makes off with the guns they were running and jacks Hector’s car.

We jump back to 2004 where Carter promises to protect Yusef and his family if he helps them. Carter rattles off a lot of personal information about Yusef and his family to show she’s not just in it to negotiate to get rid of dangerous explosives. She convinces Yusef to help, for the sake of their children, and he helps. But when the team gets back, she learns that they killed Yusef. She’s really pissed but she finds the men in her unit don’t care less.

Carter and Lionel head to meet up with her CI about Hector’s other girl. She promises to take her CI to his favorite place for dinner if the lead pans out. She certainly makes a lot of promises to people. At the precinct, in a rather amusing scene, she and Lionel introduce Hector’s two girlfriends to each other. Carter promptly locks them in a room with Lionel to sort it out. She also gets the news about Reese shooting up Hector’s shop. Reese feels confident that Hector is out of the picture as he’s on the run. Finch isn’t so sure. And Reese agrees when he mentions Hector is heavily armed.

At the precinct, Hector’s girlfriends give him up. Downtown Girl says he changed his shirt after coming back from the market empty handed and Uptown Girl tells them he has a warehouse in Queens he goes when he’s expecting a shipment. Just as Carter and Lionel are about to head out there, Carter gets a call from Mr. Kovach. She’s panicked and says her husband has a gun. When Carter and Lionel get there they find Mr. Kovach dangling from the rafters by his wrists and Mrs. Kovach hiding in the bathroom. The phone rings and she hands it to Carter. Reese warns her that someone wants her dead and that Alvarez is heavily armed. He hangs up and ducks out before she can ask any more questions. Carter gets back to the precinct to find they have a warrant for Hector’s warehouse and sympathy flowers waiting on her desk (which Elias just delivered). It’s clear he’s out for her.

The cops raid Hector’s warehouse and Reese is there undercover as a member of ESU. While there’s a big gunfight going on inside, Hector sneaks out in his truck around back and Carter manages to take him down without getting shot herself. So two of the three threats are taken care of. Unfortunately, she goes to meet her CI and he shoots her, claiming Elias gave him the choice of his life or Carter’s. But Reese has found her and shoot the CI before he can deliver the final shot. We then see that Carter was wearing a bullet proof vest (thanks to Reese’s hint about someone wanting her dead). Reese leans over just out of sight in the shadows and tells her that he knows she’ll still come after him but that she’s not alone. And he uses her name, Joss. The next morning, Reese manages to get back the surveillance equipment as Carter has breakfast with her son and grills him about the dance he went to. Just as Reese slips out of Carter’s car, he sees a picture of a soldier, clearly Carter’s husband. Guess he died in the line of duty.

Body of Proof - "Your Number's Up"

2011-12-07T20:32:00.001-05:00

Body of Proof 2.10: “Your Number’s Up”

“What do you do when there are no answers? What do you tell people then?”

“Sometimes even the answers don’t help. Ultimately, it’s about giving comfort to the living any way we can.”

- Lacey and Megan

We start this week with a group of kids playing touch football in the street when suddenly it’s raining money. Not surprisingly, everyone goes for the dough and a kid grabs a handful and finds a bloody bill. Across town, Lacey is chatting with her friends via webcam about the new hat she just bought. Megan walks in and promptly finds out it cost $300 and Lacey used Megan’s credit card to buy it. So on her way to the crime scene, Megan has to return it. And apparently while returning the hat, she got some new shoes. They head up to the apartment where the money fell from ($50,000) to find Walter, the tenant laying dead on the floor with a wound in his gut and defensive marks on his arms.

Back at the lab, Dani is helping Ethan studying for his pathology boards. Which seem to go fine until Kate shows up to drill him and starts with information he didn’t think was important. The woman he was discussing was young and aside from a burst appendix, had been relatively healthy. But obviously that didn’t last long since she’s lying on a slab in autopsy. Meanwhile, Megan and Curtis are examining the wounds on Walter’s body. Curtis is being helpful and Megan is being unusually quiet until Peter shows up and announces to the room about Lacey snagging Megan’s credit card. But Peter’s having trouble finding out anything about Walter. His fingerprints weren’t in the system and the name is too common to find accurate work records. But as they do the external physical exam it becomes clear that things don’t add up. He’s had elective surgeries, a deep tan and trip to the tropics. But his hands are callused and burned so he’s done hard labor. Eventually, Megan notices a coal tattoo (when coal seeps into an open cut) on his face and we learn that Walter used to work at a coal plant but left when he won $50 million in the lottery.

Walter’s former co-workers have mostly nice things to say about him. After he won the lottery, he lived a fast, lavish life but tried to help people and make them happy. His cousin was a little resentful because he always played the lotto and the one day he missed was the day Walter played. He also mentions that once Walter won, a whole slew of unknown cousins climbed out of the woodwork looking for handouts. Back at the lab, Megan is putting Lacey to work to pay off the hat. Lacey complains quite a bit but Megan snaps that she doesn’t like it either. It is now time for Ethan to talk to the dead girl’s family and he fails. The father is furious that Ethan can’t give them answers. Luckily he’s saved by Kate.

Walter’s internal exam turns up some strange things. His liver was enlarged from drinking and his heart was bigger than average, too. He had signs of anxiety and ulcers, even though he seemed to be living it up. And all the blood on the money tossed out the window was his. Bud and Sam are having some luck too. They found a mansion Walter rented for charity events and had a cooking lesson scheduled so they’re going to check it out. Meanwhile, Ethan is continued to exam his dead woman and finds some strange findings in her lungs. So he and Kate are going to investigate at the hospital in the morning. Turns out Bud takes Peter with him to the mansion and they find a big party ins wing for an Italian cooking lesson. Bud volunteers and flashes his badge once he finds a match to the knife that killed Walter.

Bud takes the chef down to the station for questioning and he explains that he does a knife trick where he tosses it in the air and when Walter tried it, he cut himself. That’s where the cut on his arm came from. He also says that the day before, Walter had been very angry and upset about a party crasher. The next morning, Peter drops by Megan’s office with invoices and mail for Walter for the past month. Everyone seemed to be hitting him up for money. Curtis has some new information, too. The bruises on his chest had traces of chemicals found at the place where Walter used to work. Plenty of suspects to go around.

We get a brief scene where Lacey tries to comfort the sister of Ethan’s dead girl. Things aren’t going especially well for Ethan. He’s kind of interrogating the doctor at the hospital and Kate tells him to head back to the lab. Honestly, Ethan cares about this girl; he just doesn’t know how to express it. Megan and Sam pay a visit to one of the coal miner guys because of the trace found on Walter’s chest. We get some more information about Walter’s behavior from his old friend. He was manic and impulsive after winning the lottery and pretty much stopped talking to his friends. Walter’s friend admits to confronting him the day before at the party and he says he didn’t think money could change someone so completely. Megan seems to be worrying about that with Lacey. It turns out Walter didn’t change because of the money. He had a tumor on his adrenal gland that was making things wonky. Meanwhile, Sam gets to do an exciting chase scene on a motorcycle and catches a young woman on it (it was Walter’s).

She claims she met Walter when he opened a nursing home and she was doing an article on it. They’d been together ever since. She says his moods were because he was so dedicated to his charity work. Yeah, not likely, sweetie. Over at the lab, Curtis and Ethan kidnap Lacey to the break room for a much needed donut break. Curtis gets called away, leaving Ethan and lacey to sort of bond over the case he’s been working. She gives him some encouragement as he gets a page from Dani. She has another body and it’s got similar symptoms to his first case. She runs off for a quick make out sessions with Peter, leaving Ethan to examine the body alone. We get a small tie in back a few episodes. He’s got the names of his birth parents but he’s afraid to open it.

Meanwhile, Megan has found something odd in Walter’s leg x-ray and she swings by her office to tell Lacey it’s going to be ten more minutes. Lacey asks what happens when there are no answers and Megan says they just do the best they can. Ethan brings his findings to Kate and they realize that there’s an infection in the OR at the hospital where both of their bodies were treated and race off to try and do something. They manage to find out the problem. Air bags used in the ER had been contaminated with mold. Good catch Ethan!

Back at the lab, Megan keeps poking Curtis with a plastic knife, trying to figure out the force used to imbed the tip of the knife in the spine. Curtis, in-between pokes, reveals there was glue on the knife point and Megan and Bud head back to Walter’s friend from the coal plant. They find him at work since his family has been low on cash and arrest him. He admits to going to Walter’s old place after the party to find Walter in a rage. He was cutting open stacks of money and tossing it out the window. He says stabbing Walter was an accident. Megan interrupts just as Bud is about to slap the cuffs on and says Walter was an accomplice when she touches the guy’s neck and he flinches. Megan shows that he has muscle atrophy that meant he couldn’t have stabbed Walter. He says that Walter lunged and they fell. He’s got a corresponding bruise to prove it. Ethan manages to bolster enough courage to talk to the dead girl’s family and lacey, after getting her first paycheck, goes and buys a locket for the girl’s sister. Bud wins $20 on a scratch lotto ticket (gotta put it away to pay for baby Bud’s future) and Peter finally opens to letter about his birth parents.

Body of Proof - "Gross Anatomy"

2011-12-01T08:52:00.000-05:00

Body of Proof 2.09: “Gross Anatomy”

“You’re committed. You have a good heart. You want to know how things work from the inside out. And I see the same things in Lacey.”

- Joan Hunt

We begin this week with what looks at first glance like a funeral. It turns out it is the close of the semester and an anatomy class is saying goodbye to their cadavers before cremating them. One girls opens up her body bag to say goodbye and instead of the guy she was expecting, finds a young woman. Over at the Hunt apartment, Megan finds Lacey ready for school and talking with a friend. But Megan’s got it a little wrong. Lacey has a club that meets at 7:05 and Megan’s not dressed yet.

We are back at the med school and the professor is insisting it was just a mix up and not a murder. Megan disagrees with him vehemently and finally gets custody of the body. She also brings the class with her back to the office so they can observe a real autopsy. The student who found the Jane Doe, Dora, is excited to go because she’s in awe of Megan.

At the autopsy, Curtis makes all the students stand on stools so they can’t touch anything and has them sign waivers and confidentiality agreements. Megan begins her assessment and when one of the guys makes a snarky comment she orders him to tell her what color the girl’s hair is. It appears blond but apparently, based on the roots, she’d dyed it red and brown previously. And when Megan asks what color Jane Doe’s eyes are, the guy (and the one standing next to him) immediately answer green. After going through some medical jargon, Megan agrees they were green the day before and wants to know they knew that.

Bud and Sam get their crack at the guys. The first one denies knowing the girl and he says he didn’t kill her. Bud makes the comment to Megan that if he ever got shot and jerk #1 was his doctor, to let him bleed out. Megan agrees. Bud takes a whack at jerk #2 and he admits to knowing the girl, but only because they met her at a bar once off campus. He and his buddy hit on her but she turned them down. Bud and Sam make the trip to the bar and after Sam gets in the bartender’s face about how Jane Doe changed her hair color a lot and had a really impressive full back tattoo of a dragon fly, they learn her name was Jackie and she worked for the limo service across the street.

Megan’s finding it harder than she expected having Lacey stay at her place more often. Lacey doesn’t like what Megan cooks and she is spending all her time on the computer video chatting with her friends. That night, Megan gets a call from Dora, thanking her for the experience. Megan invites her to observe the internal exam in the morning. Back at the office, Dani is trying to hit on Peter but he turns her down. Kate overhears and says he did the right thing. In autopsy, Megan finds an infection in Jackie’s body and siphons out some blood so Ethan can do blood work. She also observes that Jackie’s uterus is enlarged and lumpy. She has Kate take over the autopsy when Sam shows up. She and Bud hit up the limo service and found out that Jackie wasn’t the girl’s real name. Her identity is still unknown. The company had been paying her under the table. So now they’re off to check out the address they found. It’s a dump of a place but they find blood on the wall and the sheets.

Kate pays the professor a visit (she’s a former pupil). She wants to know if he killed the body on her table since she was his type. He denies it and says he was at a conference during the time of death presenting a new theory. Kate looks really annoyed by that. At the victim’s place, they find that she moved in after she quit her job at the limo service. Peter says he found some hairs in the kitchen and Megan hands off a bottle of generic pills for him to take back to the lab. Speaking of the lab, Dani is prying over Ethan’s shoulder as he’s doing the blood work and Dora appears, worried that Megan forgot about her. She’s still not supposed to touch anything and Megan is ripping mad when she gets back to find her and Ethan examining the body. But what they’ve found proves to be useful. Her lymph node is green with tattoo ink and with the ALS light, Megan finds a Celtic knot tattoo in green in with the name Ronan under her big dragonfly tattoo.

Bud and Sam pay Ronan a visit (and can I just say the accent and the look made me swoon a little). He says Jackie’s last name was O’Shea. They’d been childhood sweethearts but since he had kind of a bad time and quite the lengthy rap sheet, she up and left. He tried to find her once he’d cleaned up his act but it didn’t work. Sam believes him (as far as loving Jackie). She also sympathizes with him about his tough time. Meanwhile, Megan interrupts Lacey’s latest video chat to force her to have family time the next day. Meanwhile, Peter runs into Dani in the elevator and we get a little of her backstory. Her dad left when she was five and now he’s trying to get back in her life after finding God. She’s not pleased.

At the lab, Kate finds Megan sans protégée. Megan says she kicked her out for breaking the rules. Thanks to a little 4-person pow-wow of lab crew, we discover that Jackie had been pregnant and could have delivered 5-6 weeks ago. So now it’s a hunt for the baby. Bud can’t believe the medical team missed that Jackie had given birth. But he seems to forgive the oversight when they realize she probably had a home birth with a midwife. Soon enough, Peter tracked down the one Jackie used and we not only see a picture of Jackie and her baby, but find out she was going to give the baby up for adoption but had been having second thoughts.

