The Player - L.A. Takedown - Review: "We Knew It!"

This week’s episode gave us more of a glimpse of Alex’s investigate side; proved that those of use unwilling to trust Mr. Johnson were wise and set up a pretty interesting story for Cal.

The Bet this week: Can Alex Kane stop the southwest sniper before he kills again?

Said sniper has shot and killed three men with no connection to each other. Alex and Cassandra work pretty well together. Alex’s knowledge of the technical aspects of and stars in the sniper ‘industry’ allow him to pretty quickly identify the shooter and the fact that these killings are cartel related.

While Alex puts together the technical information, Cassandra tracks information on the victims. She learns that all three visited the same area of Mexico 5 years ago. But it’s Alex who decides to check social media to find out why they were all there. Seems that FBI training is going to make Alex a stand out player.

All three victims were divers, so Alex is off to the only dive shop in this small Mexican town. The shop owner clearly doesn’t want to say anything for fear of his and family’s lives. Alex tells the shop owner to look at the clue so he could “honestly tell the cartel you said nothing to me”. The shop owner indicates several photo albums and leaves. Cassandra tells him bad guys are coming so Alex quickly looks through the album instead of stealing it. Not the smartest approach but…nah. I got nothin’.

In the middle of a Mexican desert they managed a car chase that included a dune buggy and a rocket launcher. Those two items are pretty cool side benefits to being a cartel member. I mean a rocket launcher, how cool. Of course, the downside is getting killed while you’re trying to kill the good guy. Life can be full of trade offs.

The trip to Mexico is a success. Alex now knows who the next target is, Bob Sturm, a book editor who took his son on a diving trip in an effort to deal with the loss of his wife. Alex arrives a few minutes before the sniper can take his shot. Alex shoots the poor guy in the arm to save his life.

Bob confesses that he and the other divers came upon a car crash with a bag of money laying on the ground. The divers split up the money and took off with it. Alex quickly realizes that Suarez will go after Bob’s son next. Bob can’t believe it, because his kid was the only person to argue against taking the money. That decision ruined his relationship with his son. Alex points out that the cartel doesn’t care.

This all brought us to another fun sequence. We get to meet Action Cassandra! She was surprisingly believable (and wore better lipstick). Alex manages to figure out that Cassandra has had SAS training. Cool. Cassandra operates as Alex’s spotter. She finds Suarez, but before Alex can shoot Suarez a helicopter appears to take him and Cassandra out. She and Alex jump off the roof and end up swinging on a crane hook. From this precarious position, Cassandra manages to shoot the gunman in the helicopter. You go girl! She’s also the one to take out Suarez. But I’m betting it’s Alex who spearheaded the attempt to get father and son to speak again.

The Player wins the bet.

Also in this episode, Det. Cal Brown starts his own quest. He receives a call from an FBI agent, Rose Nolan, looking for Alex’s predecessor, Justin Foucault. He agrees to interview the missing man’s wife when he realizes there is a connection between Alex and the missing Foucault. (AKA the dead player in the pilot)

Cal sees some similarities between what Foucault’s wife describes and what he’s seeing with Alex. So, when Agent Nolan asks him to meet her in the middle of nowhere he agrees. She hands Cal a file on several other men we can assume were previous Players. She knows Alex matches her profile and that Cal and Alex are friends. She wants him to follow the case unofficially because he is local. The incentive? Each of these men have disappeared, and he can help keep it from happening to Alex. This sounds like a pretty interesting way to approach the ‘friend or family member trying to find out what’s happening with their friend or family’ story. I’m suddenly interested in Cal’s story. There’s some real potential here.

Finding out what happened to Ginny is still primary on Alex’s mind. He calls on his geek buddy, Donovan, and asks him to stop by. Alex wants Donovan to pull data of the SIM card he found. Donovan is beginning to worry about his friend’s state of mind. Who could blame him? Not many people feel the need to get a DNA test on their lost loved one and the paranoia inherent in Alex’s list of conditions (‘that card must go no where near anything connected to the ‘net’) for working on the card doesn’t help. Donovan’s expression when Alex told him not to talk to anyone because it would “safer that way” was priceless.

Any doubts that Alex has good cause to be a little paranoid are dispelled when Mr. Johnson breaks in and puts Donovan in a choke hold that leaves him unconscious. (At least Johnson provided aspirin.) I was happy that Donovan picked up on Mr. Johnson’s entry. Unfortunately, being a civilian he put the noise down to his imagination.

The sight gag of Donovan refusing to look at Mr. Johnson as Johnson turns him around for a face-to-face conversation was hysterical. Mr. Johnson proceeds to examine the contents of the SIM card and steals all of the information. Johnson convinces Donovan to lie to Alex about what he found. Not a lot of persuasion required, poor Donovan was terrified.

When Alex returns, a guilt laden Donovan tries to tell Alex that what he’s looking for isn’t in the information he was turning over. My heart broke for Alex when he realized that there was nothing there. Was I the only person who heard a glitch in one of the messages? Maybe Alex will notice when he calms down?

Many of us did not trust Johnson when he made that offer to help Alex. But if I look at it through my rule of ‘things are never as simple or easy as they seem’ in stories, Johnson will have done this to protect Alex. I don’t believe me either. Mr. Johnson is a bad guy.

I was a little worried when I realized that this episode was going to be very different, in tone, from the high action episode 2. But I needn’t have worried. I liked seeing Alex use skills other than shooting a gun. He and Cassandra make a really good team. Their skill sets complimented each other here. As I said, I like the story they set up to bring Cal into the main story.

What did you guys think of the episode? Are you still having as much fun as I am? Let me know what you think.

About the Author - Prpleight

Prpleight is a screenwriter and senior software engineer with solid geek cred. When not writing code, screenplays, or watching TV (sometimes she does all three at the same time), she uses her broadsword Bessie to battle evil. She's been a frequent contributor to the SpoilerTV discussion boards for several years now.

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