The Reckoning
Harlee and Wozniak have to deal with the consequences of going up against the blue wall, and so does the rest of the team. Verco tries to help out but he can’t do much when he’s always kept in the dark, though it is, of course, understandable. After the reckless move, things are getting dicey, you don’t come to arrest such a big fish's henchman without an airtight case, you just don’t, and it seems ironically Verco is the only one on their side this time. Did I mention I missed Verco? I need a buddy cop show with Verco as one of the partners immediately, he's just so much fun, and delivers his lines with such perfect comedic timing and tone, it baffles me Dov Davidoff hasn't had any real success yet, he's awesome.
"How do I help facilitate the wild irony of you two investigating a cop for being dirty?"
Tufo and Nazario are not exactly happy of being in the front lines of Harlee’s war especially as things get worse and worse, though Tufo is on board with taking them down on the account of Wallace, so the only weak link would be Tess, and she sounds like she’s heading down a dark path mentally. Ramsay takes advantage of this and it looks like he's trying to recruit her, which Woz might use to his advantage later. Tufo is still very much on edge, worried Ramsay will try to take out his brother soon, but this leads to a very intense scene where Loman stops him from making a huge mistake, and I get that he’s on edge, but that was way too trigger happy, they do discuss this later but it doesn't look like a conversation that was really necessary, at least not in the way it was portrayed here.
"This is when our choices matter the most when what’s wrong is easy."
Woz’s hallucinations are getting worse but that scene where he sees his daughter is heartbreaking, Ray Liotta continues to do a great job even if all of this is clearly foreshadowing of the bad things that will happen to him, like the character is being prepped for death. The team goes looking for a contact of Ortiz's but he kills himself before putting his family in danger of the cartel’s retaliation, so later Harlee and Cole go looking for useful evidence that will later come back to bite them, but it does offer an opportunity for them to get closer, literally. Ramsay takes the fight to the public stage by saying Bennet is an anti-terrorist hero, his speech is not particularly well constructed or believable, but it wouldn't be the first time people don't see past the bullshit.
"Nobody fact-checks the bogie man."
Harlee finds out Gina retracted her statement so she goes to see her but no one opens the door, Stahl is there with Gina tied up, I'm sure now she knows who the creep is, but the realization doesn't last too long because he stabs her to death and puts the knife in Harlee's car. And I have to say I'm kinda tired of this, I just think the story gets too convoluted when he’s around. The last few moments are indeed thrilling because they go to a warehouse where Ramsay stashes his drugs and get in a shootout with Ramsay's crew, they call for backup but as soon as they hear it comes from Harlee's radio they start turning around, only Tess kidnaps her partner's car and comes to the rescue. I have a few problems with this, first, if Cole was on their side, the other two would be vastly outnumbered, also, trying to kill them there in broad daylight doesn't seem like the best strategy, I guess that’s what impunity gets you, but still, the whole logic makes zero sense, "you don’t arrest your fellow cops, but you’re welcome to kill them?" because all those cops that turned around were very much willing to let fellow cops die, so I don't know if this is a flaw of the show or the real police force, but it is very stupid either way.
Straight Through the Heart
They manage to survive the shootout but for some reason, Woz blames Harlee for the shameful behavior of the police force, though it does make sense if you remind yourself he’s all that’s wrong with it, sometimes I have to. Which makes me think this really can’t end any other way than for both Ramsay and Wozniak going down, and hopefully starting a true reckoning inside the force, but that’s probably just wishful thinking for real life I suppose. I just feel so icky about the cop’s behavior, they are all a 100% agreed that it’s better to kill a person than to arrest an officer who has murdered people, and they make it very clear to Harlee and Woz.
Now Ramsey is framing Wozniak to make it look like the drug trafficking operation is all his. Verco knows something’s off but they’re having a hard time finding real evidence against Intelligence, so all he can do is buy them some time. Woz keeps interrogating Bennet who's apparently a veteran with a dark record, perfect for someone like Ramsey to take advantage of his skills and his damage. Bennet tries not to give anything away but he slips up and lets Woz realize that Ramsey has someone in IA, though that can’t be a surprise this leads him to seek Verco's help one more time. At first, Verco doesn’t want to get his hands dirty but when they’re going to release Bennet he decides to go for it and see if Woz is right about the mole in IA, but he finds out the truth the hard way when a hacker that could help them turns up dead.
Harlee finds the knife and was following exactly the path Stahl thought she would, but then she stops herself from getting rid of it and turns in the knife to the FBI. But here we learn he's working with the FBI agent, which is a twist I didn't see coming, but not in a good way, because it makes no sense whatsoever that they would be in cahoots the whole time unless she’s evil, and that doesn't seem to be what they're going for, they seem to be trying to show her as a good agent who got tricked, but it's just too ridiculous to be believable
Cole is getting more paranoid by the second and I have to say for an Intelligence cop he's way too obvious when he lies. At the end of the episode, he asks Harlee to torture him so he can say they got nothing out of him, which is just one more thing that makes no sense. It would just be so much easier if he implied they got something out of Bennet, why would they torture him and not Bennet? are they abiding by the law or not? I love these characters and the dialogue but the plot is getting more ridiculous and convoluted by the episode and I'm very disappointed that this is how they decided to finish this show, because, for the most part, it has been pretty amazing. Thankfully, there are only three episodes left so they should start wrapping some stuff up soon.
"Sometimes crazy is good." (Sometimes it isn't)
What did you think of these episodes? How do you think this will end? Let me know in the comments.
