February 5, 2007: What If He Walks Away?
The first few minutes of this episode were a great change of pace, although it didn't take long before I was feeling the same way as Brett did: even when you're lounging about on a tropical beach, sipping alcoholic beverages and spending time with your bikini-clad, smokin' hot girlfriend, eventually you'd get bored of doing the exact same thing day after day. Okay, maybe you wouldn't get bored of it, but you might eventually be depressed to realize that you're trapped. Your life is on permanent hold, nothing you do matters in the long run, and you only have twenty-four hours of freedom to enjoy.
Still, I'm glad that Brett finally decides to use this time-repeating to his advantage by taking outlandish vacations (and for those of you wondering why he's able to flee the city without being hunted down like in the second episode of the series, it's because he's found the tracking device on his car that Fencik and Buchalter were using to track him). The man deserves a few days of R and R. But by the time the first commercial break rolled around and the biggest plot twist was that the secret ingredient in the Baja Blaster was coconut juice, I was beginning to wonder if this was just a filler episode to kill time before a two-part grand finale.
(And on a totally unrelated side note, Moon Bloodgood is absolutely gorgeous, and she's engaged to Milo from
24? Really? Nice job dude he looks pretty goofy to me to have such a hot girlfriend. Maybe some of the girls on the feedback board can educate me on this one: Eric Balfour, hot or not? Maybe his pointy chin and half-goatee are more handsome than I thought. Or maybe there's hope for all of us goofy-looking guys out there after all.)
But
anyway, back to the massive revelations in this episode, which manage to change the entire game again. It seems that Brett's ability to affect people from the moment they wake up has both positive (inspiring his sister to trust him, convincing Andrea to take her boyfriend to rehab) and negative results. This time, Rita wakes up apparently mad at Brett for no real reason. Or at least, no reason that she hasn't felt the other several dozen times that she woke up. She decides to call Chad this morning, and in doing so, tips off Spivak's SWAT team that Hopper is at her place rather than his apartment. Which gives Brett even less time than before to start running.
But Rita gets even less trustworthy as the day progresses: while she's driving along with Chad, she gets a phone call and exclaims "Someone found the body!" What body? Later, Uncle Nick visits Brett in prison and vaguely alludes to the fact that Rita's secret concerns the conspiracy that Booth is running as well. If that's the case, it would make sense that Chad's secret that he's being blackmailed for and Rita's secret are one and the same: if Rita's secret somehow is connected to the men running this conspiracy that would explain how they know about it to control Chad. And this secret also concerns a guy named Billy, whom Chad describes as a perpetual screw-up.
Unfortunately, Rita isn't the only one who's lost Brett's trust. Uncle Nick is also a part of the conspiracy, albeit as an enforcer that, like Chad, has been threatened into working for them but still doesn't want to see any harm come to Hopper. Apparently the dirty money Brett's father accumulated was a result of burying any investigation into the murder of Isabella Contrares, but while Uncle Nick could live with the guilt, Hopper Senior couldn't. Hey, at least the man is nice enough to send "Hippo" (what a terrible nickname to get stuck with) to act as Brett's guardian angel with a sniper rifle. He's not evil, he's just scared out of his mind at the amount of power the conspiracy has, and he advises Brett to plead guilty to the murder and serve his time in jail rather than rock the boat.
And then the episode closes with another two plot twists. For starters, Uncle Nick is the one who tipped off Damien and saved him from the massacre at the safe house. Curiously though, he uses Damien's trust from this tip to convince him that Brett should no longer be considered an ally. And then the final piece of information: much as I predicted, there's someone above Booth in the conspiracy. And I'm
certain it's a character we've already met. Whoever it is, Uncle Nick knows and has access to this person, because he suggests a meeting to take care of business once and for all.
Whew, that's quite a lot of surprises for one episode, so many that it felt like Brett spent almost the entire time after the beach vacations being constantly at someone else's mercy. He goes from almost being killed by Fencik and Buchalter to being lectured by Uncle Nick to getting arrested and accosted in his prison cell. I'm impressed that this show has managed to change everything yet again, but it only makes it harder to wait another week for a single episode, and then one more after that for the finale. Let's just hope they don't save all the answers for the final hour, because I'm dying to know what Rita's secret is.
