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The Sanderses spend the whole day doing an insane (yet uncomplicated, as usual) escape plan that mostly involves running around doing the same shit as always. Ellen pawns her wedding ring, because her husband is a cheater and a pumpkin eater and because their accounts are frozen, which blows their minds even though they are on their fourth episode of being in the middle of an omnipotent conspiracy and that is not a very surprising thing to have happen. Oh, and Tate gets some cash from his ho.
The kids spend the day selling weed, calling in bomb threats, and carving their microchips out by hand. The degree to which their competence and effectiveness dwarfs every adult's on the show is kind of mind-boggling, but not a problem. (Well, the annoying daughter is kind of a problem, but she's growing on me.) One thing with which they don't have to contend is squirmingly awkward interactions with daddy's jump-off Samantha, who gets real clingy about him to the point that later, Ellen has to explain to her that she knows about the affair, which makes everything Samantha does even ten times grosser than her already infinite grossness.
When Ellen acts sketchy in front of her assigned abductor, he threatens the whole plan by enforcing check-ins every fifteen minutes. Her response to this is, she gets in her Volvo and drives really fast in the opposite direction from the bus depot, because guess what: Her car is being driven by Tate, who is bravely sacrificing himself so the rest of the family can hie themselves to Montreal, which is a city in Canada that speaks french.
Agent Hoffman, the Secret Service guy that is up everybody's butt for no reason all the time, invites Duncan into a taskforce to figure out why that nurse killed herself. So now he is investigating his own group's fake-suicide fake-murder that probably didn't even actually happen, in addition to his other two full-time jobs of being a hostage negotiator and also a hostage taker. But none of this is as important as the Nina situation.
Wife Nina -- who was never in a coma, it turns out she has leukemia; it also turns out that she is great -- decides to stop doing chemo so she can have some fun in her life. But he needs her to stay on chemo so he can reach the endpoint of this whole situation, which is intended to earn him access to experimental treatments that have come to represent for him a magic bullet or handful of magic beans that are worth killing the President over. But now that three-quarters of the Sanders family are five minutes from getting on a bus to Montreal, it is within his grasp! It is Duncan's game to lose! So he skypes with Ellen so she can watch him shoot Tate Donovan in the abdomen, the end.
Week: Tate dies for a little bit but not permanently, and Duncan -- surprise! -- is really disappointed with Ellen but then barely does anything that bad to her, like usual. I mean, I gasped when he shot the husband, but that was purely for Tate and for the threat to my volatile quality of life, should Tate levels be reduced in coming weeks. But Brian Sanders? Eff it. She'd be better off without his cheating, embezzling ass. Right? Good thing he's married to a surgeon.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Ellen Sanders cannot stop fucking with destiny by getting on Duncan Carlisle's nerves every opportunity she can, despite the fact that it always leads to her in tears, running around her house looking for the dead corpses of her family members because of whatever tantrum she decides to throw each week. After getting her best friend murdered (but only after manipulating her into ruining her own life) Ellen took the day off from being a hostage of a conspiracy so she could go visit Soy-Soy at kindergarten, like the total creeper that she is.
Duncan was having an off day due to getting burn noticed, but eventually saved himself with a combination of parkour and Bullet Time and then took hostage the man who took him hostage to force him to take Ellen hostage, so he could continue having her as a hostage without people trying to kill him and testing his parkour abilities. Duncan Carlisle doesn't have a lot of time, due to having so many full-time jobs in this economy -- such as hostage negotiator, hostage un-negotiator, absent parent -- so it's good that at least one thing is off his plate. Good thing he's got enough radness to spread around.
Duncan Carlisle is so rad that he wears a motorcycle helmet indoors. It has flames on it, thus providing both safety and style. The two raddest things. Duncan Carlisle is so rad mainly he just eats Slim Jims. Duncan Carlisle is so rad he is taking me on a zeppelin ride later in the zeppelin that he owns, it has a giant picture of him on the side of it. We are going to buzz the Jacob K. Javitz Center with it, and then get some frozen yogurt. All yogurt becomes frozen yogurt once Duncan Carlisle comes around, because that is how fucking cool he is. Duncan Carlisle likes his fro-yo with TABASCO SAUCE.
