- Written By: Rebecca Dameron
- Air Date: 2/18/2013
- Directed By: Phil Abraham
- Starring: Kevin Bacon, James Purefoy, Natalie Zea, Annie Parisse, Shawn Ashmore, Kyle Catlett
- Guest Stars: Valorie Curry, Li Jun Li, Nico Tortorella, Adan Canto, Renee Goldsberry
The weirdest love triangle ever wake up in bed together. Jacob gets up, clearly uncomfortable with the recent developments, as Emma and Paul ask him not to be. Jacob isn’t comfortable with anything, from killing or threesomes. What a square. While the three of them play out their morbid soap opera, Joey finally wakes up to his situation: that he’s at a house with mostly strangers and is unable to call his Mom. So, he sneaks downstairs and makes a call from a hidden cell phone (lucky find). Claire answers the call, shocked and elated to find her son at the other end of the phone. Joey describes his whereabouts as best as he can: that he’s in a two story, white house with a large yard. Then Paul catches him and hangs up the phone, and drags him up stairs. The whole time, the FBI is trying to trace the call.
I know people have a right to attorney, but I don’t think any one with as many admitted murders as Joe Carroll, not to mention one with the ability to drum up followers with an ongoing rampage going on from out of prison, would get the freedom for visitation with his lawyer as easily as Carroll does in this episode (let’s ignore also how often Carroll was allowed visitors in prison before his recent escape, and how little attention was paid to these frequent visits by people using faulty ID’s; you’d think they would do some sort of cursory background check on these people.).
No matter; Carroll meets with his lawyer Olivia Warren (Renee Goldsberry), who’s clearly terrified of him, but is unable to refuse his demands (clearly because he can have her killed or has some sort of massive blackmail on her; lame). Thus, the FBI flat out let Carroll put into motion the next wave through her. Olivia releases a statement on TV, a passage from, you guessed it, Edgar Allan Poe, that is clearly a trigger, alerting two more “followers” that their part is to be played. She also waltzes into Claire’s house and demands to speak to her. Claire relents, the FBI is peeved and the audience rolls their eyes, and when Olivia tells her to go to a certain location by herself (and herself only) if she wants her son back, Claire is desperate to act, to make a bad decision, Joey’s phone call stirring up a whole new level of determination. She lies and says she wants to go out of the house, to have lunch with a friend. The FBI are unable to sequester her forever, so they decide to join her for some seafood. Claire apparently does have friends, and sets up a last minute lunch.
While Joey’s phone call was unable to be traced completely, they may have a county: Dutchess County, in New York. They don’t know if it’s for real or not, because the phone has vague scrambling abilities and whatnot, but Ryan insists that it’s the location, and that they need to go find that two story, white house with a big yard! Yeah, ridiculous. But wait for it: when Ryan and Mike arrive at Dutchess County and describe the said two story, white house to the police department, an ashen faced cop exasperatingly says that about 150 houses match that description! Um, WHAT?! How does he know that?
At the farm, Emma talks down Joey, and explains that his Mom is trying to keep him safe, that the cops are the bad ones. Joey either believes her or plays along, but either way, Emma locks him in his room, while they figure out their next move. All the while, Paul is still trying to get Jacob to make Meghan, the woman in the basement, his first kill. It’s amazing how quickly this subplot turned from fascinating and eerie to groan worthy.
In the last twenty minutes, the episode picks up, despite all the frustrating moments before it, as Ryan, Mike and Dutchess County cops attempt to find the house, and Joey makes another run for it, while Claire does the same. The ending sets up a far better episode than this one.