Sam has called all the adoption agencies in the area but none of them had contact with Jackie. Just as Bud starts unloading the possible murder weapons he had collected around Jackie’s place, Curtis calls with a description. Luckily, Bud had a black baseball bat. Ethan is waiting for the results at the crime lab when Megan gets home to find her mother over. She’s not happy about Lacey inviting grandma for family dinner. Especially Joan is telling stories about what Megan was like as a teenager. But Dora calls and gets Megan over to school. Dora found her original cadaver and she figured out that someone had messed with the body. The knots on the Y incision were done with a sailor’s knot. Just like the one Jerk #1 uses. So Bud and Sam haul him in for questioning again and he denies sleeping with Jackie or getting her pregnant. He alibis out (he was at the library). Sam is digging into his buddy when Bud gets another call from Curtis. They found blood on the bat. It seems Jackie’s killer and the father of her baby were the same person, her ex Ronan.

The interrogation doesn’t go as hoped. Ronan says he gave Jackie the bat ages ago and didn’t know she was pregnant. He’s really worried about his baby. Bud believes and after a little arm twisting and digging, Sam does too. They both interrupt as Megan’s mom tries to apologize about the night before. Jerk #1 worked at the limo service and Megan figures out the guy that’s been there the longest is Jerk #1’s brother. He starts to run but Sam takes him down in an awesome running tackle. As soon as Megan gets in the interrogation room with him, he spills everything. He set up the adoption between Jackie and an older couple he drove for. But he freaked out when she said she wanted to keep the baby because it meant he wouldn’t get paid. He hadn’t meant to kill her. Bud and Sam find the baby and Bud manages to calm her down. And the look on Ronan’s face when he shows up with the baby is priceless. I have to say I’m glad he was innocent.

Peter runs into Dani again in the elevator and this time they don’t keep things professional. I’m not sure I like them hooking up but I suppose Peter needs some lovin’ too. When Megan gets home, she finds Lacey waiting, cell phone and webcam free with popcorn. They’re going to spend the night watching Twilight movies (and they are apparently Team Edward).

Person of Interest - "Foe"

2011-11-29T13:52:00.000-05:00

Person of Interest 1.08: ‘Foe”

“I was you, Kohl. Revenge won’t help.”

- Reese

This week finds us in a train station with an older man (played by LOST’s Alan Dale), looking around nervously. He spots a younger man who keeps glancing up from a photo and manages to get away. At HQ, Reese has arrived with coffee and tea for Finch and learns they have a new number. It belongs to Wallace Negel, a German national who came to the US in 1980. But Reese picks up on all the oddities in Negel’s background. He’s a spy. On the street, we see Negel pull a piece of the handle off of his suitcase and disappear out of view. Reese also noticed that there weren’t any electronic transactions in Negel’s name after 1987. It turns out around that time; he bought a cemetery plot which is still there. So while Reese goes to check that out, Finch pays a visit to a guy who sells German books (and other things like submarine schematics illegally). Reese finds the cemetery plot dug up. Negel stashed a kit there. So Negel The Spy is back.

Mr. Bookseller reveals he knows things about the East German intelligence community from back during the Cold War. Negel’s real name is Ulrich Kohl and he was party of a team that went around “neutralizing” East German defectors in Europe and the US. He fled in 1989 when East Germany collapsed with his wife, Anja, but she was killed in a car accident. Since then Kohl went underground. Kohl (in present day) shows up at an old man’s apartment, shows his wife’s picture and shoots the occupant.

We’re in for another Reese flashback this week. We find Reese in what looks like maybe Paris in 2006. He’s meeting a woman named Stanton and it turns out this is right after he saw his ex-girlfriend in the airport. He tries to introduce himself but Stanton says his alias didn’t pass muster so he’s no one and she’s going to decide what name he gets. Honestly, that’s a little disturbing to me. Plus she’s kind of pushy.

Finch is examining the coin Reese found in the cemetery and discovers it is East German currency but has been out of circulation for years. And Kohl just sold an entire collection of them to a rare coin dealer, used the phone and left. Finch sends Reese to the address and we find the old man, dead in a chair with lots of needle pricks in his neck. After a little digging, Reese figures out the old man was the case managers from Kohl’s 4-man team. Too bad the young guy from the train station shows up. Reese deals with him easily enough and makes a call to Lionel. He tells Lionel that there’s been a homicide and he thinks the killer will do it again and fires his gun so that the cops will get called.

Reese and Finch figure out that Kohl is going after the forger, Wernnick next. He finds Wernnick in a café and doses him with some kind of poison. Kohl explains he got captured in 1987 and put in a hole for years. He didn’t have the luxury of forgetting what happened to his wife. It seems her accident is what is motivating his vendetta. But Reese is sure it was a staged accident. He gets to the restaurant in time commandeer the ambulance with Wernnick in it. Reese keeps Wernnick alive long enough to learn the team sold Kohl out and were responsible for his wife’s accident (or so they think). There’s still one more member of the team left for Kohl to kill.

Over at Police HQ, Lionel and Carter are leaning on our German intelligence guy that Reese knocked out at the first crime scene. He gives us a nice little info dump about Kohl being a killer and how he’s not supposed to exist. But before they can get much further, a guy from the German Consulate shows up with orders from the State Department to extradite him back to Germany. So much for that lead.

So Kohl has found the fourth member of his team. Finch found him too, through a German heritage organization. In an attempt to keep Kohl from killing him, the fourth member reveals that Anja is actually alive. She was terrified of her husband and that’s why she ran. Unfortunately for member #4, he gets tossed off a ledge. It looks like Kohl is going to find Anja and add her to his list of betrayals that need to be taken care of. Reese and Finch are on the hunt for her too, to try and keep her safe. Lionel texts Reese the make and model of the diplomat’s car and in a rather impressive shot, he takes the hood off the car with a sniper rifle. The diplomat passes Reese Anja’s alias (Anna Klein) and they’re off to find her.

Kohl shows up at Anna’s place to find Reese waiting for him. Reese acts like his typical bad-ass self until Kohl grabs him by the throat and incapacitates him. Kohl thinks he can torture Anja’s location out of Reese. Yeah, that’s not happening dude. Reese slips back into the flashback from before and we see two guys who are CIA that likely got paid off by a terrorist to slip out of the country unnoticed. Stanton kills both of them. Meanwhile, Finch is trying to get Anja into police custody but she insists she has an important phone call to make first. And Carter’s just gotten the call about Reese shooting the diplomat’s car off the road. Finch calls up Lionel to tell him to do something since he hasn’t heard from Reese. Lionel really isn’t happy about them calling him at the station.

At Anja’s place, Kohl and Reese have a little heart to heart about the nature of killing. It is always a little creepy when Reese can identify with the bad guys. But I guess he did what he had to. And Ulrich is back to torturing Reese. In the car, Anja explains that she knew her husband was a spy but not that he was a killer, until the Americans grabbed her as she was escaping to the Soviet Union and showed her pictures. Unfortunately, Ulrich has now figured out he has a daughter and he’s going to find her. He is about to shoot Reese when Lionel shows up. Time for the big showdown.

He grabs his daughter at school and demands that Anja meet him in Central Park, alone. As he and Marie (his daughter) are waiting for Anja to show up, she tells him that her father had been a war hero and died getting her mother to freedom. The cops are in the park too thanks to an anonymous tip (from Lionel) and are searching for both Ulrich and Reese. Anja begs Ulrich to forgive her for what she did and as he raises his gun, Reese shoots him. Ulrich’s gun was empty. He was prepared and ready to die. The cops finally find him but Reese is gone.

We finish up our flashback with Stanton telling Reese to clean up the two dead bodies and get rid of the gun. She also tells him that what he’s doing is right and that his country needs him (the same thing the East German government told Kohl). Back in the present, we find Reese at Ulrich’s burial plot. He and Finch muse about whether people will know and care about who they are when they’re dead.

Body of Proof - "Love Bites"

2011-11-29T13:50:00.000-05:00

Body of Proof 2.08: “Love Bites”

“Oh don’t you worry. Lacey is never going to feel the way about me that I feel about you.”

- Megan

This week we find ourselves with a young man who appears to be drowning. He reaches out to a woman only to realize she’s dead. Meanwhile, Megan is at home trying to pick a color to paint the room Lacey will be staying in. Megan’s mom stops by and seems a little skeptical of Megan insisting on spending more time with Lacey. Lucky for Megan, she’s saved by the crime scene. She runs into Dani (the new morgue driver) and introduces her to Peter. Peter seems kind of sweet on her, or at least a little defensive of her name to Bud. Th victim doesn’t appear to have any obvious causes of death, though she does have a broken arm, complete with bone stick through the skin. Peter collects some river water samples to check to see where she went into the water and if she drowned. Back at the lab, Kate arrives, even though it is her day off. By the look of things, she and Todd aren’t doing so well (though he’s not going to California anymore). She and Megan have words but Bud and Sam insist on getting on with the case. Their victim’s name is Amy Green and she was a pharmaceutical representative (her prints were in the FBI database).

Ethan is trying to get a blood sample from Amy’s ephemeral arteries but there is no blood in her body. He has a cute little conversation with Dani about maybe Amy being a vampire. But Peter shows up with diatom analysis of the river water. Ethan pulled some diatoms from Amy’s bone marrow. They don’t match. He calculates that she drowned in the Gulf of Maine. That night, Sam and Bud are checking the address the drug company had on file for Amy. There’s a huge party going on and Bud and Sam quickly learn that a bunch of reps were sharing the apartment. Two of the women explain that Amy flew out to Denver two days ago for a conference. When Sam mentions she was in Maine, the two other reps mention she had been seeing a guy but they thought she broke it off.

Back at the lab, Megan discovers that Amy didn’t drown. All the other signs aren’t there. And Curtis has the answer to how the diatoms got in her bone marrow. She ate a rare kind of oyster. And he knows a guy who flies them in fresh. Turns out this guy is at the airport. Bud and Sam get the security footage from two days earlier and see Amy’s assistant, Beth, (one of the women they talked to already) pulling her away from the bar. Meanwhile, Megan and Kate are talking to Amy’s mom. She says her daughter was a nice person and that she hadn’t wanted Amy to take the rep job.

The next morning, Megan has Lacey over before school to show her what she’s doing with the bedroom. Lacey said it was fine the way it was and there’s a little tension as to whether Lacey wants to spend more time at Megan’s place. Over at the precinct, Beth explains that she took Amy to a big wig cardiologist to try and get his account for the company. Beth kept quiet about it since it was a very competitive account. Over at the lab, Kate shows up to share the x-ray information. There were a bunch of hairline fractures to various parts of Amy’s body before she died, but the broken arm was done postmortem. Still not explanation for the blood loss. Based on Megan’s examination of some of the organ tissue, it is possible Amy had a reaction to a drug. So Bud, Sam and Peter head over to the cardiologist to have a chat and run in to the other woman they talked to at the apartment. The doctor said he went with Molly’s company instead of Amy’s because Molly’s was bigger. Peter sweet talks to receptionist in to telling him that the reps often left food. The doctor confirms that Amy brought oysters every time they met.

We’re back to the oyster guy. He was Amy’s boyfriend but they broke up a month ago. He denies he had anything to do with her death. Megan says she might have been given a drug and asks if she had any she had to be careful with. Bud escorts her out of interrogation, mainly because she was giving the suspect information. He also was annoyed she was on her phone. But it was about Lacey so as we know, Megan kind of gets tunnel vision. She gets back to the lab and Ethan tries to give her an update on the case but she blows him of. Her mom and Lacey are waiting in her office. And Kate gets dragged in. The little family meeting doesn’t go far as Kate ushers Ethan off for the update and Megan sort of blows her mom off. But they have a breakthrough in the case. Still not cause of death but possibly a location. The trace found under Amy’s fingernails is likely from old wallpaper. The gang finds an old house thanks to the forensics team and it appears they have found here Amy died. And with some serious luminal spraying, they find where all of Amy’s blood went.

At this point Bud is kind of freaking out with how much blood there was. Megan explains that they didn’t is anything in autopsy and it is possible she bled out from every pore in her body. A horribly painful way to go. She tasks Peter with rushing blood samples to the lab and leaves him to photograph the room. Kate tells Curtis to put a rush on the drug samples Amy left at the cardiologist’s office for anticoagulants. Meanwhile, she’s dodging all of Todd’s calls. While photographing the room where Amy died, Peter finds the impression of the flowers that get sent to the cardiologist’s office every day. And the gang goes to confront him about the fact he had a party at the old house the night Amy died. Megan accuses him of having access to drugs that would cause Amy to bleed out. He admits he was there but that he went to make a call to his wife (he and Amy were having a fling) and when he got back she was already dead. He took her to the river and cleaned up the scene. Megan calls Peter to tell him to check for all the anticoagulants that the cardiologist used and he delivers the news that interior designer her mother insist she hired has been fired. So Megan goes to her mom’s chambers and rips her a new one. They really have a bad relationship.

Peter can’t get a list of the anticoagulants from the cardiologist’s office but Ethan say none of the drugs currently approved by the FDA would cause Amy’s systems. So we get a funny scene with Peter using his actual Aussie accent and it pays off. The rival drug company was about to roll out a new anticoagulant. Bud, Sam and Megan track the rep down but she doesn’t have any of the drugs on her and she says she didn’t kill Amy. And she denies knowing anything about Amy’s affair with the doctor. At this point, I’m not even sure who the killer is. While all that is going on, Kate finally takes Todd’s call and breaks up with him. Good move if you ask me. I find Todd annoying and it was tiresome with the Megan/Kate drama.

Back at the lab, Megan and Peter run into the drug rep. She’s decided to be helpful and gives them the specs on the new drug. She also says that Amy was in love with the cardiologist. Unfortunately, the drug reactions listed on the spec sheet don’t match Amy’s symptoms. So Megan suggests they bring the doctor in again and he says she found Amy on the ground in the fetal position, holding herself. Megan angrily tells Bud to get the doctor out of autopsy and she finds fang marks in the vein in her left arm. Megan find out it was a snake bite. She ends Ethan and Curtis to find the snake at the house and we get some great physical comedy from the pair of them when they spot the snake. It’s only a baby, but apparently that is when this type of snake is most deadly. And we’re back to the bartender/oyster guy. He admits to putting the snake in Amy’s bag as a joke because he was jealous she was seeing the cardiologist.

