Graceland Season 3 Episode 2 Review: Chester Cheeto
Jennifer Knutson
at
.
Updated at
.
The cosmic balance is the name of the game in Graceland Season 3 Episode 2.
To accomplish good the team allows for some bad, but do the cosmic scales ever balance in their favor? Can sinners be heroes?
I think we should insist upon measuring a person by their deeds. By the goodness or badness of their self determined actions.
Director
Breathe a sigh of relief Graceland viewers. Johnny is still Johnny. He's only helping Sid to get Lucia out of Carlito's compound. Did we know this all along? Yes, of course. We believe in Johnny's ultimate goodness. Still, it's nice to have our belief reaffirmed.
Is his plan 100% crazy pants? You bet. But that's our Johnny. I'm not sure what end result he expects. Johnny arrives at Carlito's army with Sid – two guns against an army.
I love you Johnny, but do the math my friend. Somebody was always going to end up dead. Quite frankly, Johnny is lucky it wasn't him.
Shooting Sid to save Carlito so Lucia isn't killed basically erases the heroic effort. If anything, Johnny is in deeper with Carlito now. I'm not seeing a clear way out of this spider web unless Johnny starts enlisting the help of the Graceland team.
It's a new day new plan for Briggs. If Logan won't let him arrest Ari, then he'll just kill him. Good grief. Anyone else want to smack Briggs sometimes? Raise your hand if you agree.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul is a horrible plan. How did murder work out for you the last time, Briggs? The whole reason you are in this mess with Ari and Logan is because you were trigger happy in a drunken stupor.
You can't control a psychopath anymore than the break of a swell. For now, I'm surfing.
Briggs
This plan has more holes than Swiss cheese, but Warren points out the most obvious. Logan will immediately suspect Briggs. If Logan can't arrest Briggs for Ari's murder, then he'll just use the Badillo tape. At least someone on the Graceland team is using logic.
Mike's words of warning hit their mark with Briggs...eventually. Just as he's about to shoot Ari, in the back, Briggs changes his mind. Instead of murdering Ari, he kidnaps his girlfriend – who happens to be Martun Sarkissian's daughter.
Kidnapping is a step up from murder. What can I say? Paul Briggs is a work in progress. His cosmic balance is going to take some time. A lot of time.
Speaking of Mike, he's working very hard at tipping those scales in his favor. He confronts Logan and attempts to extricate Briggs from the Sarkissian mess. It fails miserably, but A for effort.
Mike is determined to be cleared for duty too. What's the rush? Warren doesn't handle failure well, and nearly all of his investigations were epic ones. He needs to balance his record with a few wins – i.e., arrests.
Problem is, Mike can barely walk. Seriously, what kind of doctor is he seeing? I don't understand how he was cleared for duty and that was before Mike started popping Oxycontin like candy.
I appreciate Mike's need to do good, especially after his near death experience. As with Briggs, balancing the cosmic scales takes time. Mike needs to be Oxy free. Otherwise, the dark path of addiction will eradicate any good he attempts.
Mike doesn't need to arrest bad guys to even the cosmic scale. He's forgiven Paige freely and without equivocation. Mike's forgiveness can only be described as grace. Mike didn't forgive Paige to benefit from it. He forgave her because he loves her.
Finally explaining what happened to Lena was a necessary confession. Part of the frustration with last season was a simple explanation would have eliminated 90% of Paige and Mike's issues. He didn't kill Lena. In fact, he tried to save her. Burning the body and lying about her whereabouts was bad. It was selfish and more than a little disturbing. However, it was not murder.
Paige. Sigh. I'm trying with her, but it's difficult. Graceland Season 2 wrote themselves into a corner with Paige and they are trying to box their way out of it, but it's not entirely successful. The cold shoulder routine with Mike left me cold.
It's not until Mike confesses what happened to Lena that Paige acknowledges what she did to him. Telling Mike he's a painful reminder of her sin because he survived isn't exactly a heart warming apology. It seems Graceland's position is Mike's sins against Lena are worse than Paige's sins against Mike. I can't get behind that no matter how hard they sell it.
Still, I'm taking a page from Warren. Is Paige a lost cause? No. The medal is for saving those girls and she earned it. If Mike can forgive her can I do any less? Graceland Season 3 is asking us to focus on the good. I'll try mostly because, in the immortal words of Izzie Stevens, "It's what Jesus would freaking do!"
"Two roads diverge in the woods" for Charlie. One path is being an FBI agent. The other is motherhood. Charlie believes it's one or the other. She makes the painful decision to end her pregnancy.
Except she didn't. Charlie wants Briggs to think she did.
I understand how this plan works in the interim. It gets Briggs off her back about the operation with Amber. By the time Charlie is showing, the op will be over. This is a whopper of a lie to accomplish some good. How the cosmic scales will balance in the end is anybody's guess.
For undercover agents in the field, deeds are currency and action is the state of play. They are foot soldiers who fight for justice. The best of them are what we see when we imagine heroes.
Director
The Graceland team is in a constant battle of give and take. They sell pieces of their souls to save them. In the end, perhaps balancing the cosmic scales is less important than the valiant attempt.
The agents are on the front lines in the battle between good and evil. You can watch Graceland online to see which side, if any, wins.
