Blood & Oil - Art of the Deal - Review

After the drama of Carla’s arrest at the Brigg’s Oil Party during the last episode, Art of the Deal picks up with Carla sitting in jail waiting on Hap to bail her out. Hap has quickly figured out that his phone was the bug and he immediately thinks that it was Jules. Of course he’s right, but he still hasn’t pieced together that Wick was involved as well. However, Jules takes care of that for him. When Hap and Wick come to visit her in the hospital she goes off on them and tells Hap that Wick told her to bug him. Hap ruined the one thing that Wick really cared about, his relationship with Jules, so Wick lets him know that he feels justified in what he did. One of the big questions in this family dispute is who Lacey will side with. Hap gets to her first and tries to spin things to get her on his side. I really hoped that Lacey was smart enough to see through this. Sometimes it seems like she’s the only one with any sense, especially when she refuses to just assume that Wick was involved in the oil heist. Even though Hap is completely right in his theory, I will never side with him on anything. Lacey takes Wick out for a chat to find out what really happened the night of the fire but Wick sees through her questions and doesn't admit to anything. When she finds out that AJ was there that night and has his own pictures, she looks though them and finds a picture where the gunman’s watch is visible. She immediately knows that it’s Wick because it’s her grandfather’s watch. Things should really get interesting now that someone has proof about his involvement. 

Meanwhile, after Cody decided to get some space from Billy during last week’s episode, he’s desperately trying to get her back with little success. As if lying about Gary wasn’t enough, of course this show had to introduce a possible new love interest for Cody, especially with Emma and Billy getting closer over the past few weeks. He’s introduced as Jules’ doctor and they have a cringe meet-cute where he accuses her of being a slacking nurse. She doesn't really even look like she works there and, if anything, she would be a doctor with her white coat on. Because of this, the whole scene felt pretty forced and flat - and really made me dislike him. I don’t get why they’re even doing this, they already did this with that blonde food truck guy and that storyline disappeared as quickly as it started. Later, when Cody interrupts Billy’s oil meeting at her house, she learns about Emma and she’s rightfully pretty upset about it. Even though he’s done nothing wrong, it is weird that he didn't tell Cody about her. If she’s just a normal business partner than what’s the big deal??

Later in the episode, the doctor, Alex, comes back to interfere in Jules and Cody’s girls night and continues flirting with Cody. To make things extra awkward, Billy shows up at the bar as well. When things get heated between Billy and Cody, Alex puts himself in the middle and Cody goes outside with him, seemingly to rub it in Billy’s face. We’ve already seen in the promos that Billy ends up at least kissing Emma, so I was having a hard time being mad at Cody. I hate how they’ve ruined one of my favorite couples on TV this year. It’s just such a waste of natural chemistry, they really dropped the focus on them as a couple somewhere along the way, which is unfortunate because that was one of the only tolerable/interesting parts of the show from the beginning. Anyways, back to this awkward love square…Emma is the worst and I knew I didn't like her. Alex, although annoying, at least tries to be Cody’s friend and respects her marriage enough to push her to give Billy another chance. Emma, however, pushes Billy to think about himself and not Cody and then she kisses him! We already knew that was going to happen but I didn't really think that Billy would be dumb enough to do that at the bar when he knew Cody was around. Billy is the worst and I’m pretty much 100% done with him. It’s time for this show to be put out of it’s misery, if only so that I can be put out of mine.

To make matters worse, this episode was beyond predictable. Both Annie and Hap’s oil teams were trying to convince the chief of the neighboring land to let them collect the huge amount of untapped oil underneath that land. Both of them seem to be scaring her away and she says she needs to ask her son for his opinion on who to work with. Obviously, Alex the Doctor is also the Chief’s son. So I guess they’ll be working with Hap because he really doesn't like Billy.

Overall, this episode was pretty slow and boring. However, at the very end, we found out that Jules is pregnant and she doesn’t know if the father is Hap or Wick! Jules always has the best cliffhangers, probably because she’s the best character and basically the only one that I care about at this point. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this storyline wraps up during the finale.

What did you think of this episode? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading!

About the Author - Kate Sidwell

Kate is a 24 year old, USA based, Psychology/Public Health Researcher - but that’s just her day job! In her spare time she is an avid TV watcher (some may even say addict!!). Some of her favorite shows are Jane the Virgin, Bates Motel, The Flash, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Rookie Blue, Silicon Valley, Beauty and the Beast, Sleepy Hollow, The 100, The Mindy Project, Pretty Little Liars, Once Upon a Time, The Royals, Orphan Black…so pretty much too many to count and a huge variety! She’ll give pretty much any show a chance! She also devotes a lot of time to her tumblr (eat-sleep-breathe-tv.tumblr.com) where you can find her reviewing and commenting on most of these shows and just generally fangirling! She’s excited to be writing for SpoilerTV on Complications, Baby Daddy, Proof, Switched at Birth, Secrets and Lies, and Minority Report!

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