Later, Amy’s mom comes to take Amy home and shares some choice words of wisdom with Megan. You can’t hold on to your kid too tight or else they just start slipping away. And Kate shares the news about her break up with Todd. So things are looking good on the Megan front, especially when she shows Lacey the bedroom is empty and blank, ready for Lacey to do with it what she wants.

Dream Desert Island

2011-11-29T13:47:00.001-05:00

It has finally happened here on the blog. I have reached 100 posts. I know it may not seem like a lot but for me it is a milestone. I thought I would celebrate in similar fashion to More TV Please! But with a twist. I am going to share with you the five characters I would like to be stranded on a desert island with.

1. The Doctor (Doctor Who)

Ideally, I would love to be stranded on a deserted island with The Doctor. For one thing he is always good for a laugh. Brits usually are pretty funny, even if we Yanks don't always understand their special brand of humor. But most importantly, I'd want The Doctor around because we could have loads of adventures all while stranded on the island. And who wouldn't want to take a trip to Stormcage to meet the Mrs.?

2. Captain Jack Harkness (Torchwood)

Sure, Jack could maybe get his vortex manipulator working long enough to get one or two people off the island, but really he's just there to be really pretty. And sexy. I wouldn't mind having to potentially populate the world with Captain Harkness. In fact, it would be an honor. Besides, he's lived so long he would have endless stories to tell about the universe. We certainly would never be bored.

3. Ziva David (NCIS)

You need a little balance of the genders on this deserted island. And who better to have than kick-ass ex-Mossad agent Ziva David. She's badass and able to fend for herself so survival on the island wouldn't be much of an issue. She'd provide that feminine touch needed to keep things sane and she's just really all kinds of awesome.

4. Leroy Jethro Gibbs (NCIS)

Gibbs is on this list simply because of the compassion he shows for his team. We'd need someone to keep us grounded on this island (even if we are off having random adventures with The Doctor). He'd provide stability and comfort whenever needed. And he could be a hardass when necessary, too. Plus he's up there with the hunting and killing skills. I don't necessarily trust his cooking skills (meat rare anyone?) but I love the guy anyway. Plus, he could totally build us an awesome boat with which to escape the desert island.

5. Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

This would most definitely need to be season 7 Willow. Preferably near the end when she actually had control of her powers. We wouldn't need her necessarily to get off the island (we have Gibbs and The Doctor for that) but she could entertain us with some magic and who knows, she could somehow mount a rescue party full of slayers. And let's be honest, we need to balance the male-female ratio.

Person of Interest - "Witness"

2011-11-29T13:45:00.001-05:00

Person of Interest 1.07: “Witness”

“The machine found the man who was targeted for death. We just didn’t know he was also a killer. John we have limited information. We knew when we began this that we might make mistakes.”

- Finch

This week we begin with a phone call where two guys, one sounds Eastern European, set up a hit on an unnamed target. Through surveillance footage we see a guy get shot twice in the chest at close range in a convenience store. Carter and Lionel are on the scene and it turns out the victim was Benny Degastino, a member of the Italian mob. There’s a gang war going on between them and the Russians and this murder was likely payback for a slew of murders a few weeks earlier. And it turns out our mysterious Elias is the head of the Italian crew. But, the cops think they’ve gotten lucky. There is a witness. Meanwhile, Reese is busy snapping photos of Charlie Burton, a high school history teacher living in Brighton Beach (Russian mob territory) (played by the wonderful Enrico Colantoni of Veronica Mars fame). Just as Finch relays that there’s nothing really special bout Charlie, Lionel calls tell Reese about the missing witness. Turns out the witness and Charlie are one in the same. And a Russian hit team has just showed up at Charlie’s apartment to finish what they started. Reese has no choice but to go in.

In typical Reese fashion, he just appears in Charlie’s living room. I have to admit I would be a little freaked out too. But he gets Charlie to go with him. They get out of the building without being spotted and Reese takes out one of the guards but his phone gets smashed in the process. So he and Charlie are on their own. Reese steals a car to try and get Charlie back to Manhattan to tell the cops what he knows but the Russians shoot up the car and one of the bullets hits Charlie. Another exciting casting choice about this episode is that one of the Russian is played by Enver Gjokaj (Victor/Anthony from Dollhouse). And his character kind of reminded me a little of some of the imprints he had as a doll. Anyway, Reese and Charlie head in to the Double Bs, an apartment complex run by a Bulgarian drug lord. Even the Russians are scared to go in.

They wander through the building, spotting some drug dealers, before finding an empty apartment that is pretty disgusting. But it will work. Reese gets Charlie’s story and it seems credible. He was grading papers late and went to get something from the store when the Russians showed up. He claims Benny had a message for Elias that Vinnie would finish the job. But Charlie says he doesn’t know anyone named Elias. Reese inquires as to why he didn’t’ call the cops and Charlie says that the Russians own the neighborhood and you never know which side they are on. Back across the river, Lionel, Carter and their gang task force buddy are talking to Benny’s wife. She tells them that it doesn’t matter if they find the Russians that killed her husband because Elias will and he’ll kill them all. She says that Elias is on the war path and is going to reunite the five families and wipe the Russians out.

Near Charlie’s apartment, we see Finch fiddling with an ATM camera, likely to hide the footage from the shooting so that they can’t find Reese or Charlie. But a bystander caught some of it on her phone and they find out one of the guys that were after Charlie is the son of the head of the Russian mob. Apparently, Finch didn’t wipe the ATM footage; he just made it so he could remote access it from HQ. He’s checking the footage and finds a silver SUV pulling up in front of Charlie’s building and a cop getting in. He calls Lionel to have him the license plate and says the Russians might not be the only ones looking for Charlie. Speaking of the Russians, Lazlo (Enver) wants to bust in to the Double Bs and hunt down Reese and Charlie. But his brother, Peter, tells him they have to respect the agreement with the Bulgarians. They will cover all the exits so that Reese and Charlie can’t get out.

Inside, Reese is trying to bond a little with Charlie, asking how he got involved with teaching. It’s not nearly as complicated as his own change in career. Charlie is trying to help his students, many of whom are descendants of Russian mob members, to get out of the life. It doesn’t always work. Reese outs down to the guys we saw earlier to get some drugs to help Charlie with the pain. It wouldn’t be an episode of Person of Interest if he didn’t get to beat some people up while spewing witty banter. Meanwhile, Finch pays a visit to Lionel and tells him to report the car (which could belong to Elias) stolen and to send the report to an email address.

At police HQ, things are starting to fall into place. Carter makes the connection that Elias’ father last ran Brighton Beach before he got locked up. So junior is trying to clean it up and claim what is his. Reese returns to their crappy hiding place with the drugs (cocaine) and some crazy glue to numb the pain and seal the wound. Unfortunately, the Russians and the Bulgarians are going to hunt them down together since Reese beat the Bulgarian boys up and stole their drugs. Reese goes all MacGyver and finds a still-working landline to call Finch. He explains the situation and tells Finch to get a message to Lionel that they will be on the East River ferry to Pier 11 at 7am. And Finch finds them an escape route. Unfortunately, they don’t get to use it. But one of Charlie’s students, Will, let’s them hide out in his apartment. He’s even tough enough to make the Russians go away.

Finch gets the vehicle report from Lionel and calls Vehicle Recovery to get the GPS locator and microphone in the car turned on. He’s going to do a little surveillance of his own. He tracks the car to a parking garage and snaps a bunch of photos of the cop he saw before. He speeds off pretty quick when he gives a report that the Russian have Charlie trapped in the Double Bs. Finch thinks this cop could be Elias. Reese and Charlie are still hiding out in Will’s apartment when he tells them they should use the old entrance to the building. So, they head back the way they came and end up having to hide out in the same apartment to keep from being spotted. And they manage to snag Lazlo as a sort of hostage.

Back in the city proper, Carter and her gang buddy are paying a visit to Peter’s dad, the head of the Russian mob. He denies knowing anything about the convenience store shooting and alibis his son a being in the house all day. He also says that he didn’t start the war. Elias did by coming into the Russians’ territory and making trouble. Back in the Double Bs, Reese gets a message to Finch to let Carter know where the Russians and reminds him to let Lionel know where to meet them. Things are starting to look up when Finch overhears a conversation in the silver SUV in which someone says they got a tip that Charlie and company would be a pier 11. Finch thinks Lionel is the leak. Unfortunately for Lionel, the other cop shows up and knocks him out when he’s on the phone with Finch. We see the cop take Lionel’s gun as the ferry is approaching.

On the ferry, Reese is trying to get Charlie to agree to testify but things take a turn for the weird. We get intercut between the ferry and the interrogation room with Carter and Peter and we learn that Charlie is Elias. I have to say I thought Elias would be younger. And I’m not sure I like that it was sort of wrapped up in this episode as to his identity and what he wanted. But, he makes Reese flex cuff himself to the railing and he shoots Lazlo in the leg. Elias tells Reese that if they stay out of each other’s way, they won’t have any problems. Elias gets away clean and Reese is not happy that because they saved this one man, more number could come up. We see the cop shooting the Russian mob boss in his office before meeting up with Elias on the pier and walking away.

Body of Proof - "Hard Knocks"

2011-11-05T07:22:00.000-04:00

Body of Proof 2.07: “Hard Knocks”

“I’m the child and you’re the adults. You’re supposed to be worried about my happiness. I’m not supposed to be responsible for yours.”

- Lacey

This week finds us with a young guy calling 911 but it doesn’t do much good. He passes out before the operator can get much useful information. Jump to Megan’s apartment where Lacey is bugging her mom about what guy she (Megan) is seeing. Megan tries to brush it off but finally tells her it is the FBI agent from the kidnap case. They have a coffee date. Unfortunately, Megan gets called to the crime scene of the 911 caller. He died before the EMTs arrived and Ames cancelled their date. Turns out the caller is 17-year-old Jake Brady. Megan finds bruises on his stomach and he smells like alcohol. She also finds black light paint on his cheek and Peter leads them on a trek to a rave spot. Bud and Sam go to notify the parents.

At the lab, Ethan announces that there was some kind of drug in Jake’s system but none of the party drugs they were expecting. Peter finds some strange yellow pills and Megan snatches them up and takes them to Ames since he has access to the federal drug database. When she gets back to the lab, Ethan shows that there were ligature marks on Jake’s wrists and Megan finds a spot on his side that determined time of death. Apparently when the 911 call was made, Jake had already been dead for four hours.

Over at the police station, Bud and Sam find a website for who holds the raves and pick her up at the airport. She denies knowing Jake or anything that happened to him at the rave. As Megan is cutting up some body part, Curtis reports that Jake had no broken bones and Peter adds he had nothing in stomach to absorb the alcohol. Signs still point to an overdose. And then Agent Ames shows up with the yellow pills. Megan had told him to call with the results. He tells her that she could have found out what the drug was from her own database. It’s an ADD drug. They have a slightly awkward flirty moment when he asks her out to dinner that night before he hands over the evidence. Later, Bud and Megan head back to Jake’s parents’ house as Bud hasn’t heard anything from the dad. He’s got serious anger management issues. But he swears that Jake never took the easy way out (i.e. using drugs of any kind). They do manage to get a name out of him, Patrick.

Bud and Sam haul him in to interrogation and he admits to giving Jake the drugs and says he made the call because he freaked. But he didn’t put the sign on Jake. When Bud and Sam look confused, Patrick pulls up a picture on his phone. Jake is sitting on the ground with a sign that says “Dead Meat” on it. And from the picture they determine cause of death. Jake’s hands were bound and the sign was propped under his chin in such a way that it closed off his airway and he suffocated. So Ethan and Curtis are sent back to the rave spot to find whatever bound Jake’s hands. And we get a pretty funny scene with them breaking it down to Ethan’s sort-of techno beat boxing before they actually find the cable that they’re looking for.

On a wholly unrelated plot point, Todd is thinking of accepting a professorship at a law school out in California. Lacey is obviously not pleased about the possibility of moving. They’re going to fly out in a few days so Todd can meet the Regents and he’s taking Lacey along. Back at the lab, Megan is running DNA on the skins cells found on the cable. It pops but it is a restricted profile. That means it is from a parent who submitted their child’s DNA in case the child got abducted. So Megan’s off to pump Ames for more favors, except he says no, especially since they aren’t dating. Megan offers to change that and they end up at her apartment drinking wine. Just as things are getting a bit sexy, Lacey interrupts in a rather Ethan-esque fashion.

Lacey says she doesn’t want to move to California but she didn’t want her parents to divorce and it happened anyway. Poor kid. The next morning, Bud and Sam confiscate the computer of the editor of the school newspaper and with Megan’s help and the information that the person they’re looking for as a rare chromosome disorder, find the kid who tied Jake up. Bud and Sam bring the boy in but he says he moved the sign when Jake started to move and went home. So the sign position didn’t kill Jake. Megan continues to check the body but Todd shows up and they have another argument (Megan certainly does a lot of it). Kate interrupts and it’s even more awkward since she doesn’t know about the California move yet. She’s not pleased when he does dump it on her and she gives him a “are you kidding me?” look when he asks if Kate wants to go with him.

Megan is ranting at Peter about how she is going to lose Lacey when she realizes what killed Jake: a punch to the heart. She’s back to exam the body, taking out stitches from the Y incision over Jake’s heart when Ames shows up with roses, likely to apologize. She kind of sends him away though because the flowers could contaminate the area and Kate walks in. Kate turned Todd down for the move to California and it’s obvious Megan is a little happy. The rest of the crew gathers and Megan finds the impression of a Greek Sigma. Looks like Jake’s dad punched him. As with the rest of the investigation, it’s not exactly as it seems. And Bud blurts out that he and his wife are expecting. And Megan determines why Jake’s dad isn’t responsible when Kate pops by to tell her to call Ames. She and Megan were both in honor society and pre-graduation they wore the ring one way and after they turned it around. Jake’s dad’s ring was facing the wrong way. Maxine, the editor of the newspaper is the real culprit. She tutored Jake and when she saw the photo of him with the sign she went to go help him, but he didn’t even remember her.

