“The Yellow Couch” is situated halfway through “Eyewitness’” first season and thus bigger strides are made forward in the story.
Picking up from Philip’s cliffhanger confession, this week’s episode sees Helen leading a search for the murder weapon from the cabin murders and coming up empty because, as we know, Lukas now has the gun. Helen is quick to assure a wary Philip that she believes him. But when she later catches him in a startling lie, her trust in him splinters, and that ends up rippling through the relationships between Helen, Philip, and Gabe too, putting their family unit in jeopardy.
Meanwhile, to my surprise, Kamilah doesn’t try to cover for her sister and hands over the video of Sita murdering Mithat to Ryan and the FBI. She still wants to mitigate the damage, though, especially for her nephew, and ends up reaching out to Helen for help. And Ryan, unnerved that Helen still hasn’t backed off her investigation even with Mithat dead, digs into her background for dirt to use against her and learns about The Case She Can’t Let Go Of from back in Buffalo.
One-on-one scenes between Helen and Philip tend to be my favorite things about any given episode of “Eyewitness” and the one they share here – which starts with Helen trying to reassure Philip and then becoming rattled by his slip of the tongue – is no exception. In fact, Tyler Young is particularly great throughout “The Yellow Couch” as things for Philip get worse and worse and people he cares about keep letting him down. I’m also keeping an eye on Deputy Tony. He seems enamored by the big-league crime they’re investigating and reluctant to go back to small-town police work and I fear Ryan might use that to his advantage.
But wow is Lukas unlikeable this week. I get his feeling betrayed and blindsided by Philip going back on their pact, but the way he needlessly pushes Philip further under the bus is pretty cruel. And James Paxton isn’t doing enough in his performance to soften these character beats. Lukas does make a big gesture late in the episode, but it might be too little, too late as far as the rootability of this relationship goes.
You can plop down on “The Yellow Couch” tonight on USA Network. Until then, come stretch out in the comments section.