Oh, and Tater told his wife that he was cheating on her with the worst person in the world, which makes it easier to sacrifice him for the good of the family when they put his doomed escape plan into effect, which I'm guessing is how Ellen will piss off Duncan this week.
AM
Ellen puts on lipstick for, conservatively I would say, around eleven hours. Tater joins her in the bathroom; he is wearing a heather gray t-shirt and cute PJ pants, while Ellen is already dressed for work in a black sleeveless sheath dress. If you were wondering what they are dressed like in this bathroom right now, there's your answer.
Tate: "Are you ready for our big escape plan?"
Ellen: "Sort of? But also, I tend to fuck everything up on this show, like, regularly."
Tate: "Don't wuss out! Just do my dumb plan!"
Ellen: "Review it for me one more time."
Tate: "Much like every other plan on this show, turns out it's pretty basic. Like how you beat a lie detector by beating it, or make the President change his mind by saying to. In this escape plan the main thrust of what you are going to be doing is, you will be escaping."
Ellen: "I thought it would be more complicated. But I guess simple is best."
Tate: "One more time, say it back to me."
Ellen: "Today I will escape being a hostage."
Tate: "Okay, and how?"
Ellen: "By not being a hostage anymore."
Tate: "Good, good. And then I will get away too."
Ellen: "How?"
Tate: "By getting away! By escaping. PS, sorry I cheated on you."
Ellen: "Focus, dude. Like I care about that. If I really cared about that I would never have gotten this dumb career. I certainly wouldn't be a huge famous success. And more immediately, if I cared about this family at all I wouldn't constantly be double-dog-daring Duncan Carlisle to shoot you in your heads."
FLASHBACK
Realtor: "It's four years ago and do you want this house?"
Ellen: "It seems like a nice place to develop Stockholm Syndrome."
Tate: "Oh Ellen. Remember when we were poor?"
Ellen: "Not really, I was in med school. I was pretty busy."
Tate: "Stop acting like you're so into this house or that lady will raise the price. I know about these things because I am in business or real estate. Something with portfolios."
NOW
Duncan: "Why are you making those muffins? I didn't say you could make muffins. You need to go kill the President or I will murder your family. How you like them muffins."
Ellen: "Oh no, I burned myself with the darn muffins! Right on my surgeon hand that I use for doing surgeries and sometimes killings."
Duncan: "Oh, so painful! Let me hold it and make it better in a strangely intimate way."
Beardy: "Whoa, I think that's sexual harassment. Or what would you call that?"
Duncan: "Go get her med kit so I can do medicine on her hand. We're in love now."
Ellen: "Thanks for bandaging my hand, look over there while I steal my own scalpel."
Duncan: "Ironically I am worried about your wellbeing today, because I don't know you creeped on my kid yet, so you feel weirdly guilty about your muffin ruse."
UPSTAIRS
Dad: "Son, why are you dressed like a street tough? It is not the Fifties."
Jake (?): "I guess I am impressed by Duncan Carlisle. He may have taken us hostage, but at least he never let me get beat up by drug dealers to prove a point."
Dad: "Okay, seriously I'm sorry about that. I wish I had protected you like a true father and American. Enjoy being at school and all the pressures of life. Don't be weird when you mom says crazy things to you in the drop-off at school in a minute."
DROP-OFF
Ellen: "Oh and FYI we are escaping to Canada. Don't act weird that I just told you that. Act normal. Go to high school right now and then after lunch, disappear like ghosts."
Jake: "We have GPS chips in our young bodies, remember that?"
Ellen: "I know, that's why I brought this scalpel. You should cut them out of each other."
Jake: "We're not like other families."
Ellen: "Also, maybe we will never see your dad again. Which I am fine with. I don't know about you but that guy is really cheesing me off today."
HOSPITAL
Her ass is barely in the door before she has flashbacks to her friend's life that she destroyed and then ended through her shenanigans. They have set up some Crate & Barrel religious candles around a picture of her, and also a flower arrangement that looks like it smells awful. All in all, pretty tasteful.