Later that night, Megan and Ames are sharing another glass of wine when she tells him that she needs to focus on Lacey if she stays. Todd shows up frantic because he doesn’t know where Lacey is, only to find her hiding out in Megan’s apartment. Lacey doesn’t want to go. But she doesn’t want to ruin her dad’s career or Megan’s love life. When Megan and Todd finally get their heads on straight and ask Lacey what she wants, it becomes clear that she wants Todd to go to California and she can move in with Megan.

November is upon us!

2011-11-01T14:45:00.002-04:00

So every year of the past seven, I have participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal: write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days in the month of November. And yes, i've done it every year I've participated. I hope this year will be no exception and so far I'm off to a good start.

I'm aiming for a 2500 word/day goal with obviously the chance to do more on weekends and days when i have less going on for school. This year I am writing an historical romance. A new genre for me so we will see how much I can play with it. I just wanted to share my plans with you (I'll keep you updated throughout the month).

One final thing, look forward to a special post for my 100th on the blog in the next week or two.

Person of Interest - "The Fix"

2011-10-28T17:16:00.000-04:00

Person of Interest 1.06: “The Fix”

“I never thought I would know what happened to her. And now I also know the man responsible.”

- Finch

This week we begin with a woman, Zoe Morgan, walking out of her apartment and Reese greeting her at the car. He’s obviously not who she’s expecting and she even calls to verify his story of her usual driver being sick (she gets Finch on the other end of the line). As Reese drives off, Finch appears. Looks like he’s going to do some leg work this week. He complains about not being able to pick the lock as Reese arrives at the location he’s supposed to be taking Zoe. Finch gets inside and finds nothing personal at all in the place. And from Reese’s perspective, it appears Zoe has just done a drug deal with some shady kids. Finch finds a gun in her living room under the sofa. Only problem is, it wasn’t drugs she got from the shady guy. It was a gun. Zoe has Reese drop her at a swanky party. Reese isn’t so sure it’s a good idea to stay in the car so he follows Zoe inside and sees her hand over the gun to a cop. Apparently his nephew (also a cop) left it in a subway bathroom. Woops. Turns out Ms. Morgan is a fixer.

We also have a case of the week for Detective Carter. She’s got a 70-year-old dead guy who happens to be an enforcer and gangster. And he skated on the murder of Marlene Elias (she was stabbed multiple times in the chest with a kitchen knife). So I guess we know why the crew a few weeks back wanted that knife. Out in the city, Zoe has another meeting. She’s going to make a blogger shut up about a high-powered executive’s affair so his CEO father-in-law doesn’t find out. She pays the blogger 40 grand. He’s creepy and a blackmailing jerk but not capable of killing Zoe.

Carter has asked the cop who worked the Elias murder to come in to fill in some of the blanks. It seems a pretty typical case. Cocktail waitress has an affair with an upper level mobster and when she keeps begging him to leave his wife; he has his knife man off her. Too bad Mr. Mob and the Elias had a kid together. Seems likely, now that he’s all grown up, he could be the killer. Reese is driving Zoe to another meet and he gets the vibe that things are off when there are two guys waiting. She brushes him off and tries the make the hand-off of the recording she got from the blogger when a third guy appears and they try to grab her. Reese intervenes and gets Zoe out of there without too much damage (well the back window of the car is shot out). They need to find out what was on the recording. Zoe made a copy but it’s not very high quality. They pull up to find one of the business men dead from heart failure. Someone’s cleaning house. Unfortunately, Zoe’s taken off in the minute Reese left her alone in the car.

Back at HQ, Reese is working on cleaning up the recording from the flash drive and he discovers the woman’s voice belongs to a woman named Dana Miller. She worked for the company that hired Zoe to fix the problem. She was having the affair with the heir apparent to the empire and she died six months earlier from a brain aneurysm. Finch knows this because she was one of his numbers before he met Reese. And now Finch is off for a very important business meeting. He’s just bought stock in the company and he uses the opportunity to meet with Lawson (the heir and the one who had Dana killed) and plant a bug in his office. Lawson’s muscle reports in about getting the flash drive and killing the other guy but Lawson says they need to get rid of both Zoe and Reese.

Back on the Elias case, Carter gets a call from the former cop. He found some information on Elias’s son. He was a runway except for one woman who looked after him. He sent her Christmas cards. So Carter is going to swing by to get them. I’m not sure I trust this guy. But then again, maybe I’ve seen too many cop drama. Anyway, Finch manages to clear up the audio a bit on Dana’s recording. She was going to blow the whistle on an unsafe drug. Reese hasn’t had any luck finding Zoe until she turns her cell phone back on. He meets her at fancy restaurant and she explains that Dana worked in clinical trials and five days before she died, she was transferred out and her access suspended. So now Zoe and Reese are going to team up to do something illegal. Apparently Zoe’s got connections on the force because she strong-arms a cop into making sure no one responds when there’s a break in at the company that night.

The break-in is going fine at first. They find that the new migraine drug that has just been FDA approved was altered. Well, the report anyway. Six people died and were dropped from the list. Finch also manages to clean up the rest of the recording. It turns out Dana was going to go to the CEO about the drug. Unfortunately, Lawson’s muscle and the cop that Zoe strong-armed show up and Zoe and Reese get taken hostage.

We get a little moment where Reese and Zoe bond. We find out why Zoe became a fixer (she met one when her dad got caught up in a corruption case). Things start spiraling out of control as Finch tries to reach the CEO. He gets to hear the rest of the recording. The CEO was in on the whole thing. Back at the offices, Zoe bargains her way out of handcuffs (she says she sent a copy of the report to a friend and she’ll take them to the person who has it. She also slips Reese a way to get out of his own cuffs. They could make kind of a fun team. Reese manages to stab his captor with a syringe (so his body count for this episode is 1). And while on the road, Zoe calls Finch with a location; the navy yard. Reese swoops in to save the day as Finch has dinner with the CEO and ruins him quite spectacularly. Finch takes all of the CEO’s money. Zoe obviously gets a portion and Dana Miller’s family does as well. And Zoe’s cop finds himself facing corruption charges. All in all, not a bad haul. I really do hope they bring Zoe back. We end with Carter showing up at the former cop’s apartment to find him dead. She exchanges fire with who she assumes is the killer and she nails him enough to leave some blood.

Body of Proof - "Second Chances"

2011-10-26T12:39:00.000-04:00

Body of Proof 2.06: “Second Chances”

“You can’t convince someone you’ve changed if they don’t want to believe you.”

- Zoe

We begin with a rather disorienting image of a beaten young woman being dragged through the forest. She finally stops moving and sees a very blurred figure leaning over her. Cut to Megan and Lacey at Megan’s apartment. Megan is quizzing her daughter on Latin phrases. Do people really still study Latin in high school? Lacey complains that Megan promised they could watch a movie but their argument is cut short by Todd’s arrival. Apparently he and Kate are taking Lacey to Boston for the weekend. And cut again to the crime scene. Megan and Peter are going over the body while Bud talks to a meth addict who was apparently caught rifling through Jane Doe’s pockets. The girl suffered lots of trauma, including a broken tibia. Bud suggests that the girl was out there with the druggie to get high and things went south. Megan’s not sure she’s a user. As she and Peter leave the scene, Kate arrives and says she wants to consult on the case. Megan’s not exactly thrilled (she’s still put off about Boston).

Bud’s brought meth head back to the precinct but the interrogation goes nowhere. He’s too strung out and he keeps saying he didn’t know the girl and he didn’t kill her. Over at the lab, Megan, Ethan and Curtis are going over the body and they find a tattoo of 4 horses on her wrist. Peter shows up with a new suspect from the bloody handprint on Jane Doe’s body: a young woman named Zoe Brandt doing 4-7 years for beating her drug dealer nearly to death. Bud and Megan the trip out to see Zoe and we learn that she was doing work release two days a week at the stables where the Jane Doe (Brinn Walker) worked.

As Kate and Megan continue to examine Brinn’s body, they discover through x-rays that she had a lot of old riding injuries. And Peter discovers she was a champion equestrian. Kate is trying to determine the cause of a spiral fracture in one of her ankles when Megan points out that it would be consistent with the injuries if Brinn’s foot got caught in one o the stirrups and she was dragged along by a horse. At the stables, the manager says that Brinn was a pro, didn’t ride without a helmet and only rode one horse (which was all tucked away in its stable. Megan’s not so sure she trusts the manager. The horse Brinn rode flinched when he touched it and apparently horses are very sensitive to people (I’m not a big horse fan myself. I’m allergic to hay). So Megan decides to use Lacey as a resource since her daughter rides, too.

Back at the lab, Kate gets into autopsy by dissecting Brinn’s lungs since Megan is gone and so is Ethan. She’s trying to be helpful to make up for taking Lacey to Boston. She and Curtis find a foreign piece of matter in the tissue. Strange. Peter and Ethan have been sent back to the forest to see if they can prove Megan’s theory that Brinn was riding a horse before she died. Peter finds hoof marks in the dirt so it looks like Megan was right. It also helps that Ethan finds horse manure and Peter finds the horse. Megan has Lacey swing by the lab to look at safety vests and finds out that she really doesn’t want to go to Boston. Her friend’s birthday party I s that weekend but Todd doesn’t care. I think Megan is a little happy about this development. And she’s even more excited when lacey points out that Brinn’s foot couldn’t have gotten caught in the stirrup because most riders use ones that release if you get caught. So it’s time for a field trip back to the stable with Lacey in toe. Lacey shows how the stirrup should work, but finds the one that Brinn was riding was tampered with. I really dislike the stable manager. He’s creepy.

Apparently I’m not the only one who finds him creepy. Brinn’s boyfriend, James thought so, too. Apparently Mr. Creepy kept making passes at Brinn. Megan and Peter keep him talking while Bud inspects Brinn’s storage shed. Bud finds all kinds of trophies and ribbons and Lacey sneaking up on him. When Peter pops in to tell her that Megan is looking for her, Lacey remarks that she doesn’t understand how Brinn could have fallen off her horse. That is indeed the question of the hour. Megan gets back to the lab to find that Kate did the lung dissection. She’s a little short with her but they do uncover an injection point in her hip (being drugged is the only way she could have fallen off the horse and gotten a blow to the stomach to force her stomach contents into her lungs). They head upstairs so Kate can take a sample to the lab for analysis when they find Todd waiting. He’s really pissed that Megan took Lacey to a crime scene but he refuses to let Megan have Lacey for the weekend. Way to use the kid to make your ex hurt. Jerk.

Peter also swings by with some results from a white powder they found under Brinn’s fingernails. It was a mixture of horse feed and a compound used to treat pain in horses. Apparently her boyfriend’s horse was disqualified for having too much of it in its system. Now he’s not looking so grief-stricken after all. Turns out Brinn’s boyfriend amped up his own horse for an edge in the competition but he denies killing Brinn. As Bud tells Megan he thinks Lacey wants to spend more time with her, she gets results from the lab. Someone shot Brinn up with horse anesthetic. So now it’s back to Zoe.

Zoe denies she did anything to Brinn and that the argument a guard saw shortly before Brinn died was Zoe begging Brinn to stop calling her (Zoe’s) mom. Bud still wants to know how Zoe’s fingerprints ended up on the box of horse sedatives (with one vial missing). She also says she was putting the sedatives away because Brinn asked her to. Some guy was trying to put a white horse down.

In the lab Ethan is going through the horse’s waste and finds out that the horse was sick with an injured leg and Mr. Creep from the stables sold the horse to a guy who returned it when the horse couldn’t compete. Poor horse. So Brinn was trying to take care of it. On a coffee break, Kate is trying to convince Todd that Megan has changed. He doesn’t want to accept that and denies he invited Lacey to go with them because he’s afraid of losing her. Before Todd can counter her too much, Kate gets called back to the lab. The horse has all kinds of problems including arthritis, splints and someone filed its teeth down with silver nitrate to make it look younger. All sings once again point towards Mr. Creep.

Ethan and Peter find an empty bottle of the sedative that was in Brinn’s system and the syringe. Mr. Creep claims he got caught by Brinn and that he would stop and she could have the old horses for her prisoner program. The last time he saw the syringe, Brinn had it. I still don’t trust him. And I really don’t like Todd either. He lets Megan have Lacey for the weekend but balks when Megan says she wants Lacey every other weekend. He doesn’t stay long. Lacey calls Megan, complaining that Todd is late picking her up. And so, Megan goes and after some beating around the bush apologizes to Kate be being so bitchy and thanks her for nudging Todd into letting Lacey stay. Unfortunately their happy moment is ruined when Curtis brings in the results of the syringe. There wasn’t enough in Brinn’s system to kill her.

So it’s back to the body to try and find more evidence. It comes in the form of glitter. And the manure at the scene didn’t belong to the horse Brinn was riding. Her boyfriend thought she was cheating on him with Mr. Creep and so he killed her. Later that evening, Peter stops by the morgue to tell Megan some of the prisoners who worked with Brinn were taking up a collection for a memorial service. And the program will still continue so Zoe can get a job when she gets out of prison. And Bud brings by her daughter. I think he finally believes people can change. We end with Megan and Todd telling/asking Lacey if she wants to spend more time with Megan, she can start with alternating weekends. Finally, some progress in Megan’s favor.

Person of Interest - "Judgment"

2011-10-23T14:14:00.001-04:00

Person of Interest 1.05: “Judgment”

“Finch, I think I found a way to hurt these guys.”

- Reese

During our usual jumble of surveillance video that serves as transition, we see a man run over by a white car in a parking garage and a phone call between two men stating they have a problem. Then we find Finch in a diner and Reese shows up, asking what’s good. Finch is paranoid that Reese is trying to find out where he lives by determining if he’s come to the diner often. Really, Reese just wants to know what’s good. It doesn’t appear he’s got much time for breakfast though because the machine has spit out another number. This week’s person of interest is Samuel Gates, widower with a young son who happens to be a judge in the criminal court and he’s hearing the case of the driver who hit the man with the white car. So clearly he’s not going to be on the perpetrating end of the spectrum this week. While court is in session (yay for following proper admissibility rules. My evidence professor would be pleased), Reese infiltrates Gates’ chambers looking for anything that might lead to why someone is after the judge. He finds a bunch of hate mail and sends it to Finch for analysis. While the judge finishes up lunch, Reese follows him and some shady looking white guys with crew cuts and manages to recover a phone. It looks like these guys are going after Sam Gates, Jr. Reese gets to the house as the perps are kidnapping the boy and he takes a couple of them down but gets shot and they get away with the boy.

Reese grumbles about how he can’t be there in time if he has bad information but Finch assures him the machine spit out dad’s number not the son. Before Finch can say much, Reese heads out gun in hand. He’s not a happy guy (then again, is he ever?). Court is out and Judge Gates is heading out o the courthouse when the kidnappers call. They say he can’t go to the cops or the feds or else his son will die. He hastily calls his son’s cell phone, his nanny and a family friend but no dice. Just as he sinks to the steps, Reese appears (reminds me of Parker from Leverage) and tells the judge they’re going to get his son back. They head back to the judge’s house and Reese taps the phone and sets up a camera to cover the street outside the house. Finch hasn’t had much luck with the burn phone Reese recovered and the cell phone company firewall is giving him trouble. Reese tells him to hurry up anyway, as the nanny is dead.

Over at police HQ Lionel is going through Carter’s desk. It looks like he sees a photo from when Reese was still a bum but he scurries back to his own desk before Carter gets back. Before they have much time for Carter to question about why Lionel is transferred, Reese texts. He needs to see Lionel. In the coffee line, Reese hands over the bullet that killed the nanny, leaving Lionel to talk to himself in line. Meanwhile, Finch finally cracked the cell company’s firewall and gives Reese an address. The kidnappers need to sleep somewhere and Reese manages to knock out one off the guys and figures out very quickly they are an Eastern European gang. Definitely bad news. The cops have found the nanny’s body and are looking into questioning her clients. Carter’s on the scene because she got a call that the super at the building spotted Reese. Later that night, an officer shows up at Gates’ house to deliver the news. He feeds the officer a convincing story about the nanny not being home when his son got there so he (the judge) came home early to be there. The office leaves and we pan back inside to see Reese hidden just out of view. Reese assures the judge that he will find Sam Jr. And he can do that better than the cops or the FBI because he can be invisible. Well not if the super at the nanny’s building spotted him!

Judge Gates starts to say he should call the cops back and hand Reese over when the phone rings. It’s the kidnappers. It’s not your typical kidnap-ransom. They Eastern Europeans want the judge to throw the hit-and-run case in exchange for his son’s return. So now Reese and Finch need to figure out why the defendant (Angela) is so important. Turns out Angela is an account executive and the man she mowed down was a CPA. Reese tells the judge to stall to give him more time to figure out what’s really going on. Finch has found more information on the gang. They’re not so much a bunch of thugs as a multi-national organization in over eighteen countries. While Finch digs more into Angela, Reese is going to try and wring some information out of the gang member locked in his trunk. No dice, though. Back at police HQ, Lionel spots Carter looking at the nanny crime scene photos. At about the same time, he gets a call from Reese asking about the ballistics report. The gun that fired the bullet didn’t have any matches in the system. Reese tries to the end call by saying he’ll be in touch but Lionel insists he can help. All Reese wants from him is to keep Carter out of the way.

In court, Finch clones Angela’s phone and keeps an eye on the judge. He reverses himself on the admissibility issue and continuously sustains defense objections during the prosecutor’s witnesses. He calls a recess until the next morning but whoever has eyes in the court room for the gang calls and tells the judge to stop stalling. Reese drives around a bumpy, muddy parking lot to try to loosen the gang member’s tongue. Eventually, he gives Reese the address where he went to get paid. He also explains that they work in cells of four people. Finch is still at the courthouse as Reese heads for the address. He overhears a conversation between Angela and the head kidnapper. Whatever’s going on, it’s bad for the kidnapper’s business. But good for our dynamic duo. At the address, Reese finds another of the kidnappers and a whole lot of fake money.

We now have the real link between the gang and Angela. She installs software that detects money laundering. And she installed it at one bank and if she still has access, she can turn it off with the click of a mouse, allowing the gang to clean their dirty money. Reese pays another visit to his two gang members in the trunk and uncuffs one to get the name of their boss out of the other. Meanwhile, Lionel did some more work and found the long-haired guy getting into a car. He ran the license plate and found it connected to a company Coldfield Holdings. Reese gives Finch the boss’s name and gets a text from Lionel about the company. We have a winner. It also seems the gang is laundering money for other people. Lots and lots of people. Finch sends Reese an address that’s only ten blocks from the judge’s house. Worth a shot but Reese needs the hurry. The jury in Angela’s case is back with a verdict. The judge’s throwing the case worked because the jury finds her not guilty.

Finch calls Reese with the bad news but Reese is already on it. He snags Angela at the courthouse as the judge goes off to meet the kidnappers. It isn’t looking good for the judge and his son until Reese shows up. He tells the leader that he’s transferred all the funds in his clients’ accounts to an offshore account. If the kidnappers don’t let Sam and the judge go, the clients will be notified of the missing money. Reese gets to be the hero and wound all the baddies and dumps them at the house he found the money. On cue, the cops show up and arrest everyone. The next day, Reese pops in for a final visit to the judge while he plays soccer with his son. The judge thanks Reese for his help but says he won’t be able to protect Reese in the future when the cops find out who he is. We end back at the diner. Finch asks what the judge said and when Reese says he knows he judge will help them in the future, Finch says he was listening. Reese explains he was reading between the lines. Finch leaves but not before giving a breakfast recommendation.

Body of Proof - "Point of Origin"

2011-10-23T11:10:00.000-04:00

Body of Proof 2.05: “Point of Origin”

“I know what it’s like to wonder about your birth parents because I wondered about mine for years.”

- Peter

Peter is driving along late at night when he stops to see a house on fire. After making a 911 call, he barges in to try and be a hero. He manages to save a woman (though she’s in critical condition) but her husband wasn’t so lucky. Megan gets to scene to find out that the couple (the Applebees) had some domestic dispute trouble a week earlier. Bud and Sam tell Megan that the arson investigators are handling the scene and she doesn’t seem too thrilled. It becomes clear very quickly why Megan isn’t happy about working with the arson boys, led by Ray Easton. They won’t release the body to her until they’re done and it took them three hours. Ray thinks someone poured accelerant on the husband’s body but Megan can’t confirm until after she examines it. They also have an argument over Peter breaking in to save the wife. Ray thinks he should have waited for the fire department and both of them could have lived. Megan’s not so sure.

When she finally gets the body back to the lab, Megan determines that it was lighter fluid in the husband’s pocket that caused the fourth degree burns to his leg and pelvis. And she’s called in Kate to help with bone fragments. Things go from bad to weird when Ethan arrives with the Mike Applebee’s dental records. He also brings news that Peter is fine except for a bruised shoulder. Megan wants Peter to stay at the hospital to collect the wife’s clothes and she tries to get Bud to nudge Ray along on what started the fire. Ethan thinks he knows what subdued the couple (cyanide) but Megan reminds him that when a fire burns it releases toxins into the air. And the weirdest thing of all is the crispy body in autopsy is not in fact Mike Applebee. He had all his wisdom teeth removed but the body in the morgue still has all of his.

Megan is examining the John Doe when Curtis walks in. He tells her that most of the time he sides with Kate when it comes to issues with Megan but on the Todd front, he’s Team Megan all the way. I really thought they’d put their drama behind them from last week. Guess not. Anyway, Megan keeps trying to cut into the victim’s skull to see if he suffered head trauma but keeps getting interrupted. Ethan shows up to tell her the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning. Not surprising given he was in a fire. Over at the hospital, Peter is checking up on Jenna, the wife. She’s unconscious and still being treated for carbon monoxide and cyanide toxicity when Ray Easton’s lackey shows up. He says he wants Jenna’s clothes but Megan got to them first. He also tells Peter about the John Doe. Peter is clearly distraught over not knowing there was a second person in the house.

Meanwhile, Bud and Sam have tracked down the real Mike Applebee in some run down motel. He claims he wouldn’t hurt Jenna and that the last few months had been difficult with him being out of work and her working more often. He called her out on whys she wasn’t coming home and she threw him out. He denies being anywhere near the house when the fire started. He was in his motel room reading The Girl Who Played with Fire. Back at the lab, Megan is examining John Doe’s brain. She discovers that someone hit John Doe over the head while he was still alive. She heads back to the scene to try and look for a murder weapon and finds that the arson investigators haven’t even left the kitchen yet. They’ve been on scene ten hours and have made very little progress, though they claim an old fridge was the cause of the fire. Megan doesn’t think so.

Bud and Peter show up bearing Jenna’s clothes and a possible murder weapon from Mike Applebee’s motel room. Down in the lab, Kate is still working on her bone fragment analysis while Ethan examines what he can out of John Doe’s wallet. He finds a picture and a card indentation in the leather. It turns out to be an organization that works to reunite adopted children with their birth parents. John Doe is now identified as Ben. Jenna was a client of the organization and they helped find her birth father, Daniel Robinson. But it seems he wasn’t interested in seeing his daughter because he closed his door on Ben’s hand. Guess that’s where the hand fracture came from. Back at the lab, Megan, Peter and Kate have a little pow-wow which is rudely interrupted by Peter getting a call that Mike Applebee was arrested.

Peter is really pissed that they arrested Mike without even looking into Jenna’s biological father. Bud claims they didn’t have any reason to look at him, especially since Ray says the vodka bottle found on top of the old fridge with Mike’s prints on it was the accelerant. Peter finally reveals that when he went into the house, Jenna called him dad. Would have been useful to know beforehand, Peter. The car ride to the Robinson house is quiet and we finally get a little Peter back story. He was adopted and when his dad died, Peter got a sealed envelope with information about his birth parents. But he buried with his father because he didn’t think he wanted to know. Looks like he and Megan have something in common. They meet Daniel Robinson and he says that Jenna showed up the night of the fire despite his wishes not to see her and he turned her away. But he says he never went to her house and didn’t know anything about the fire.

Curtis is examining Jenna’s clothes and he’s using her shoes to chart her movements the day of the fire. There’s trace of floor cleaner from where she worked and a pebble to corroborate she visited Daniel’s house. And she stepped in wet paint. Just then, Peter shows up with the news that Jenna is dead. Megan tells Peter that she can handle the autopsy on her own and lets him go home. He’s still pretty upset over the whole thing. Megan begins to look over Jenna’s body and discovers there’s far more cyanide in her body than here should be, given the treatment she was on had been working. So someone poisoned her. At the police station, Bud is releasing Mike and Peter stays to look through hospital security footage. Megan continues the autopsy and finds blunt force trauma to Jenna’s head made by a different weapon than the one used on Ben. We get a very brief exchange between Megan and Kate regarding Todd. I really thought they’d gotten over this whole issue.

Peter is still going through the security footage when Ray’s lackey shows up to help. We learn that Peter was a cop but he got shot and decided he liked medicine. Ray’s lackey said that Ray took him under his wing. Peter fast forwards through some more footage and finds Daniel Robinson’s daughter, Emily on the tape. Emily claims she was only there to try and give Jenna some peace. Her dad didn’t know she was home when Jenna was there. Peter runs into Daniel waiting for Emily and demands to know why Daniel gave up Jenna. It turns out Daniel was only seventeen when Jenna was born. He left in a police station with a t-shirt and a stuffed turtle. The same turtle Jenna was holding when Peter rescued her (that got lost in the fire). Bud is out checking to see if there’s any footage of Jenna at the nearest train station while Megan and Sam check the park (which Emily said she saw Jenna head towards the night of the fire). It leads them to a toy store fire where Megan finds a spent canon fuse. She thinks that Ray has been setting the toy store fires.

Megan is arguing her case to Bud (he’s rather defensive about the accusations) and Megan backs her up. She’s found leather fibers in Jenna’s head wound and Bud makes the connection of a sap (a leather thing passed down in families of cops). Megan borrows Bud’s to test against the wounds while Peter goes with Ray’s lackey to the toy store. Things get out of hand pretty quickly. Ray shows up in autopsy all creepy-like and denies setting the fires. He says he gave his sap to Skip (his lackey). So Ray isn’t the arsonist, Skip is. Peter puts it together pretty quickly and Bud and Sam show up just in time to nab Skip. The next morning, Peter goes to tell Ben’s biological mother they caught the killer and to ask for her help in finding his birth parents. At the lab, Megan and Kate are actually civil to each other about the whole Todd situation. Megan even gives Kate tips on where to go on their next date. Things are definitely getting interesting.

Person of Interest - "Cura Te Ipsum"

2011-10-23T11:09:00.000-04:00

Person of Interest 1.04: “Cura Te Ipsum”

“I know that you spent years of your life healing people and I know if you do this, if you murder this man in cold blood, it will kill you. I know what happens when you take a life. You lose a part of yourself. Not everything, just the part that matters the most.”

- Reese

We begin this week with a somewhat disturbing voiceover by an unseen woman. She’s talking about how when she closes her eyes, she still sees “him” and she wonders if she’s already dead. It doesn’t make a lot of sense now but it will in time. Next, we find ourselves meeting this week’s number, Doctor Megan Tillman. She walks into a curtained off waiting area to see a patient whose been there or three hours. Lo and behold it’s Mr. Finch. He’s complaining of back pain. He gets Megan to write him a prescription (and clones her pager). I’m pretty sure he isn’t faking the pain.

Reese follows her out to a food truck on her lunch break where he sees a well-dressed yet creepy guy watching Megan. Reese follows her that night as she goes home (telling her colleagues she needs to sleep since she works 80 hours a week). She’s not home long though. She heads out to a club. Reese sidelines a guy he thinks has a gun (it’s just a cell phone) and then spots the creepy well-dressed guy from the food truck. Enter Andrew Benton. It seems someone else is following Megan.

The next morning, Reese goes to scope out Benton’s apartment since not only is he creepy, he was carrying date rape drugs at the club. And he’s got various other drugs in his apartment. There’s also some concern since Megan’s been at the club every night that week. Much like the pilot, it appears we have a damsel in distress. And we also have our B plot of the episode. Detective Carter is going to talk to Finch about the robbery at the evidence locker since it appears he talked to the robber (aka Reese) from the surveillance video. That’s not going to end well.

