Episode Report Card Sobell: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The light you see at the end of the tunnel…
By Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 13 | Aired on 11.27.2005
Sure enough, Darius has parked right outside the prison. His friend speaks for all of us with, "This is crazy, dawg."
Meanwhile...Kellerman's pulled up and asked Hale, "What are you doing here, Danny? Where's the lawyer?" Hale tries to play dumb, but Kellerman says that Allison (Mrs. Hale) spilled everything. Hale starts forward with, "You didn't touch her --" "Why would I do that? We're partners, right? We're on the same side," Kellerman says. Oooh, he's good. I mean, he's a magnificent bastard, but he's so good at it. Kellerman says, "Allison's fine. She's just -- well, I guess you're going to have to ask yourself who you want to give up: your wife, or this lawyer. Just tell me where she is." Hale's steeled for something and he tells Kellerman not to do this. Kellerman looks briefly regretful, then says, "Give me your gun." Hale tells him that's not going to happen, and all of a sudden, Kellerman's decided that they're not partners but boss-subordinate. Guess who's on the order-giving side of that equation?
Kellerman whips out his piece and orders, "Give me your gun." He goes over to the immobile Hale and opens his jacket to reach for it, but the letter falls out instead. Hale begins babbling, "Paul, it's nothing, it's not --" but Kellerman's not having any of that. He grabs the envelope, gets the letter out, and reads it. His gun's trained on Hale the whole time. Kellerman then looks up and says, "It's amazing. You got it all on only three pages. You know what would happen if this fell into the wrong hands?" Hale doesn't reply. He's too busy keeping his jaw firmly set. Kellerman keeps reading, then looks over at Hale, genuinely upset. His voice is almost tremulous as he says, "You named me?" Aw, baby. Come here. Let me make it all better. Just...just put down the gun first, okay?
It all goes pear-shaped from here: Kellerman's pissed that Hale named him, Hale points out that he put his family first, there's some shouting. On the verge of tears, Hale says, "Paul, you and me, we've been friends since the academy." Is that why you never took his death threats seriously? Because he's been making them since you were midshipmen? Kellerman pulls it together, says, "You named me." And then the camera pans back so we see only their figures in profile, and it looks like Kellerman just shot Hale in the head. Hale goes down like a sack of hammers. However, when we zoom back in -- first Kellerman's unhappy expression, then to Veronica's horrified one -- the camera rests on Hale, and not only is he still breathing, it looks like the bullet went through his chest. Given how bulky he was looking, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a bulletproof vest on underneath his clothing. I mean, he was wearing a bulky holiday-gift-looking sweater (seriously: this was the kind of sweater a woman gives her son in a subconscious effort to neuter him), but even the most odious gift sweater's not that bulky.