5 MOS AGO
Angela: "The Secret Service! Oh my goodness, you get to operate on the POTUS!"
Ellen: "I know, it's exciting! This is the last time I will ever smile in my life."
Angela: "I told them all about how you are embracing your greatness and how wonderful and special and talented and blah blah blah."
Ellen: "Oh, go on. Also, you get to be a nurse in the surgery, so that's exciting."
Angela: "That is exciting! I hope it doesn't go terribly wrong and I end up dead."
HOSPITAL
Ellen: "But it did. And you did."
SCHOOL
Morgan (?): "Okay, we have six hours until we're supposed to escape. What should we do until then?"
Jake: "Act normal, they said."
Morgan: "Okay we can act normal just as soon as we hack into each other's exposed flesh with that scalpel Mom gave us in the carpool lane."
Jake: "I don't even know where in a high school you would do that."
They talk about acting normal for a really long time. The number one sign of normalcy.
HOSTAGE HOUSE
Sandrine: "Your knuckles look like you beat up a drug dealer, did you do that? Because you are getting too close to Jake, emotionally speaking."
Beardy: "No, don't be silly. These are um, muffin injuries."
Sandrine: "If I had feelings, your lies would be hurtful."
Duncan rides in on a skateboard that is covered in stickers and decals from indie music labels for punk and ska and whatever is most awesome that you don't know about yet, but Duncan heard about it like months ago, from his cousin who lives in Oxnard, and smokes cigarettes, and saw Nikki Sixx one time walking down Sunset and he had nearly invisible coke traces on his lip even though it was like 11:30 in the morning.
Duncan: "Can you believe Nikki Sixx was born in 1958? I'm gonna be thinking about that the whole rest of the day. What are you two sleazers up to?"
Sandrine: "I am being blunt and mercenary."
Beardy: "I am being oversensitive and codependent."
Duncan: "I am being the coolest."
Beardy: "How is your wife's coma?"
Duncan: "Not a coma all of a sudden. I guess Jacob made that up based on how she looks like a person in a coma every time we see her."
Beardy: "Tell her I love her!"
Duncan: "Oh, because you are her brother. Grandpa's son, and Soy-Soy's uncle. The junkie making good in his family business, perhaps."
Beardy: "As long as I don't do any drugs or form a loyalty to Jake the teenage boy. Or get my ass handed to me by Tate Donovan looking dynamite in his usual array of oatmeal and khaki casuals."
TATER'S BROKERAGE
Lady: "Here's your safe deposit box full of escape documents but did you know all of your accounts are frozen?"
Tate: "Yeah, we should probably not alert anybody to that. Because of the huge conspiracy."
Beardy: "Hey, did you have fun in that bank? Let me see what's in your manila folder, I bet it's passports and things like that."
Tate: "Nope, it is to distract you from where I actually put my escape things."
When I was a kid I loved spycraft so, so much. I wasn't like Data in Goonies, I didn't make practical props or anything, but I liked learning about codes and different ways to hide things in your shoes or pants, or how many kinds of false bottoms you might run into, or ways of coding information onto maps so it doesn't even use language. Point being, you can think of like ten places you could hide a passport on Tate Donovan, like, off the top of your head. But you know who can't? Beardy. And that's because Tate used his psychology against him, which is an important part of escaping being a hostage, and helps in business or real estate or what have you, and most importantly, if you are going to act like a spy.
No homo, but why would you ever pass up the opportunity to check Tate Donovan thoroughly for hidden documents? Unrealistic. Good thing this show doesn't ask you to suspend your disbelief very often.
SCHOOL NURSE
Morgan: "School Nurse? Could you get on up out of here please? I need to steal some iodine and bandages, for some surgery I want to do on my little brother."
Nurse: "Sure, no problem."
Morgan: "Cool, I'm going to snag an epic amount of shit now."
(She does; it's great. It's like when you hit the jackpot of medical supplies in a video game.)
Nurse: "Morgan, why are you touching my shit?"