Reese is a little annoyed that there is no apparent connection between Benton and Megan. He hasn’t done any sort of online checking up on that would indicate she was his next target. He and Finch do find an old college police report and Reese is off to talk to Lionel to get it. We find him playing hockey with his son when a group of drug dealers (the ones who lost product when the other corrupt cops got busted) shows up and threatens to kill Lionel if he doesn’t get them $1 million dollars in 2 days.

Another night means Reese is back at the club watching Megan. And this time Benton makes contact as the bar. They leave quickly and Benton tries to entice Megan back to his place but she declines. He really is creepy. But that’s not the worst of it. In continuing to follow Megan, Reese discovers that she’s the one doing the stalking. She stands in a parking garage across the street from Benton’s place and videos him entering the security code to get in. Honestly, I’m not that surprised. We can’t always have victims.

Reese pops up (quite literally) behind Lionel to pick up the police report (and a medical examiner’s report as well) and Lionel complains that if he’s going to keep helping Reese, he (Lionel) needs protection. He wants Reese to get rid of the cartel. But Reese isn’t interested. He proclaims he can find another dirty copy just as useful and without the baggage. Back at HQ, Reese and Finch learn why Megan is stalking Benton. In the 90s when she was in college, he supposedly raped a freshman girl at a frat party. That girl was Benton’s sister, Gabrielle. He was never arrested because she waited 2 days to report it and the physical evidence (rape kit and toxicology) were inconclusive. However, a year later, she OD’d on anti-depressants and sleeping pills. Megan’s after the man who caused her sister’s death. Not a good combination.

Detective Carter is heading to do her interview with Finch (whom she believes is a paralegal). Being the smart man that he is, he doesn’t let anything slip. She didn’t really think it would be that easy, did she? She thinks he slips up when she asks if any of the robbers said anything to him and he says ‘no’. He coves well. Later that night, Reese does a little surveillance on another cop meeting with a hooker to use for leverage. It’s also going to help with the Detective Carter prying.

Reese follows Megan (who is going by the name Kate) to a rape victim support group. Luckily, he manages to talk to Megan alone and sort of connects with her by saying he lost someone very close to him. It makes me wonder what happened to Jessica. Anyway, Megan says she’d gotten past what happened to Gabrielle until a month ago when she saw Benton and her world just crumbled. The following morning, Reese heads out to a beach house that was rented under Megan’s alias. And she’s got enough lye to dissolve a body in a few hours. Reese decides he’s not going to give Megan the chance to ruin her life by killing Benton. He’s going to do it for her.

But first he has to take care of Lionel’s drug cartel problem. He beats the crap out of the guys (but doesn’t kill them much to Lionel’s dismay) and steals some o their drugs. He pays a visit to Benton and knocks him out and sets him up to get arrested with said drugs in the front seat of his car. Unfortunately, he’s a team of expensive lawyers to bail him out. That makes Reese rather unhappy. And what’s more, Megan’s on the move. It turns out the voiceover from the beginning of the episode was Gabrielle’s last phone message to her sister. Megan’s getting ready to take out Benton. He’s on his way when he gets knocked out by the cartel, leaving Megan to taser Benton and abduct him.

Reese takes a beating from the drug cartel boys but obviously fights back. He uses his time down in Mexico doing whatever sort of CIA spook stuff he was doing to kick off some inter-gang hostilities to escape. He’s really not happy to have been derailed. But he catches up with Megan at a diner. He talks her out of killing Benton by telling her that she doesn’t want to kill him because it will ruin her and take away the best parts of her. She finally hands over the keys to the van and we end with Reese and Benton at the beach house. Benton claims he can change but Reese isn’t sure. We end with a fade-to-black as Reese places his hands on either side of the gun, deciding whether or not to kill Benton.

Body of Proof - "Lazarus Man"

2011-10-12T15:43:00.000-04:00

Body of Proof 2.04: “Lazarus Man”

“Maybe it’s our new thing.”

“So you’re admitting we have a thing?”

“We’ve always had a thing.”

- Megan and Peter

We begin with a guy running through the woods at night and he looks pretty freaked out. He runs into a chain link fence and falls over, dead. Next we find ourselves in what appears to be a van as a somewhat crazy driver speeds through a parking garage. Turns out the driver, a pretty brunette named Dani, is the new driver for the ME’s office. Megan lets Ethan handle the body Dani’s brought in and Ethan is quite impressed she knows what she’s doing. Turns out the guy, Alex Grant, was found ice cold. Paramedics thought he was a druggie. There are marks on his arm that might support that theory. With that, Dani heads out and leaves Ethan to do his autopsy. He begins to undress the body when he discovers a gunshot wound to the upper abdomen. Ethan races to tell Megan and interrupts her and Peter having a little light-hearted argument about how they never talk about Peter’s personal life, but always delves into Megan’s. She and Kate seemed almost friendly the night before. Guess Megan’s over her boss dating her ex. Anyway (and given the episode title), Ethan explains about the gunshot wound and Peter goes to all Bud and Sam. Megan and Ethan head back to autopsy to find the body has disappeared. They get everyone, including Kate, in on the search until Megan finds Ale sitting at a table. And he’s not looking good.

Bud and Sam arrive and Megan assures them that it wasn’t her team that messed up. It was the paramedics at the scene. Bud is a little cranky that if Alex dies, he’ll have a murder but not crime scene. As the paramedics wheel Alex out, Sam gets him to tell them that his roommate Paul shot him. So the cops head to the apartment (Bud kicks down the door) but Paul’s not there. Sam thinks they have a lead because the crime scene techs got a GPS lock on his phone. But, after a rather disappointing chase scene they find Paul’s cell phone along with his rather dead body in the back of a trash truck.

Paul was definitely shot in the chest but it was a through and through so no bullet for Bud and Sam. Apparently Paul worked on a campaign for a local Councilwoman. He’s the complete opposite of junkie Alex. Peter makes a comment about how he won’t tell Megan about some of the guys he roomed with in college and she snarks back at him that of course he wouldn’t tell her. Later, Sam and Kate meet with Ms. Bennett (the Councilwoman) and she says that Paul didn’t have any enemies and that anything they need that she can give them by leveraging her political power, she’ll do. Ethan is trying to figure out what the trace is that Megan pulled from Paul’s body when Dani shows up. She thinks she’s in trouble for bringing in the still living and she’s partly right. But Curtis also tells her that her outfit (kind of biker chick-esque) isn’t appropriate work attire.

Bud and Sam are going over Alex and Paul’s apartment and Bud thinks whatever happened to them, came from Alex’s world. Sam’s not so sure when she finds a gun in Paul’s desk. The plot thickens. Megan is a little cranky that Peter hasn’t gotten Paul’s medical records yet but pre-Katrina records are hard to come by. Megan rambles on about all the strange thing she’s encountered while doing Paul’s autopsy when Peter’s sisters show up. Megan is going to have a field day with this. Apparently Peter’s been avoiding his sisters by not answering their phone calls or emails and they’ve showed up to stage an intervention. His “great love” is in town. Peter’s clearly mortified at them just showing up and dropping this on him, especially with Megan giggling away beside him. Ethan appears (as he always does) with news about the trace. It’s from Astroturf. Peter drove the garbage truck route to see if it would provide any clues as to where Paul might have been killed and remembers seeing a school being built. The gang heads over and Peter finds blood on a dumpster and Megan finds a sign with Councilwoman Bennett’s face on it.

Kate, Bud and Sam head over the Councilwoman Bennett’s office to have a chat. The Councilwoman says she didn’t want to think about Paul being at the school and that’s why she didn’t tell Sam about it previously. Conveniently, Bennett gets a call from the Mayor, leaving her chief of staff to handle their visitors. They’ve got some surveillance video of a known loan shark harassing Paul. Supposedly it had something to do with Alex. Ethan’s managed to type the blood found at the school and it’s a match for Paul but they’re still running DNA. He and Megan dig into a Peter a bit, telling him to call Lizzie (his “great love”). Luckily, he’s saved by the phone. Alex is out of surgery. Megan, Bud and Sam head over to question him but things don’t get far. Bud and Sam push Alex too hard in trying to get information and his heart rate spikes. Megan manages to get them to leave before too much damage is done. And it also looks like Paul didn’t shoot Alex. The bullet the doctor’s pulled was .25 caliber while Paul’s gun was a .22.

Sam and Bud head out to Sam’s old neighborhood looking for the loan shark, Mike. They find his mother but no Mike. And mom isn’t too keen on giving her boy up, either. She remembers Sam, asks about her brother but Sam just tells her to let Mike know they’re looking for him. Megan walks into the break room to find Peter still there. He says he’s waiting on the DNA results from the lab. As Megan wonders why Paul and Alex stayed roommates for so long, Ethan materializes with the results. The blood on the dumpster was Paul’s. But there was a second sample that belonged to Alex.

Bud and Sam go back to the hospital and cuff Alex to the bed. They tell him they know he killed Paul and that the DNA proves it. They aren’t the only ones getting antsy to close the case. Councilwoman Bennett is giving a press conference and Kate is pissed off. First the Councilwoman says she doesn’t want press, and then she mentions DNA evidence and an arrest, even though Alex hasn’t been formally charged yet. Her chief of staff says it’s just politics but Kate’s not buying it. Back at the lab, Peter shows up to find Megan’s big breakthrough. She’s finally figured out where all the problems in Paul’s body are coming from. He had a bone marrow transplant and his body was rejecting it.

At the hospital, Megan and Peter let Alex go (well they uncuff him anyway). He didn’t know Paul before the marrow transplant and afterwards, Paul acted like he owed Alex. So Alex used that connection to his advantage. He still feels responsible for Paul’s death. And the reason Alex’s DNA was at the school was because of the transplant. That night, Bud and Sam are staking out Mike’s mom’s store and Sam explains that her brother never made it out of the neighborhood. He was gunned down in a drive by shooting. This episode seems to be all about family. Bud and Sam chase Mike down and he claims the night that Paul was shot, he was playing cards.

Back at the lab, Ethan is busy cleaning up Paul’s body to be released when Dani stops by. I really like their banter/flirting. It’s cute. Ethan lets Dani help but the spray bottle she’s got won’t work until Ethan fixes it. Unfortunately, some of the solution gets on Paul’s hand. Curtis walks in and after scolding Dani for being there, tells Ethan to get a sectioning kit because there is something on Paul’s hand (that turns green and luminescent). At Paul and Alex’s apartment, Peter and Megan are trying to figure out what happened. Alex says he wasn’t supposed to be there. He’d been out o town but came back early. He does recall that Paul had a secret hiding place that Alex wasn’t supposed to know about. Peter finds two environment survey reports with the exact same numbers. One was for a building site and one was for the school. They get back to the lab to find Curtis and Ethan examining the substance on Paul’s hand. It comes from a testing kit to test for soil contamination. Kate, Megan and Peter head to the school and test the soil. Turns out, Paul was right and it was contaminated. I knew the Councilwoman was sketchy.

Bud and Sam are grilling Councilwoman Bennett in interrogation while Megan, Kate and Bennett’s chief of staff watch. Things go downhill quickly, though. The chemicals that Paul was working on transferred to his killer and Megan can smell them right now on the chief of staff’s coat. She admits to it, saying she was just trying to protect Bennett’s career and her own. Big mistake, lady. That night, Alex asks to see Paul’s body. He claims he’s going to use his second chance for good, in honor of Paul.

Megan ends up at a bar and after shooing away somewhat good looking guy, Peter saunters over. He’s just finished dinner with Lizzie. They had a good time but the chemistry just wasn’t what it used to be. Megan asks if there are any other great loves in his life. He says maybe but he’s not sure he likes having Megan dig into his life. They’re so adorable!

Person of Interest - "Mission Creep"

2011-10-07T19:39:00.000-04:00

Person of Interest 1.03: “Mission Creep”

“You’re playing a dangerous game and I’m not sure I understand why.”

- Detective Carter

We begin this week with Reese showing up at HQ and finding Finch asleep at his desk. Reese tells Finch he’s feeling guilty about blowing Finch’s cover and has been looking for a new cover position. Finch isn’t interested. The machine’s given them the number of a former Marine, Joey Durbin. He works as a doorman for a hotel in Midtown. It’s quite clear Reese identifies with Joey. Both being ex military and having seen the same things overseas. Reese even worked with a portion of Joey’s unit in Iraq. So he’s off to tail Joey and see what he comes up with. The first eight hours prove boring for Reese, though Joey gets a garbled text message which Reese sends to Finch to decipher. At this point Joey’s on the move (visiting his girlfriend, Pia, who waited six years her from to get back from deployment and window shopping). When Reese calls to give Finch the text message, we find Finch doing pushups while reading a book. It was rather amusing. Reese follows Joey into a bank and not two seconds later, three men in masks (Joey makes four) come in and rob the bank.

This week is apparently going to be more Reese flashbacks. We jump back to 2006 and Reese runs into Jessica. She asks when he got back state-side but he tells her he’s heading back overseas. When she asks why he’s not in uniform he makes a sort of shady comment that he’s got a new job. We’ll see this flashback play out over the course of the episode. Back in the present, Reese follows Joey to a meeting with a young blond woman and witnesses an exchange of money. And they also find the currier for the bank robbers, a guy named Willis who was also in Joey’s unit in Afghanistan. Finch also finds that Willis stopped at a bar on Coney Island called the Green Zone, run by former Master Sergeant Sam Lattimer (aka Captain Montgomery from Castle). So Reese pays Lattimer a visit to try and get in with the bank crew. Meanwhile Finch is busy creating a vacancy for Reese. He leaves some guns in the trunk of Willis’s cab and the cops pull him over. Good job Finch.

