Episode Report Card M. Giant: C+ | 38 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Cross Check
By M. Giant | Season 1 | Episode 12 | Aired on 09.25.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's been a month since Gus was killed and Tate was arrested, so we're pretty much just checking in with the cast for most of this hour. Steven Linder returns to the show after having decided to marry Eva Guerra, but she's no longer at Bob's compound. Instead, she has returned to Juarez to work in a factory, and is picked up in short order by some creepy guy in a car with Texas plates. Linder resolves to find her, but after learning of her disappearance, he decides to ask someone for help: Detective Sonya Cross.
As for Cross, she's just had to total her sister's truck and is taking it pretty hard. She also hasn't been able to reach Ruiz and Tate's first hearing is coming up. But after her first visit to Ruiz's house went poorly, she decides that Linder's missing persons case is the perfect excuse to reestablish contact with him, and maybe even their partnership. Unfortunately he's in pretty sad shape -- alone, unkempt, bitter, constantly drunk and still pretty pissed at her. She refuses to give up on her second try, and it looks like she and this case might be just what Ruiz needs to pull himself back together. They even go to the Juarez police station and look up Eva Guerra's name, but there's nothing in the system. Still, at least Ruiz is shaving now and manages to show up to Tate's first hearing, where the two former friends see each other for the first time in a while, though no words are exchanged.
Charlotte has apparently been sitting on that package of drugs that Ray lifted from Graciela Rivera's basement for the past month, but she decides to return it in person to Fausto Galvan. She also proposes a partnership wherein she gets fifteen percent of his income from her tunnel. Galvan accepts, but in a threatening way that leaves no doubt as to who's actually in charge. And the arrangement may also end up being similar to the one Ray had with Graciela, if you know what I mean.
Daniel Frye is still in the hospital and using a wheelchair for the time being, but Mendez is cool enough to come visit him. She's also cool enough to take him to her house for dinner, but leaves him there when she storms out after an argument with her mother about being a lesbian. So that's less cool.
And the search for Eva Guerra progresses. We see her showing up at the police station after some unseen violent encounter and placed in supposedly protective custody. But our next look at her is at a very unfriendly gathering where she is drugged, tied down, and used as recreational equipment. Steven Linder is led to a field where a dismaying number of people probe the ground looking for fresh graves. And Ruiz learns from his coworker at the station that Eva Guerra was there, but no longer is and they need to help her. If she's even still alive, that is. Let's hope something gets cracked wide open in next week's season finale. Anything at all, really.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!All is not well. I mean, obviously that was the case at the end of last week's episode, but it's also true now, in a totally different setting.
There's a dead prairie dog by the side of a desert road. When Steven Linder's blue Impala drives past it, the hood is dented and bent. Though I belatedly realize that that's probably just from when he dropped Calaca's body onto it from his second-story apartment window. In the driver's seat, Linder himself is apparently listening to opera instead of Slim Whitman like one would expect of a person who looks like Steven Linder. He adjusts his mirror so we can see the good news, which is that he's wisely grown out his beard to fill in the mutton-carcasses he was rocking the last time we saw him, three episodes ago. There's also a suit jacket hanging from the hook in the back seat, so there must be a special occasion in the offing. Yeah, we came back around to more bad news there at the end.
He drives straight to Bob's Bible Compound and Re-virgining Shoppe, barely slowing down to bump open at the cross-emblazoned gate, and steps out of the car in Bob's front yard, throwing the suit jacket on over the white cowboy shirt he's wearing today. Now that he's properly turned out to play a gig at the Grand Ole Opry, he strides up next to the house, where Bob himself is in a crouch to examine a hen. "Blessings, Steven," Bob says. Linder's clearly in a mood, because he makes the sign of the cross at Bob and responds with some mocking gibberish that's actually pretty funny. Though it's difficult to tell how much of the humor is derived from Linder's actual voice. Seeing that he may have offended Bob, he smooths it over by complimenting the chicken. Bob's also in a mood, complaining that the bird won't lay eggs and seems over-caffeinated.
"Seems like a chicken," Linder says, oblivious to this symbolic warning sign that females in Bob's charge do not always behave as expected. Bob releases the hen back into the yard (I was actually worried there for a second), and asks Linder what brings him here. Linder answers in language Bob can understand: he's had a revelation. "Tell it!" Bob says happily, raising his hands heavenward. But he's less happy when Linder announces that he wants to marry Eva Guerra. In fact, Linder has brought a ring, and wants Bob to officiate in the event Eva says yes. Today, in fact, which at least explains the suit. Bob says he's honored, but Eva's gone. Apparently she decided she "wanted off the path" a week ago. Which I'm sure had nothing to do with the fact that her murderous boyfriend is dead now. Linder executes a pained grimace that shows more of his teeth than we've ever seen before, and wonders why Bob didn't tell him about this. Then he marches back to his car, declaring his determination to find her. And without so much as asking Bob which way she went.