Hostages - Episode 1.07 - Hail Mary - Review

Hostages isn't slowing down anytime soon.

It's hard to believe that we are mid-season with this show, but the ending of this week's episode did serve as a mid-season cliffhanger. Before I get to that, let's start at the beginning.

Duncan tells his father-in-law that he hadn't expected that much resistance from Ellen. Therefore, Duncan decides to turn Brian into an ally so that he can convince Ellen to do as he says. It's really interesting to see that this whole situation is just as stressful for the hostage takers as it is for the hostages.

Speaking of the hostage takers, they all have their own problems. Kramer is still reeling from beating up that guy at the poker game, who is revealed to have died from his injuries. I didn't like Kramer in last week's episode. Even though I understand he has feelings to Sandrine, he was so rude to Jake when he tied him up at that house and he still killed that man. But I really liked what the writers did with him this week. They showed his natural reaction to his action: he was afraid to get caught, expressing his fear to his father (we finally got to see them together!), he almost starts drinking again (had he not been stopped by Sandrine, after the which the two of them kiss) and he even confessed his sins to a priest! Unfortunately, at the end of the episode Kramer is arrested for the murder.

Elsewhere, Archer is in prison for a reason: he needs to take down his accomplice of Angela's murder. This accomplice is planning to reveal to the ADA that Archer has murdered Angela. Since Duncan cannot let this happen, he put Archer in prison to kill his accomplice. After one failed attempt and getting beaten by one of the prison guards, he eventually succeeds in killing his accoplice with the help of some others.

In the meantime, the president has some familiar (and political) problems. Kincaid refuses to attend some ceromony honoring his wife's late brother, something that isn't taken too lightly by his sister-in-law Vanessa. She calls him a cowardly president, and says her brother would have been president had he lived. I can easily see her as the one behind the big conspiracy to kill her brother-in-law (this show is slowly turning me into a conspiracy theorist, I am seeing co-conspirators everywhere!). However, his wife (who I really dislike btw, she's such a bitch!) is still not off my suspicion rader either. After all, she can "see the truth behind the lie".

Morgan, meanwhile, is questioned by a social service worker after her bruisings arose questions from her doctor. She denies being abused by her friend or her parents, but when Jake is questioned he says it was Boyd who beat her. Afterwards, Boyd confronts Morgan when he is also called in for questioning, but she walks out. This story will take a drastic turn for the worse, as seen evidently in next week's promo (see below).

And then there is the major storyline of this episode. Ellen was very clear to both Brian and Burton: she wants Duncan dead. So Brian and Ellen decide to use the poison that Ellen was given to assassinate the President. However, Burton (who was Ellen's lawyer after she killed that rapist 15 years ago) is very clear that if Duncan dies, so do they and so do a whole bunch of other people (the look on her face when she disoverd Burton was related to Duncan was priceless, btw!). So she rushes home to stop Brian, but she is too late: Brian injected Duncan with the poison that is set to kill him within seconds. And there is our mid-season cliffhanger. There is really so much at stake that Ellen actually can't afford Duncan to die, but at this moment she is free to run away with Brian and the kids. So what will she do? (SPOILER ALERT: Duncan's fate is revealed in the trailer below!!)

Overall, another excellent episode! What I really like is that every minor or major plot device has far-reaching consequences. No storyline, how tiny it may be, has been forotten by the writers as it always comes back to another episode.

Questions I am left wondering:
-Can Archer really walk away from prison that easily, after causing an uproar and killing someone? Plus, won't the security guard get suspicious?
-Will Kramer run into Archer in prison or will he be out before he knows it?
-What happened to the president's late brother-in-law? How does his sister-in-law tie into the plot? And what lies is his wife telling him?
-How far will Boyd go to get answers from Morgan? Will that cost him his life?
-And the biggest question of all: will Duncan survive? (This is not really a question for me anymore as I have already seen the promo for next week, see below)

Promo for next week: