Episode Report Card LuluBates: A- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Flippin’ Right
By LuluBates | Season 2 | Episode 2 | Aired on 01.14.2009
Ellen comes back to work... Oh, wait, maybe it's a different day, because her hair is different. She's been wearing a bunch of shirts that all sort of look alike, but her hair, that changes. Today she has a sleek low-slung ponytail where the hair is wrapped around to hide the elastic. Not a flyaway in sight. Uncle Pete has left her a newspaper with an article about Frobisher leaving the hospital. Cut to her in a totally different shirt lurking outside her ex-grief counseling group waiting for Wes, but kind of trying to stay out of sight so she doesn't get yelled at anymore. Wes sees her hiding and comes to talk to her. She wanted to talk to him about having the opportunity to kill the man who murdered her fiancé. Wes sort of shakes his head and tries to get his mind around what she is saying. She barrels on and tells him that she was alone with him in his hospital room, but couldn't do it, because she realized that it is not what her fiancé would have wanted her to do. So she left, but now she regrets it and feels like she blew her big chance at homicide. Oh Ellen, don't worry your pretty oversized head over that, it is merely a dream deferred! Pinky swear that a mere six months from now you'll be peppering somebody with bullets. Wes stares at her in some combination of awe and horror and flirtatiousness. He tells her not to give up and if she really wants to go kill the guy she probably still can. Ellen almost growls in aggravation that the guy already left the hospital and she doesn't know how to find him. Wes knows that where there's a will there's a way. Ellen has nothing to say to that platitude, so abruptly ends the conversation. She just needed to tell someone that she was premeditating murder, you know, just to make sure she got first-degree murder if it comes up at trial later. Cut to six months later. Ellen and Wes are rolling around in bed in room 1910. She is panting hard when the phone rings. She answers the phone in some sort of reverse prank phone call where she answers with the heavy breathing. She agrees to meet the person in ten minutes. She crawls out of bed while Wes tries to get her to tell him where she's going and who she is meeting. She tells him not to ask and not to be there when she gets back. I hope whoever she is meeting doesn't mind that she hasn't showered.
Patty meets Purcell in her office. His box of papers sits ominously on her table and he curses the day that he ever sent her the files. She wants to know what they are. He sighs, leans back in his chair, and tells her that his firm was hired to test some new toxic substance that is being marketed under the name Aricite. I don't really know if that is how it is spelled, but I am hooked on phonics and it sounds right. He doesn't know what it is used for, because even though he is vice president of his firm and head of research no one tells him nothing. Patty looks skeptical, but Purcell swears it is true. His firm has to maintain his client's confidentiality and that's that. Since when was there evil client/ chemical testing agency confidentiality? Whoever the client is they weren't happy with the results and his firm caved to their pressure and changed the results of Purcell's toxicity reports, but they kept his name on the papers. That's why he was so pissed and went through that whole desk clearing incident last episode. Patty leans close and asks quietly whether that client could have killed his wife. Purcell knows that they warned him to keep his mouth shut, but he doesn't think they are big enough to call the shots. Nay, not them, but who they consult for--the Energy Industry! That is who is at the root of all this evil. They are worth hundreds of billions of dollars and would risk anything and do anything to keep their private jets, Hamptons homes, Mustique vacations, and expense accounts. Purcell knows that Big Energy is out to get him because of his knowledge about this one chemical compound. Now that they offed his wife, he isn't going to the police and he swears he is never going to ride a bicycle, recycle, or even hint at "going green" again. Patty knows he is scared, but warns him that if he doesn't come forward with this information he will most likely go to prison. Purcell stares at her and then replies that he doesn't care. He was stupid once and won't do it again. He has a daughter to protect. Patty asks him what she should do with his box of papers, but he doesn't care. If it ever comes to light he'll deny every word of it. Patty sighs in exasperation. She walks him to the elevator and is surprised when her son emerges from it. She stares at him for a second, hesitatingly introduces him to Purcell and then stares as Purcell gets in the elevator and the doors close on him. She stares so much that her son turns to stare too. I'm sure there is some awesome history unfolding there, but I am hesitant to guess that Michael is the offspring of the unholy union between Patty and Purcell. Ah hell I just did.