Morgan: "You move fast, lady! As to why I'm touching your shit..."
She literally, verbatim goes, "I forgot." Which isn't even a response, it's just... A mouth-noise. I wish that was a thing people said all the time.
Cop: "Ma'am, do you know how fast you were going in that school zone?"
Lady: "No. Because I forgot."
Judge: "On this count of manslaughter how do you plead to these charges?"
Defendant: "Your Honor, I plead that I forgot."
Nurse: "Is this your nausea again from last week?"
Morgan: "I guess so. I guess I just throw up now. I guess that's my life."
Nurse: "You know damn well what I'm asking you, kid."
Morgan: "I forgot. Bye!"
Nurse: "You should take folic acid and don't do bath salts."
Morgan: "I'm not pregnant, thanks for caring about me though!"
COMA HOSPITAL
When Duncan gets to his wife's room, they made up the bed like her ass is dead. But then he goes to another room and she's just hanging out in a cute tailored top with a cozy ponytail, grinning and wearing capris, being gorgeously just like the opposite of a coma.
Nina: "Hey, my mysterious problem seems to have cleared up. Now I'm just roaming this hospital looking like a lifestyle guru from Connecticut."
Duncan: "I'm so glad you don't have your problem that you had before. Maybe it forgot."
Nina: "You're tellin' me. Hey, how is my crime syndicate family going? Is my junkie brother helping you be in a conspiracy with the White House Chief of Staff? And what news have you of Soy-Soy."
TATER
Once again Ellen calls Tate on the phone belonging to the guy who is like a hot BJ Novak, and once again BJ is standing right there in Tate's personal area when this happens.
BJ: "You need to stop this. My phone is for me. You have a phone for you."
Tate: "I forgot!"
Ellen: "Did you get our passports?"
Tate: "Yeah, but I couldn't get any money. We are cash poor and on the run."
Ellen: "Are you aware that tickets, hotels and food all cost money? Are you aware that tickets are for planes, trains, buses and ferries? All the conveyances. And each of them requires currency. Let's talk about it forever and ever."
Tate: "I guess they froze our accounts because they are a CONSPIRACY within the GOVERNMENT and therefore they can DO that. Which would also be true with the passports, which is why this plan is stupid from the jump."
Ellen suddenly is very irritated by everything he says, and grits out her life through a smile like a scalpel that you stole after burning yourself on your spur of the moment morning pan of muffins. I guess she is realizing how dumb her husband is, finally? Anyway, whatever; he tells her to look in his desk drawer and that is where the passports and no money will be, and we talk endlessly about those logistics, and then finally back to Nina.
NINA
Duncan: "You look so fucking cute in that three-quarter sleeve like that. You look like you could put on a big hat and plant some bulbs. You could snazz it up with some pearls and easily give a TV interview about what it's like to have a problem like you have."
Nina: "I'm just glad to hang out with you and not from inside a coma. Let's go have a picnic in the yard! I wanna show off this cute outfit."
Duncan: "No, because of your immune system. Picnics are the silent killer."
Nina: "I hate my strange disease!"
Duncan: "In Soy-Soy news, she is beating the shit out of other kids now. That's a thing she now does."
Nina: "Good. I bet they deserve it."
Duncan: "Glad we discussed this. Check out this picture of Soy-Soy having stacked some rocks in a cairn on the beach. I believe she is reincarnated from a Druid."
Nina: "This picture makes me want more leukemia. I am done with chemo."
Duncan: "Oh, it's just leukemia?"
Nina: "I beg your pardon."
Duncan: "No, I just mean why would your leukemia make me feel like killing the President? More than any other person whose wife has it, I mean. Can Quentin Creasy cure leukemia? If so, he should really tell somebody."
TATER
Samantha the Trick catches Tate stealing from petty cash and they flirt about cash money and whatever, the ethics of borrowing money from your own business and your own jump-off, and then she gives him three hundred bucks, which could buy several tickets, depending on what they are tickets for.
POOR PART OF TOWN
Pawn Man: "Need any checks cashed?"
Ellen: "No, I want you to buy my wedding ring for about a million dollars."
