Episode Report Card Keckler: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Hail To The Thief
By Keckler | Season 2 | Episode 2 | Aired on 02.18.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.When the Usurper President decides to grace Jericho with a stop on his "Brainwash The West" tour, a little bit of hell breaks loose. Darcy steals a walkie-talkie to cause a "crash," which allows Hawkins to download some TS/SCI files proving that the bombs came from the former Soviet Union, not North Korea. (Jake has a bit of a freakout over this, which is odd, because Hawkins already told him where the bombs came from last season, but Jake might be catching the stupid from his brother and Emily.)
In his quest to get the truth out, Jake chats up a morose presidential press pool journalist and convinces him to blow the whole thing wide open. Too bad the journalist gets quietly murdered before he can even write his lede. (Jake has another freakout over this. He's getting soft.)
Meanwhile, the President gives a scary speech at Richmond Farm, raises the new flag, calls his fiefdom "The Allied States of America," and gives a funeral for the United States of America and her flag. Leaving for the Usurper President's Constitutional Convention, Grey appoints Eric Acting Mayor and promises he's going to ask POTAS some tough questions. Oh, and there are also these new hot-off-the-press textbooks that are already rewriting our history. Literally. (Jake doesn't have a freakout over this, but only because no one's told him yet. Or he can't read.)
Valente gives Beck a bit of a smackdown over the lack of progress and sends him an "independent contractor" to help him out with the day-to-day crap. At the very end of the episode and under cover of darkness, a clean-shaven D.B. Sweeney shows up to reprise his role of being a very bad man. (The Jake freakout on this one will be huge, loud, and probably quite red.) Want more? The full recap starts right below!
You can't tell but I'm actually rubbing my hands at the prospect of the next five episodes. (I haven't seen the last one yet.)
Previously: the battle with New Bern isn't really over, Maj. Beck took Jake aside a lot, Jake is the new sheriff in town, and Eric is still very stupid. Oh, and the President's coming to town.
On the farm of bucolic and affianced bliss, Mimi finds a rose on the banister and chocolate chip pancake breakfast waiting for her on the porch. Stanley whipped it up in honor of her first day at J&R. After Stanley talks about how excited Mimi must be to do a job where she gets to "count things, add things up, maybe even a little subtraction," Mimi waxes OCD over the idea of being knee-deep in labels, barcodes, and spreadsheets on a 9-5 basis. Stanley affectionately tells Mimi that she's incredibly boring. Oh, the billing and cooing of lovebirds. Before Mimi can throw Stanley's ring at him and stomp off, he explains that, a month ago, they were in a struggle to the death with the Costco town, and now they have pancakes and barcodes. Mimi realizes, "We're boring!" But it's a good thing! And then, because Stanley hasn't had enough near heart attacks on his farm, a helicopter storms its way in and lands on the farm. The nerve. A suit gets out and introduces himself as the President's Deputy Communications Director. "The President?!" Mimi boggles. The DCD announces that Pres. Tomarchio wants to address the nation from the bloodied steps of the Richmond Farm. Can they bear the honor?
Town center. Sheriff Jake goes about his sheriff-ly duties to prepare the town for the honored visit. Maj. Beck greets him, noting, "Nice uniform." Jake grins down at his usual shabby clothes and flashes the badge at his waist: "I'm pacing myself." Why do I have to find that so endearing? I mean, the lack of uniform is a metaphor of anvilicious proportions -- ooh, Jake isn't in uniform! Jake will never really be the town sheriff, because it's not in his rebel heart! See Jake buck authority! But yet...I'm weakened by this show that has become my recapper Kryptonite, and I find it adorable rather than annoying. Jake tells Beck that he doesn't really know why he's needed on the scene when the Secret Service has everything pretty well covered. Beck drops one of his many rubrics from Tuesdays With Major Beck: An Old(er) Man To A Young Man And Peacekeeping's Greatest Lesson: "Local intel always beats eye in the sky." Beck says that "Condor" will be there soon. "'Condor'?" Jake repeats. "Code name for the President," says Beck. "Biggest bird in the West." Good thing he's not in the East; otherwise Caroll Spinney might have to deliver a smackdown.
Out at Hawkins's Happy Hunting Hut, Chavez and Hawkins strategize some ambiguous plan that will end with Chavez taking an escape route to the open road. Hawkins adds, "I just wish there were some way of doing this without you getting burned." I just love the spook language in this show. I can't wait until someone gets "made." Chavez shrugs that riding with the army was a means to uncover the truth, but that now the truth is coming to them. Hawkins looks up at Chavez, who doesn't quite hold his gaze. SUSPICIOUS! Chavez says that if all goes well, he'll be in Texas by the next day, and they'll be changing history. "Or," says Hawkins, always seeing the fuzzy end of the lollipop, "we'll be dead."