Over at police headquarters, Detective Carter gets to know a robbery detective. Apparently at the ban robbery the day before, they printed the guard’s holster that Reese touched to keep the guard from getting shot. Carter points out that the robbers are likely soldiers. Not looking good for Reese. Well, not from the police angle. From his perspective, it’s looking pretty good. He got a call from Lattimer. He wants Reese (who is going by Miller) to meet the team. Turns out Lattimer’s version of “meet the team” is having them kidnap Reese, drag him to a dark alley and threaten to shoot him if they don’t like him. He manages to sweet talk his way out of a bullet between the eyes by saying he trusted their unit in 2005 and they trusted him. It works enough to get a burner phone. Back at HQ, Reese says he doesn’t think Joey is the kind of killer that can do it up close and personal. Time to find out who is gunning for Joey.

Reese is back to following Joey who shows up where Pia works to talk to her. Joey kind of blows off her request to see apartments with her that night. And as Reese watches, we get the second part of the flashback. It turns out that Jessica got engaged to a guy named Peter back east while Reese was away. Jessica says she waited for Reese but he reminds her that he didn’t ask her to do that. She says that he just left without saying anything to her because he figured he’d die and he didn’t want to hurt her but Jessica thinks it was because he wanted to be alone. Reese explains that you learn in war that you’re alone and no one will save you. Cheerful guy, isn’t he?

Over at police HQ, Carter and her robbery buddy are getting further on the bank robbers. The radios they use are military issue (no surprise there) and Fort Drum reported a shipment stolen six months ago. She’s also surprised that they’ve pulled a dozen jobs together without imploding. Meanwhile, Reese spies Joey watching the blond woman pick up a little girl from school. By the way Joey’s watching, Reese guesses it is his daughter. And while Finch tries to ID the girl, Reese is going to have a little one-on-one with Joey. They “run into” each other at a bar and bond a little bit. It gets even better when a couple banker snobs try to butt in to the conversation and after being told to use his head, Reese head butts the nearest guy. He leans that Joey has what he calls an obligation, though denies it to support a child. He does explain that Straub has gambling debts. Finch also has some intel. The girl’s name is Amy. But there was no father listed on the birth certificate so he’s going to dig deeper. Reese is going to do a little surveillance on Straub. He meets with Lattimer, saying he needs more money or else the guys he owes will take his mother’s apartment. Lattimer says he’s got a job tonight that will score $400,000. When Straub brings sup the fact he needs to split the $200,000 he’d be getting with the rest of the gang, Lattimer says he doesn’t care how he splits the money. Either way he’ll have enough to pay his debts and retire. We are shown a photo of two other Marines who Lattimer says are retired. Lattimer assures Straub that if something were to go wrong and they had casualties on the team, the split would still be 50/50.

The cops are getting ever closer to the gang. They’ve put a trace on Teddy Dalloway’s phone (the driver). Carter and her robbery buddy show up to where the gang is going to be robbing (a gambling hall). Luckily, Reese has Finch monitoring the police band and hears when they call for back up. He gets the gang out before back up arrives. Straub is not happy they left so much money behind. Carter looks pretty pissed when they bust in to find just the patrons there. The next morning, Straub is filling in Lattimer about what happened and neither seems overly pleased. They’ve got another job and Lattimer tells Straub to watch Reese. They might need him to get in but the really don’t need him to get out. And Finch shuts down Reese’s theory that Joey is Amy’s father. Turns out he was Joey’s best friend who got blown up in Afghanistan on a shift that Joey was supposed to be on. So now Joey feels obligated to take care of her. But Reese fails to talk Joey out of doing the job. And he also fails to talk Pia into giving up on Joey if he doesn’t come around soon. Reese really has some mixed emotions about all this. I’ve no doubt he sees himself and Jessica a little in Joey and Pia. So he tells Finch that once he knows the next job, Finch can call the cops to round up the whole gang.

Carter has ID’d the two Marines that Lattimer told Straub were in retirement. They were both shot in the head. Not a good sign for the rest of the gang. We find Lattimer on the phone with a mystery man. Looks like the current gang is about to get replaced once the job is complete. The gang is en route to the evidence lock up and Straub makes Reese ditch his phone and earwig. So much for staying in communications with Finch. But it looks like Finch is a step ahead. When the guys get there, Finch is trying to get some evidence and it’s enough for him to get a message to Reese. Lattimer is going to kill them. They find what they’re looking for but Teddy get’s shot by a guard. They make it out of the building and to the van where Lattimer is waiting but he shoots Straub and Teddy before speeding off. Reese peppers the van with bullets but it doesn’t do much. Carter shows up and takes the radio she finds on Straub. He does get Joey out of the line of fine and successfully convinces him to get out of New York with Pia.

Carter gets son the radio and has a little conversation with Reese but it doesn’t turn up much for her. He is going to take his chances doing what he does and see what happens. She’s convinced he’ll end up dead or in prison in the end. Reese goes to find Lattimer to tie up loose ends but he’s too late. Whoever Lattimer was working for shot him after taking the evidence that the gang stole. It’s got the name Elias on it and so Finch has something to look for. We end with the conclusion of Reese’s flashback. Jessica asks Reese to ask her to wait for him and she would, saying it would take real courage to do it. She walks away and he whispers it mostly to himself. So now we’ve got a season-long mystery on our hands.

Body of Proof - "Missing"

2011-10-07T19:38:00.000-04:00

Body of Proof 2.03: “Missing”

“Daddy killed himself, we suffered and I miss him. How is that a point of family pride?”

- Megan

We begin this week in a park where a little boy, Noah Parker, is being kidnapped. A woman, his nanny named Helen, sees him and tries to save him but a man grabs her and pushes her to the ground. When she chases after the car that has Noah, she gets run over and is killed. Megan and Peter arrive on scene to find Bud (Sam’s training down at Quantico) and lots of campaign signs for Megan’s mom. Megan’s not pleased. And she points out rather quickly that Helen put up a fight before she died. She also discovers a child’s inhaler. Noah has asthma and is now without his medication. At Noah’s house Bud and Special Agent Ames are meeting with his parents. They don’t seem to know anyone who would want to go after them or Helen.

Agent Ames is intent on going to see Megan about theories. Bud warns him to be careful what he wishes for (after they discuss the odds of finding Noah alive and they aren’t positive). Megan tasks Curtis and Ethan with finding out the make and model of the car that killed Helen. Ames shows up and tells Megan she’s working too fast and that she can’t let her emotions and her heart get in the way of the investigation. I really dislike this guy. He’s messing with our team. Megan discovers some day-old bruises on Helen’s shoulder and agrees to join Ames in looking through Helen’s room once she’s found cause of death.

At the precinct Peter and Bud are talking to the witnesses and other nannies that knew Helen. They all seem to think she was great but do mention that she had a boyfriend, Oscar, who they think was hitting her. Bud and Peter bring Oscar in for questioning but he denies taking Noah or killing Helen. He loved her and she was his world. They’re not all that impressed but for now they’re looking elsewhere for suspects. Megan shows up to find the Parker house crawling with feds. Megan has cause of death. Not surprisingly, Helen died on impact. And just as Ames shares that all he found in Helen’s room were a few discarded photos of Oscar, Noah’s mother gets a call. Noah managed to get hold of a phone for a few seconds but it wasn’t long enough to trace the call. But at least for the moment, they know he’s alive.

Curtis and Ethan have found the type of car the kidnapped drove and identified the only guy with priors and a huge debt, Jason Peterson. They also took the liberty of updating the Amber Alert. Megan is collecting trace from under Helen’s nails when her mother calls and then shows up at in autopsy. She wants Megan to go to lunch with her and her publicist but Megan is not interested. Just as her mom asks if she’s working on Noah’s case, Ethan shows up with the news that Bud arrested Jason Peterson. Things get very dicey, very quickly. Bud hauls Jason into the precinct and locks himself in interrogation. He cuts video feed and the next thing we know, Jason is dead. Megan is really pissed and confronts Bud, even though Peter tells her not to. She’s dubious of the injuries on Jason’s neck and flank but Peter tries to explain those as injuries that could have happened in order for Bud to subdue Jason.

Kate’s decided to assist Megan with the autopsy on Jason. The case brings up some old memories. She worked a missing child case early on in her time in the ME’s office and unfortunately, the child didn’t make it. The team discovers that there was a fungus under Helen’s nails that likely was transferred from Jason. It’s a bioluminescent fungus (hooray for glow in the dark) and that means it came from somewhere dark and damp. Even though Bud is off the case, he stops by Peter’s office to give him evidence that he thinks Jason left in his car. It could be Noah’s. Peter tells Bud he’ll pass it along to Megan but that Bud can’t be around the case anymore. He also expresses his displeasure with Bud’s tactics. I can totally agree with him. First of all, it wasn’t necessary to cut the camera. And even if they don’t normally tape the interrogations, they could have had more proof of what Bud did or didn’t do to Jason.

Megan is working late that night and calls Lacey to make sure she’s okay. And once again, Megan’s mom shows up. S he’s got abstracts of every case where Jason was mentioned. Megan asks what the quid pro quo is (it is an election year after all) but her mother says she doesn’t want anything. And she wants to know what she said that’s set Megan of now. Megan pulls out her mom’s campaign pamphlet with a photo of them after Megan’s father’s death. Megan says it was the worst day of her life and every time her mom runs for election to the bench, she has to relive it. The next day, Megan runs into Ames at the office. She’s found blood mixed with the saliva on Noah’s toy and she’s got the team looking into it and she’s about to head to see his parents. Ames questions if that’s the best use of Megan’s time since she hasn’t found a cause of death on Jason Peterson yet. She just gives him an annoyed look.

At the Parker house, Megan asks his mom if Noah had an asthma attack recently. Mrs. Parker doesn’t see how that helps but then breaks down, saying that she and her husband have been arguing a lot lately with work stresses. The FBI techs get an image o Noah holding a sign that is asking for 1 million dollars and he’s really sick. Megan tries to tell Ames she’ll have evidence he can use to help find Jason’s accomplice (who likely knows the Parkers) in an hour. She really shouldn’t have said that. Kate makes a comment that Megan isn’t the first to get swept away from by Ames. Megan reminds Kate that’s got a boyfriend (and for once, there’s no tension between them about Todd at all). Megan finds what looks like an insect in some of Jason’s tissues that he could have swallowed. Meanwhile, Bud shows up in Peter’s office again, begging to know what’s going on. Peter tells Bud to expect the worst. Internal Affairs getting ready to consider voluntary manslaughter and Bud doesn’t seem to care and won’t tell Peter what happened. Ethan bursts in, as he usually does, with news that he found cocaine cut with a weight-loss drug in Jason’s teeth. Ames brings in a dealer (who we assume Bud identifies) but the dealer denies knowing Jason. Ames gets the dealer to tell him where all of Jason’s hideouts were. They’re scattered all over the city but between the poor air quality needed for Noah to get sick so fast and for the bug that Jason swallowed to be alive, hey narrow it down to one place. But they’re too late. The accomplice and Noah are gone. And worse yet, Megan realizes Noah has pneumonia.

Megan and Kate are back to trying to find cause of death on Jason Peterson. It turns out he had an infection that spread to his blood and eventually burst an artery. Bud didn’t kill him after all. And Bud is more than just a little relieved to hear it. He admits to Megan that he thought he really had killed Jason. Ethan pops by to explain the cause of the infection; vaporizer lung. Sounds awful to me. Ames and Megan are at the Parker house in Noah’s room and Ames shares the news that Mr. Parker’s company bankrupted the year before giving him motive (according to Ames). Megan explains to the Parkers about vaporizer lung and Ames can’t help but try to implicate Mr. Parker for being Jason’s accomplice (he had to get into the room somehow).

The interrogation turns into a shouting match between Mr. Parker and Bud. But once both of them calm down, Mr. Parker says he and his wife were out of town over the weekend a few weeks earlier. The team figures out Oscar wasn’t involved because he was in the hospital and Helen was with him. So she likely entrusted Noah to another nanny. And thanks to the bioluminescent fungus, Megan figures out who it is. But they’re a little stuck. They need a warrant on a Sunday morning. So of course Megan goes to her mother (not that she’ll tell Ames that). He takes the nanny (Rina) inside to go room by room to try and find Noah but Megan checks outside. She spots a rusty hatchway door and they get to Noah in time to save him. He’s reunited with his parents and all is well. Mostly. Ames tries to ask Megan out but she turns him down (I don’t think I could stand I they went out). Back at the lab, Megan is saying her last goodbyes to Helen when her mother shows up again. She’ brought with her an article about Megan’s father’s death and says that the worst four hours of her life were when she got home and Megan wasn’t there. Megan’s mom just wants back in her life (and campaign support). Yeah, we’ll see how that goes.

Person of Interest - "Ghosts"

2011-10-01T08:10:00.000-04:00

Person of Interest 1.02: “Ghosts”

“I know what it’s like to lose someone and to feel the need to disappear. But trust me; you don’t want to leave people behind.”

- Mr. Finch

We begin this week with a man talking on the phone to who we assume is his wife. He’ going t o meet her at their usual place and he’s carrying flowers. He gets on to the elevator and just as the doors are about to close, a man rushes in. It turns out to be John. Somehow he’s looking less gray than he did in the pilot. Anyway, he strikes up a conversation with the flower guy, Bill. And within seconds it becomes clear that Bill’s number is up. Bill’s been cheating on his wife and John says that while some women would just leave, others would hire hitmen to make it look like a robbery gone bad. He takes out the two hitmen in the elevator and as the doors open on the ground floor, Bill backs out as John coolly walks off, recommending Bill call the cops and a good divorce attorney. John does like his violence.

We briefly see a man answer a pay phone. He’s been given an assignment and I’m betting it’s not to deliver dry cleaning. He appears to be a gun for hire. We then find John on the street and he calls Mr. Finch. They’re on opposite sides of the street but they can’t just meet. It would look sketchy. John gives Mr. Finch a rundown of the night before and says he wants to meet. Finch tells him they’ll meet when he (Finch) wants to. Meanwhile, Detective Carter shows up at the scene where John took out the two hired guns. For once, he only wounded them. Even though it’s not a homicide, she says it is part of a bigger investigation into the man in a suit who “helps” people. I have a feeling she doesn’t like our unconventional vigilante.