Pawn Man: "How about five hundred dollars?"
Ellen: "How about six thou?"
He gets bitchy with her about the cut of her diamond, I think? That's what I choose to believe. "I'm sure that de trop Marquis-cut bullshit was the height of class in 1990, but we don't live in Falcon Crest, bitch. This ain't a hotly contested family winery full of sexy secrets, it's a pawn shop that smells like the urine of a dying alcoholic. Five hundred or get your tacky ass out of here."
BACK AT WORK
...Wait, did she pawn the ring or what? I don't care, why am I asking? Just as Ellen makes it back to her desk, Cher-Cher calls from the parking lot, so that worked out well. He's like, "How's it going, are you doing okay today? Sike, I don't care." Then she has another flashback from looking at a creepy picture of the two them in happier days, before they were abducted by Boba Fett and she put microchips inside of everyone. I mean, you're supposed to think it's happier days, despite the picture looking ghoulish and fake and weird and awful. Maybe they are draculas and we're just now finding out.
Tate: "Welcome home, Mrs. Dracula."
Ellen: "It's good to be home, Mr. Dracula."
Tate: "It's five months ago so we are already starting to drift apart."
Ellen: "I am going to think about this so hard later, because of our marriage crumbling. Guess what, I went to the White House today."
Tate: "How fulfilling for you in your life! I better go cheat on you immediately. In the meantime, I just want you to know that I resent the shit out of you, this opportunity, and our life together."
NOW
Ellen: "But I didn't see the clues! Or, you know, notice him explicitly explaining all of this, without even bothering to use euphemisms for his misogyny."
SCHOOL
Where is Jake? Nobody knows. Morgan gets so antsy waiting for him, in whatever abandoned cabin they have on campus for kids to do surgery on each other, that she tries to chop into her own meat by herself. That plan is abandoned pretty much instantly, and she runs back into the school.
Busybody: "Morgan, shouldn't you be in a class? Because this is school."
Morgan: "I am just looking for my brother to cut up, excuse me."
Kevin: "I don't know where your brother is. Maybe behind the bleachers?"
He is! He is smoking with marijuana cigarettes back there! That explains why he is dressed like the Dead Poet's Society, it is because he is a real cool rebel.
Morgan: "Get your prep school ass out of that burnout collection and get a move on."
Jake: "It isn't what it looks like!"
Morgan: "First of all, it is. And second of all, what makes you think I give a shit? I'm not being hardcore because I care that you're a rough customer, it's that we had an appointment for me to slice into your flesh and then run away to Canada."
TATER
Tate: "Jump-Off Samantha, please take this envelope of passports to another building. That way nobody will see me do it, as was explained in graphic detail earlier."
Samantha: "What's in it? Is it drugs? Is it Cheetos?"
Tate: "No, it's just passports."
Samantha: "I sure do love me some Cheetos. And drugs."
They talk about it AGAIN for a million years.
Samantha: "I'm not your secretary! I'm the office manager!"
Tate: "You know what's sexy? Playing fun sex games. Let's pretend you're my secretary."
Samantha: "Ooh, that's sexy. Now what?"
Tate: "Uh, take this envelope to the other office like I just asked you to do."
Samantha: "Cool I'll do it, because now it's super sexy."
Tate: "Yeah, it sure is."
I cannot believe that worked. I like that even more than the "I forgot" defense.
"You know what would be super-duper sexy? Let's play Sexy Bank Teller. How you do that is, you pretend to be a sensual bank teller, and I will 'drive up' to your 'window,' which will have holiday-themed decorations. And then I will fill out a deposit slip and send it over to you, and then you will very hornily give me all the money in your wallet, and then I will drive away again. Aren't you so turned on right now?"
"No, I'm not asking you to get me a beer because I'm lazy, I'm asking you to get me a beer because you're so sexy. It's called Sexy Waiter, it's a game I just invented. Put a towel over your arm, and then go get me a beer. The end. Hoo, is it getting hot in here?"
