"Conscience comes at a price."
The Quality of Mercy
Hey guys, sorry for the delay, but this will be good to refresh our memories for the two-hour, surely thrilling, finale. This season has been amazing, one intense episode after another, and this was no different. We pick up right after the events of the last episode, Woz and Harlee go to Woz's house and see the place is utterly destroyed.
Woz: So much for remodeling the kitchen
Throughout this episode we see a lot of back and forward between Harlee and Woz and their different ideas, she tries to make him come to his senses, to get past the armor he has put on, and reach his conscience, but he’s not gonna feel anything until they kill Bianci, that’s clear. Later we see Harlee go over to the dark side and Woz trying to keep her hopeful, after all, the reason they work so well together is because they usually manage to balance each other out.
Harlee: You've got blood on your shirt.
Woz: I have others.
Harlee: It’s gonna come a day when it doesn’t wash off.
Finally, she does convince him to play it smart and get the dead man’s switch before they kill Bianci, so they set up an operation with the team. Tufo and Espada distract the guard while they use a stolen key card to gain access to the office building where the safe is kept. In the meantime, Tess and Loman go to Elena’s apartment to collect material to frame Bianci, I’m not sure sending Loman in to see what Woz has done is the best idea, he told them it was Bianchi’s doing, but I’m sure it will come out eventually. After they’re done, they set up the neighbors to witness them breaking the door in and finding the bodies like that.
Harlee and Woz manage to crack the safe and take a black metal box with them, they’re about to get away, when they bump into an intern, and she’s suspicious, but one look at Woz’s dead eyes with his hand near his gun and she starts crying, he wants to shoot her right then and there, but Harlee tells him to calm and decides to just threaten her.
Once they hold the box in their hands, Woz gives it to Espada to pry it open and he and Harle go to Nava to convince him Bianci’s tying loose ends and to speed up an arrest warrant from a judge who can keep it quiet, so Bianci doesn’t see them coming. In the end, it makes no difference because the intern comes forward to her boss and he alerts Bianci. Harlee and Woz realize Bianchi is about to move his operation, so they have to rush it and go in without backup, damning their luck and realizing the intern was the most likely connection.
Woz: Your conscience comes at a price, Harlee.
So, they go in, they are in the process of “arresting” him, when Verco shows up and makes sure that’s what they really end up doing, Bianci seems sad about his girlfriend, but he’s sure he’ll get out of jail, just like last time, Harlee tells him maybe it will be harder without his box of blackmail and he warns her she won’t like what she finds inside. Color me intrigued.
Harlee is being very protective of Cristina and drives her to school, where she tells Harlee she likes Nava and urges her not to screw it up. On a different, but very related note, Stahl bribes a lab tech to speed up the process of the DNA testing saying a little girl might be living with a murderer, which is funny because it's true and at the same time so not like he makes it sound. But the test is inconclusive and the tech says he needs a fresh sample. So Stahl takes on a different route, he collects the files of Miguel’s calls from jail and leaves Cristina a voicemail like with his voice saying he wants to see her, that’s a new low, the poor thing is so exciting.
She leaves school to go meet “her father” and then Harlee gets a call and a video showing someone has eyes on her and they’ll kill her if the team doesn’t let Bianci walk free. I know this was designed to make us think the caller was Stahl, but since he's not, I don't see the logic here, were Bianci's men just hoping for a lucky break? Did they create the voicemail instead of Stahl? If so, how? It's too much of a coincidence.
Anyways, after getting the call, Harlee goes to Woz in a daze and collapses in his arms. When she wakes up, the whole team is trying to dissect the video. Tess realizes if this is Bianci, they’re all targets, and Woz tells her to protect her kids. Once Harlee and Woz are alone, she scolds herself for letting the intern go, but now it’s woz telling her a little mercy is a good thing.
While Harle struggles to get over the shock, and during the whole time Cristina is missing, we see cute flashbacks of Harle and little Cristina playing hide and seek in the bed. It was a nice way to make us feel what Harlee was feeling, and it was a nice change, to see them playfully happy for once, the relationship between these two is a gem I think the show should explore a bit more.
The stalker sends another video and they see Stahl in the reflection of a window, so she calls him, she doesn’t even care what he’s doing, she just asks him to tell her where her daughter is, the creep makes her beg but he finally gives in. When they get there, they realize they won’t be able to nab her without a shootout, so Stahl comes in again, he approaches her, tells her her dad couldn’t make it and he tells Cristina Miguel is involved in something sketchy and he wants to protect her, he takes her with him, and also takes advantage of the chance to grab her coffee cup for testing, sneaky bastard.
Cristina ditches him after a second and leaves, she’s creeped out, of freaking course, but this helps the crew identify the guy. They surround him but he grabs a woman passing by and holds her at gunpoint thinking he has the upper hand, though he's not counting on Woz, who blows his head up from behind in a very creepy but bad ass way.
Later, Harlee makes a house call to Stahl, pretending to be thankful, but as soon as she's inside, she grabs him by the balls, literally, and threatens him. He spits out some messed up speech about how says he’s just trying to "unburden her of her lies" by investigating her. And the worst thing is, he might even believe it.
Woz goes to his house where Espada has been working on opening the box all day, Espada asks him what's inside, sick of being at it all day and wanting to know it’s worth it, and Woz tells him the sins of the city are inside. After a while, Woz finally cracks it open and finds what’s inside, starting with some pictures of Verco and Gail, and another of Julia with someone she shouldn’t be talking to.
After her visit to Stahl, Harlee comes home, calls for Cristina and when she hears her voice she almost cracks with relief right there. This is when it dawned on me just how clueless Cristina was of the danger she was just in. Harlee comes into her bedroom, where Cristina is reading, and reminisces about their games and how they used to pretend the sheets were a protective tent that kept all the monsters away.
Cristina: Mom the tent was just a blanket, you were the one who kept all the monsters out.
What did you guys think of this episode? Are you as excited for the finale next as I am? I'd love to read your thoughts.