John and Mr. Finch eventually meet up in a cemetery. The machine gave another number, that belonging to a fifteen-year-old girl. But there’s a problem. She’s been dead for two years. Murdered along with the rest of her family. Identity theft in week two, really? Things get even weirder as we get our first flashback. We hop to 2002, shortly after 9/11 to find Mr. Finch in a rather large building, running on a treadmill. Another man, who appears to be his business partner, shows up and says they’ve won another ward for service to humanity. He’s more interested in what Finch is working on. He’s got all the feeds from the NSA that covers New York. He’s still teaching the machine recognize people by cell phone data and facial recognition. He wants to be able to teach it sort though the people, seeing as terrorists don’t just stand out on street corners. But it is likely to take another four or five years to get to that point. I like that we are seeing the development of the machine and how Finch got to here he is now.

Back in 2011, John and Finch meet up at the last place Theresa (the dead 15-year-old girl) was seen. She and her family went out on their boat supposedly no one came back alive. The father killed the two kids and his wife and then killed himself. But Theresa’s body was never recovered. Something is obviously fishy here. John is off to twist Lionel’s arm for information. He needs the police report from the case. Lionel is less than pleased to see John again. Apparently IA is looking at him pretty hard. John could care less. He just wants the file. Back at HQ he’s watching old footage of Theresa’s aunt and uncle after the bodies were discovered. He’s also got a lead in a friend Theresa was arrested with once or twice. John thinks it was a professional hit made to look like a murder/suicide. So we actually get to see finch out in the field. And he’s not half bad. He gets the aunt to tell him that she and her husband divorced and that they didn’t have any kids, though Theresa was like a daughter. She’s hoping that the currents will bring Theresa’s body back so she can have some closure.

At police headquarters, Carter is running into more trouble. She’s got John’s prints at eight crime scenes but half the files are redacted. Looks like the feds aren’t going to play nice. Meanwhile, John is still looking for Theresa but has no luck, until he spots the kid she was arrested with. The kid claims he hasn’t seen her since she’s been dead. It gives John enough time to clone the kid’s phone and see he sent a message to “T”. John finally spots her and chases after but gets cut off before he gets too far. Plus, Theresa had a blade and cut his hand. He seems more pissed about losing her, honestly.

In a surprising turn of events, we see where Mr. Finch actually works. He appears to be a somewhat low-level employee named Harold. But John’s done some digging (and showed up at the office kind of creepy-like). Finch owns the whole company and if John were to say the wrong thing or talk too loudly, most of the office would be overhauled to keep the secret. John explains he lost Theresa and he’s going to look into who the shooter was while Finch searches for the uncle (who is MIA0 and look further at the father’s financials. John gets Lionel to help him out again by taking him to a bar where he can find a fixer. Said fixer usually has a cut in every contract killing in the city but won’t talk to anyone who just walks through the door. John doesn’t seem concerned. He goes and gets thrown out immediately. He gets up, dusts off his jacket goes in again and beats the crap out of enough people so he gets a name. The guy’s in prison though. He doesn’t deny killing the family but says he doesn’t kill kids. So John thinks whoever hired him found out and sent a new guy to finish the job.

Finch has found some useful information. The uncle had some land holdings in a company and sends John the address to check it out. Unfortunately, just as John gets there and finds Theresa’s uncle, Finch says he’s found Theresa through the skimmer she’d been using to support herself. She tried to sell some credit card numbers online. John finds her just in time for the new hired gun to show up. They have a fight and it looks like John’s gotten beat for once 9including smashing through a window). But he puts three or four bullets in the guy and gets Theresa to at least go with him to a hotel. Too bad the hitman was wearing a vest.

John took the liberty of renting the whole floor in the hotel on Finch’s card so they would be sure no one would bother them. As soon as Finch arrives, John’s off to have a word with Theresa’s uncle. We get a quick glimpse of the hit man installing a wiretap on the aunt’s phone as she calls her ex husband again asking him to call her back. Things aren’t exactly as John assumed when Theresa said she didn’t trust her uncle. It turns out the uncle got some money launderers involved in one of his brother’s land holdings that was affected by an oil spill. The government didn’t clean it up fast enough so the shady guys hired a hit man to take out the family and made the uncle the administrator of the estate. So now John understands why they’re after Theresa. She’s the legal heir to the land (and it’s gone up in value 40-50 times).

Back at the hotel, Finch tells Theresa that he saw her aunt and relays the message that she’s missed and loved. Theresa really is not too trusting. But we get another Finch flashback, this time to 2007, when his partner discovers that the machine picks up non-terrorist crimes too. He’s appalled that they’re not doing anything but Finch says that he’s set it to erase the irrelevant list at midnight (information we already knew). Back in the present, John’s relaying the information that Theresa is worth millions just as the uncle gets home to find the hit man sitting in his living room. The uncle gets dead pretty quickly while John follows the father former business partner to a meeting with a councilman. Somehow John manages to find a dump trunk to commandeer long enough to hit the business partner’s car. But he’s too late. The hitman listened in while Theresa called her aunt (didn’t say anything but it was long enough to trace the number) and is now at the hotel.

Theresa and Finch manage to trick the hitman a couple times by turning on the light in the adjoining room when he kills the power in the hallway. And calling her cell phone on the room phone while they slip out into the hallway. Things aren’t looking good when he corners them. But Theresa is ready to face him. Luckily, John shows up and puts a few bullets in him (not enough to kill). Later that night, John calls Carter. He’s tired of her just chasing after him and asking questions so they set up a meet. Of course he doesn’t actually show up. Carter brings all kinds of back up and all she finds is Theresa sitting on a wall waiting for her. We get a pretty happy ending. Theresa is reunited with her aunt and her father ex-business partner is arrested. John shows up at the office of the company Finch owns to find Finch gone and none of the employees seem to know what happened. Just as John is about to leave Finch calls and says that he’s really not a trusting man and that in the future, he (Finch) will call John. As Finch leaves the building, we see a bust of his former business partner with what looks like a year of death as 2010.

Body of Proof - "Hunting Party"

2011-09-28T17:30:00.002-04:00

Body of Proof 2.02: “Hunting Party”

“See if this helps. I don’t have a role. I can’t control what Lacey sees or what she likes any more than I can control you when you go mouthing off to a suspect in a homicide. I am not trying to be Lacey’s mother any more than I want to be your mother and quite frankly I’m getting a little sick of you putting me in that position. So whatever’s going on between you and Lacey, figure it out for yourselves because I don’t want any part of it.”

- Kate

We begin in a forest with a guy in hunting gear. He hears a shot and takes off. One of his party found a deer and they spread out to trap it. Just as everyone lines up their shots, they fire and one of the women in the group falls to the ground, dead. Meanwhile, Megan and Lacey are having tea. Lacey is drinking herbal tea with sugar, even though she hates herbal tea. Her explanation is she’s trying to make herself like it. With some prodding from Lacey, Megan says she’s fine with Todd dating Kate and wishes people would stop asking. As evidenced later on, she’s not all that pleased. But she does agree to a shopping trip with Lacey the following day.

At the crime scene, Peter pulls up in a sweet little sports car driven by a pretty woman. Mean jabs him a little about it. It looks like the woman, Julie Lobe, was shot once through and through but Megan posits she tumbled after she was shot and that the fall probably killed her. And they’ve got three suspects, her husband and his two grown children. Megan is rather abrasive about her theory that one of them killed Julie. She points out a scratch on Martin’s (the husband) neck and as she and Peter walk away, she tells Peter she wants him to get the tissue if he drops it. And then we have a fun little walk and talk where Peter reminds Megan of every time she needed his help.

Unfortunately, Peter makes the mistake of bringing up Megan’s insecurities with Lacey. Kate interrupts to ask if she and Megan are good with how things have been going. Megan’s a little evasive and luckily is saved by a call for Kate from the Mayor’s office. Megan begins the autopsy, still ignoring Peter and finds the nail of Julie’s right ringer finger was pulled back and she had some traces of paint on her elbow. Kate shows up and boots Megan from the case for accusing Martin of killing Julie. Apparently he’s a rich guy who contributed to the Mayor’s campaign. This pisses Megan off quite a lot. Unfortunately, Kate drags Peter away back to autopsy. Megan’s still got the bloody tissue and orders Ethan to type it and what was found on Julie’s body. Back in autopsy, Kate is trying to assure Peter that taking over the case had nothing to do with her dating Todd. He professes to be Switzerland and avoiding getting involved. After all, he’s got three sisters and isn’t going to get in the middle of the cat fight.

The sort of C storyline of the episode is worth summing up fairly quickly. The transportation department is looking for a new driver and it’s fallen to Curtis to conduct the interviews. He sees all kinds of wacky people. It really provides some comedy throughout the rest of the episode. And with this storyline, it was really needed.

Over at the police station, Bud and Sam are talking to Martin, his two kids and his financial manager. All of them were on the hunting trip and none had line of sight with Julie. Megan shows up uninvited and asks Martin what he and Julie fought about because the blood on her fingernail and the blood from the scratch on his neck show that she scratched him. He denies they fought and says she must have had a hangnail and it caught on his neck when she helped him into his hunting gear.

Back at autopsy, Curtis shows up with Julie’s toxicology panel. It turns out she was pregnant. Megan shows up the next morning and takes a peek at Peter’s tablet to see that Julie was pregnant. Kate pops in and after telling Megan that if she pulls another stunt like showing up to the police station on a case that she’s not working, she’ll get busted down to driving for transportation, she gets a new case. Normally, I’d be concerned about two separate cases, especially when one of the leads of the show is pursuing the second one, but it all dovetails nicely in the end.

Bud and Sam are interviewing Martin’s business manager, Alan. He knew that Julie was pregnant but Martin didn’t. She claimed it was so she could get past the three-month threshold. She went to Alan seeking financial assistance. S he wanted him to look into Martin’s assets. Meanwhile, Megan and Ethan show up at the new crime scene and we meet some rather annoying new cops. I know Bud and Sam aren’t the only cops in Philly that work with Megan and company but these guys were just really two-dimensional. Anyway, this second victim is a guy named Patrick. He’s well dressed and groomed but in a crappy part of town. The officers think he was there to score some drugs and got carjacked. Megan quickly debunks that theory as he’s got no track marks on his arms and his car is sitting safely across the street. Megan’s also not too pleased that her investigator got called to another scene.

She takes a break to go shopping with Lacey and is a little horrified to find out that the shoes Lacey wants to buy are rather dominatrix looking. Lacey says she tried on a pair of Kate’s and really liked them. Megan is clearly not pleased with the kind of influence Kate is having on her daughter.

Bud and Sam are at the ex-wife’s house to interview her (apparently she was the one who get Martin into hunting). She says she hated Martin for dumping her for a younger model but didn’t kill Julie. The kids had an interesting spin, too. Even if Julie had children, their inheritance wouldn’t be so diminished to kill. Bud still thinks they’ve got a money motive. And then there’s the whole semi-secret pregnancy. Peter ran some tests and Marin isn’t the father.

When Bud and Sam share the information about Julie’s pregnancy and the fact Martin wasn’t the father, they expect to find motive. But Martin explains that following prostate surgery, he became sterile. Julie was going to a sperm bank but he didn’t know which one. And now Peter’s out canvassing all the sperm banks in the city. Oh he’s so going to get jabs from the gang for that one.

Megan confronts Kate about Lacey seeing Kate’s shoes and Kate basically tells Megan to deal with her issues with Lacey and to leave her out of it. She’s not interested in the family drama. Megan doesn’t have much chance to get far in rebutting Kate’s accusation when it’s time for her autopsy with the newbie cops. And I have to say it was kind of dull. They’re just so boring and don’t get Megan. But they learn that Patrick was an interior decorator who lived in the nicer part of town with his husband. Megan kind of zeros in on Ethan telling her that Peter was canvassing sperm banks. More on that in a minute. Peter explains that Julie did go to a sperm bank but left empty handed. He also talked to her doctor and she showed up for the insemination process with sperm on ice but he didn’t know where it came from. Megan interrupts the group pow-wow to share the news that Patrick was the father of Julie’s baby. She figured it out because they both had the same paint trace on them and since Patrick was gay, they weren’t having an affair. So now she’s back on the case-of-the-week.

Megan and Peter go to talk to Patrick’s husband and they learn that Patrick and Julie were old friends and she asked him to be the father of her child because she didn’t want it to be a stranger. But they didn’t tell Martin because his ex-wife, Alexandra, blamed Patrick for introducing Julie to her husband. Patrick decorated the Lobes’ house a few years earlier. And it turns out Patrick was beaten to death with a tire iron for high end German cars.

Megan is meeting Lacey for some quick tea and a chat. Lacey assures her mom that even if she likes some of Kate’s things, she doesn’t like Kate more than her mom. No one will ever replace Megan. I think Megan needed to hear that most of all from Lacey. Bud and Sam are at Alexandra’s house checking her car but the CSU techs find nothing useful in the car. But it turns out, according to Alexandra, Martin hid all kinds of physical assets during their marriage. Megan and Kate have a two-person pow-wow to share the latest intel on the cases. Kate discovered some trace in the bullet wound that come from a rare oak tree that isn’t in bloom.

Now we have some fun Ethan and Curtis in the woods finding the tree. They find the tree and some residue from hairspray. Bud and Sam are going through the Lobes’ assets because they think maybe someone didn’t want Julie to see what the assets were. Peter is checking out Patrick’s loft where he spent a lot of time painting and finds a video camera (more on that later). Bud and Sam figure out who killed Patrick and Julie just as Megan does. Alan, the financial manager stole from Martin a while ago and he just kept stealing. He couldn’t pay back what he initially took so he just kept going. Megan knew who it was because he has acid reflux and coughed up calcium on Patrick. Unfortunately, as soon as they take Alan out of interrogation and Martin sees him, he shoots Alan. Now they have something to arrest Martin for.

That night, Peter stops by Megan’s office with the tape from the camera in Patrick’s loft, insisting that she watch it. Patrick and Julie were painting a crib for their baby. Even if Martin was going to raise the child, Patrick and Julie wanted the child to know how much he loved the baby. Megan gets teary-eyed as she watches. She calls Lacey to tell her that if she really wants the shoes, she should have them. It sounds like she’s over Kate being in Lacey’s life.