"I have a very sensual game we could play. You are the horny owner of some french fries, and I am this oversexed stud who is really into french fries. And so it is very sexy because what happens is, you give me your french fries. I make you watch me eat your french fries, they are delicious. And then we get back in the car and drive to wherever we're going and we act like nothing happened, but really you know, and I know, that I ate the shit out of those fries. It's like a secret between you and I. A sexy french fry one. You like? You like?"
DUNCAN
Duncan: "So your dumb sister has decided to just say fuck it and have cancer."
Beardy: "But then why are we even doing any of this?"
Duncan: "I know."
Explain something. Anything. Now she's got secret cancer on top of her cancer that she knows about? That only the President dying can cure. That's a logical scenario, right? Sure. Or is it because of Obamacare? Or is it for magic cancer treatments in another country -- I bet it's that one. That's very Duncan Carlisle, to have one belief that requires all of his faith so the rest of the time he's just this jungle cat of muscle and mass that can ride a motorcycle doing a total handstand just because he feels like it.
Rando: "Agent Carlisle, the board has finished reviewing your thing from the pilot."
Duncan: "And what is the verdict?"
Rando: "The verdict is, you are so awesome we can't even believe it. You win the FBI."
Duncan: "This is coming at a weird time, I was actually enjoying my time off because of my other job I am doing right now."
Rando: "Well, you'll figure it out. You can do anything!"
Duncan: "Except defeat death."
Agent Hoffman: "I am the Secret Service guy that always acts super sketchy at Ellen's job. Now I have requested you to be on my special taskforce to figure out why the President had a thinness of blood."
Duncan: "That is ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife."
Hoffman: "Also that nurse you kidnapped, we are looking for her too. Where is her body? Nobody knows. You figure it out."
Duncan: "Did anybody say who she was talking to that night she disappeared?"
Hoffman: "I drew a picture of him. It is your friend Archer, obviously."
Duncan: "Okay and why did you ask for me to be in this taskforce?"
Hoffman: "Quentin Creasy presumably. Like anything ever happens on this show that isn't two degrees of separation from him or less."
Duncan: "I feel weird, but on the other hand it's good that this is not really a real job so it won't interfere as much with my main thing of abducting families. Feigned incompetence is just one of the nigh-infinite number of skills I have mastered."
KIDS CUTTIN' KIDS
Morgan slices into her brother's laxbro flesh, screaming at him ceaselessly as she cuts him right open there just on a Tuesday, just cutting him up. He looks like he is going to fucking barf. He is in rough shape.
Jake: "So what? I can get high if I want. And that isn't even what it was about, I was arranging for us to have an escape somehow."
Morgan: "I need suction! Your blood is going everywhere and I can't see the technology!"
Jake: "Stop talking about it and stop doing it or I am going to pass out."
Morgan: "I found it! I have found it!"
Jake: "Okay but don't smash it, idiot. They'll know."
She bandages him up and they trade places. I hope we don't have to keep seeing this.
HOSPITAL
Archer: "Where are you going?"
Ellen: "I am getting a latte a block away because I feel like it."
Archer: "Hey, where's your wedding ring?"
Ellen: "Shut up."
Archer: "Okay, you're being sketchy. Check-ins are every fifteen minutes from here on out for the rest of the day."
Ellen fully calls Tate Donovan on their cell phones they've been so studiously not using, so she can tell him to call off their plan of escaping from the clutches of the bad guys.
Ellen: "Remember how we were going to escape? Well, that's no longer happening."
Tate: "Okay but our children probably already cut each other open, so think about that. All the moving parts of this and you had to mouth off at Cher-Cher."
Ellen: "But I have to check-in every fifteen minutes! I can't get to the kids and also that other building where your jump-off took our passports and also get to Canada in fifteen minutes! That's not enough time to do that, even for a woman accustomed to multitasking such as myself."
Tate: "You need to stop saying can't, and start saying okay. Just get the passports and grab the kids. I will do something needlessly showy that will distract the entire Team Duncan."
Ellen: "I guess I will just do whatever you tell me, like I am always doing every week."
