Episode Report Card Megyn: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Ryan's Hope
By Megyn | Season 4 | Episode 14 | Aired on 02.10.2001
Unit J. Again. Hatin' paces like a jackal while Alvin sleeps and Mobay works out. He walks to the bookshelf and pretends to mull over the selection as he pulls a door stop from underneath the shelves and puts it under the door so Claire can't come out. She, of course, is yapping on the phone again. Probably to the same person who doesn't have friends either. He advances towards Mobay. "Basil." "Yeah?" "Your son…you think he's gonna be okay growing up without a father?" Just as Mobay asks, "What?" Hatin' sticks him with a shank. "Now who's the fuckwad?" Alvin has woken up by this time and slams him against the wall while Claire banshees from her little room and keeps yelling a futile, "Open this damn door!" because, you know, Hatin' is just about to let her out of there. I honestly can't tell if he shanks Alvin or not during the fight…it looks like he does, but they don't make it clear. We cut to solitary where Hatin' is being led, right towards stupid Leo. They put him against the wall to uncuff him. He starts laughing. They put him in the cell, and Leo looks ill.
In the infirmary, we learn by his upright position that Alvin wasn't stuck after all. Just beaten. As Gloria patches him, Leo walks in and goes over to the dead body of Johnny Basil, who get zipped up in his body bag. Leo turns to see Johnny's wife being brought in. Leo sighs.
Leo's office of non-bliss. He sits and broods drunkenly into his glass, much like I am right now, as Boria skips in to announce that she's heading home. He drops his glass so as to convey his utter inebriation and establish the reason she will then need to take him home. She starts to clean up the broken glass but he tells her to leave it. Then yells for her to leave it when she continues, causing her to straighten and pout real good. Leo blahs about the glass reminding him in the morning how drunk he was. He's ready to go home. Boria: "I'll call you a cab." Leo: "Nope." Boria: "You're a cab!" Ha! No, that was me again. She says, "Then I'll drive you myself!" I projectile vomit. The angel of distraction hands me a paper towel. Leo tells her, "Johnny Basil and I had a lot in common…good intentions that turn to shit." She just coos, "Come on, let me take you home," and puts his arm around her neck and walks him out. Like he's that drunk. Puh-leez.
Sister Pete's office the next day. She walks in yapping about the snow while Beecher ignores her and stares forlornly out the window. She finally notices he isn't responding to her fascinating chatter and says pointedly, "Good morning to you too." He turns and apologizes. Then he admits that he misses Keller. They can't call each other, and "if [Keller] has written, one of the Nazis in the mailroom probably took it…or maybe he hasn't written." He continues to whine that Keller may have already found someone else. Pete points out that he has much to be grateful for, with his daughter beginning to respond normally and not rock in a corner, drooling, and how Catherine is working on getting him out of prison. He admits that he's scared. "When I get out, who will I be?" Ugh! He's getting on my nerves. Too needy. Cut to him and Catherine in the visiting room, discussing his case; she is "guardedly optimistic." He comes to life and practically begins chasing his tail. He tells her he can't "thank her enough." She tells him not to thank her until he's on the other side of the wall. Oh well, he has one condition about that: "If I do go free, I want to take you out to dinner, nicest restaurant in the city, Dom, the whole bit." She says she'd like that. The guard rolls his eyes at the both of them, and I mutter "word" under my alcohol-laced breath. Beecher asks, "Are you married?" Then he backtracks and says he has no business asking her questions about her personal life and that she doesn't have to answer. Instead of agreeing with him and being appropriately freaked out, she tells him, "It's okay." And that since she knows every detail of his personal life, "why shouldn't [he] know something about [hers]." Then she tells him she's divorced, one kid, a son, same age as Holly. A son, you say? Really. The bell rings, and the guard tells them the party is over. Beecher grouses about never being able to finish a conversation. She's all, "We're far from finished, Tobias." Oh sweet Christ.