Matt grounds Hilde from writing any more articles without talking to Bridget about it first. In return, Bridget says Hilde can skip school to attend Frank’s suspension hearing.

 

Matt’s contact at the FBI, Chris Atkins is running the DNA on Richie’s jacket. 

 

Sheriff Briggs tells Frank he’ll drop out of the race and let Frank run if he changes his testimony at Sam’s hearing to say that Sam simply ran off during a restroom break on his way back to prison. 

 

At Frank’s suspension hearing, Trip testifies that Sheriff Briggs already knew that Frank had taken Sam to Penny’s house and that the Sheriff saying that he’ll never allow Sam to go free is what pushed Sam to run. 

 

Despite Trip’s testimony, Frank lies on the stand to protect himself and his father, putting Trip’s career in jeopardy. When Trip tries to quit the force, the Sheriff tells her she can’t, that she’ll stay and work behind a desk the rest of her career because he’ll blacklist her for every other law enforcement job in the area. 

 

Matt visits the Mayor and finds the Sheriff and Frank with him. Matt has medical files for the Fife family but Richie’s file is missing. 

 

Matt and Bridget finally talk. He tries to explain how he just wanted to build a new life and leave what happened in his childhood behind, that’s why he never talked about Richie Fife with her. Now he realizes the past has never left him and promises to let her in. 

 

Hilde wants Trip to run for Sheriff. She, Donnie, and Spoon need one hundred signatures by the end of the day. They go to the nursing home where Sylvester used to live and get fifty signatures. Ethan helps them get the rest at an event at the docks. 

 

Trip submits her paperwork to run for Sheriff. Frank Sr. tells his son that Trip is just an annoyance and that the Sheriff’s office is a Briggs’ legacy. 

 

Bridget decides to write an article for Hilde’s paper about how she’s seen more corruption in law enforcement in her short time in Erie Harbor than she did in a dozen years as a public defender in New York City. 

 

Agent Atkins has the DNA evidence from the jacket. The blood on the jacket isn’t Richie’s. He goes to Mayor Fife and tells him the DNA belongs to a woman.