SCHOOL
With Sandrine in the parking lot, and school security watching some other door, Jake shows that he is awesome when suddenly there is a bomb threat and everybody crowds out into the intramurals field, because Jake is a drug dealer and he hangs out with his customers and this time, a bomb threat was fair trade for drugs. The wacky weed type.
Jake, verbatim: "I'm not smoking weed, Morgan. I'm selling it."
The music is like, the music just can't even believe this just happened. You should definitely go poking into your own kids' shit, CBS viewers. This could happen to you!
Sandrine still sees their microchips on her iPad, so she doesn't worry about it. Bad move, Sandrine. Ping ping ping, because you didn't know that the Sanders kids are fucking hardcore punk rockers who will carve technology out of their own skin, or even sell grass, to get what they want.
HOSPITAL
Beth: "I'm Angela's mom, do you remember me?"
Ellen: "Yeah, because we were best friends. I am bummed that she died."
Beth: "I blame myself for yelling at her on the phone one time."
Ellen: "Oh, that's not why she killed herself. She didn't even kill herself. I wish I could give you some peace and comfort, but I have to escape my abductors real quick, so you can show yourself out."
NINA
Duncan: "I've been thinking about your leukemia and I've decided I am firmly against."
Nina: "Stop trying to brainwash me with your sexy voice!"
Duncan: "Explain to me what is going on here. Use small words like so a child would understand this TV show and what is happening on it."
Nina: "Okay, you are a legendary bad-ass in so many ways, but you can't control cancer, so that makes you feel bad. Bad enough to kill the President? Perhaps."
Duncan: "That sounds like me for sure."
Duncan: "Guess what? I found out about a doctor that does experiments."
Nina: "Why are you just now telling me about this?"
Duncan: "I don't really think you're in any position to be making decisions about your own body, for one. But also, that darn President is still alive."
Nina: "Don't do illegal things and don't spend our money on fantasy quackery."
Duncan: "It's not a fantasy, it's a MIRACLE. That's why you have to keep doing chemo. So you can eventually bridge to this miracle science cure."
Nina: "Did you know that chemo sucks real, real bad?"
Duncan: "I know, but just do it as a favor to me. Or else I will be sad."
BACK HOME
Tate pretends to be interesting in Beardy and what his name is and his facts, and let's talk about lacrosse and whatever, but BOOM! It was a trick. He beats the shit out of Beardy, and it's beautiful. Tate with a fireplace poker, a lax spoon, just going to town on this guy. Throwing seven elbows, landing gorgeous face-punches. Oh, Tate. You are a beast. You are so many things. Don't be a hero, Tate. Not that you ever could be.
BUS DEPOT
Morgan and Jake have a fake-ass convo about how they are nervous to be at the bus station, and they hold hands. Where's Ellen? Taking off in her Volvo, just squealin' past Archer, who calls Duncan to tattle on her. Duncan goes, "Clamp it down. Now." And that's the moment that I realized I fuckin' hate this show. I hate stupid Duncan Carlisle and I hate the things he says and I hate that these people live in this world where he can say shit like "Clamp it down" and just ... go unpunished.
But I also love it. I like the actors, most of them, and it's getting cancelled either way, so let's just spend the time with Tate we've got. Don't poison it with hate of Duncan Carlisle. It's not his fault that he is so dorky or that CBS thinks what is cool is the opposite of reality. This is the same network that has the show where the computer girl has the perky-goth 1993 pigtails, correct? Exactly. From the people that brought you that girl -- that thought she was a thing that should exist -- comes Duncan Carlisle.
...Literally as I was typing the words "that girl," a commercial for NCIS came on. I looked over at the TV and there she was, havin' her pigtails and hackin' her mainframes, at the exact moment I was trying to explain why I find CBS uncomfortable in a general way and using her as the specific example. Isn't that crazy? Maybe she's like the Candyman, and if you imagine dorkiness hard enough, she will appear.
Or maybe it is a conspiracy.
BACK HOME
Beardy wakes up and you know he's gonna get the horns from Bossman, but what was he supposed to do? He didn't have a chance with all that Tate comin' at him. One does not simply parry such an attack, we're talking about Tate Donovan here. The real Duncan Carlisle. If Tate comes at you, curl into a ball and protect your sensitives. I don't know what else to tell you. He is going to win.
Everybody drives around in their very zoomy autos and talk on the phone about it.
Duncan: "Girl one, where are Jake and Morgan?"
Sandrine: "I am pinging them on my ping machine, it's fine."
Duncan: "Do you have visual? Clamp it down!"
She runs around clamping it down, and finally finds a fake Morgan and Jake. The guy is Asian and the girl has a great deal of hair. Sandrine locates the bloody GPS chips in a Ziploc in one of their backpacks, so she clamps that down too. Meanwhile Duncan can't find a signal for Tate so he doesn't know how to clamp down on that one. He is losing his whole thing! How can he cure leukemia without those magic beans? Clamp it down, Duncan!
Cher-Cher runs into her car a little bit, and but it's not Ellen that is driving her car, it's Tate Donovan! They pulled a fast one, apparently. Tate tells Duncan to eat a dick, but Duncan is not into that right now.
THAT BLDG
Ellen: "Where the fuck are those passports? I guess his whore didn't drop them off yet."
Samantha walks in and they are scared of each other: Ellen because she is in a permanent state of emergency and doesn't like being surprised in empty places, and Samantha because -- as they, and we, agree -- Ellen should probably beat her down. But in this case living well is the best revenge. Now that she has the passports and her sweet diamond money, she can buy all the tickets she would ever want, and Duncan will clamp down or not clamp down on stupid Tate Donovan, and everything will be Canadian and great.
Samantha: "Oh, this shit is for you? What are you, going on a trip?"
Ellen: "Just give me the fucking envelope, Samantha. I have neither the time nor the unoccupied RAM to deal with you today."
Samantha: "I mean, because I totally looked in there so I know he's going to Montreal..."
Ellen: "You got a nerve, bitch. I better go before I clamp you down."
Samantha: "Can you really not show me any mercy at all? The man I love is leaving the country unannounced -- and with his wife and children no less! -- I think I'm owed an explanation."
Ellen: "God, you are repulsive."
Actually, I feel sorry for Samantha now. She really does seem heartbroken and also guilty when Ellen explains that she's being so mean to her because of that pesky affair she is having with her husband. She really seems to grasp why she is gross. And so, I am on her side now. Stop being gross, yes; but first, understand what is gross about your grossness.
BUS DEPOT
It is five minutes until the bus to Montreal is supposed to leave! I wonder if they will make it. I bet they will. And the eleven episodes will just be Duncan Carlisle drunkenly complaining about this one time he had some hostages but they got away.
Ellen spots the kids, prematurely breaks down into sobbing relief, and even calls to leave Tate a nice voicemail thanking him for getting murdered so they could get away, just like his dumb plan said would happen. Then Duncan calls her on Tate's phone and video chats her a fun thing where he shoots her husband in the abdomen in their living room. It's like a Vine, but less enjoyable. Listen, if Tate dies we are going to have to discuss how to proceed, I'm saying that right now. We are gonna need to have a discussion.
Duncan: "I'm not sorry, either. You jerks are getting on my nerves."
Tate: "My abdomen!"
Duncan: "You should come home even though this was all the exact plan."
Ellen: "Suddenly I feel weird about abandoning my cheater husband to his doom."
Tate: "I have to admit I also have reconsidered the pros and cons of this plan!"
Ellen: "I forgot!"
Ellen makes a face of anguish! The end!
WEEK
Tate gets the paddles, nobody goes to Montreal, and guess what? Duncan is not impressed with Ellen for defying his authority, but probably he doesn't actually do anything irrevocable. No I'm not psychic, I just have a feeling that's what is going to go down. He will be all mad at her and get her back on his team, and then she will do something futile, and he will retaliate by doing something that seems really hardcore and evil (killing Angela, killing Tate) and but actually isn't (neither of them are actually dead in any sense). And maybe Beardy will be so hurt from his beating that he will become a junkie again. Or maybe the show will be canceled, that might happen too.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Homeland, Hostages, Ravenswood, and Masters Of Sex for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.