Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 22 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT Just To Watch Him Die
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 10.21.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.After Skyping to Ellen a video of himself shooting her husband in the stomach, Duncan immediately turns his attentions to saving Tate from dying from the gunshot wound he just inflicted. Proving once again that has the opposite of survival instincts, dumb Ellen stashes the passports and bus tickets for the kids and runs back home to do surgery on Tate.
The sexual chemistry we're supposed to imagine between Ellen and Duncan is very heated during this part, because they are some gross creeps, and then when Morgan's babydaddy shows up to holler at her, Duncan makes Ellen strip to her skivs because she's covered in her husband's kidney blood, and then secretly threatens the kid to the point where Ellen has to hug him and pretend he's not totally nasty trash in order to get him out the door again.
Meanwhile, the kids miss their bus -- of course -- but after some very touch-and-go moments about getting found by Sandrine, they make it out of town. All the way to Pikesville, a whole hour away, before Jake fucks up and calls home, and is immediately traced by Beardy, who is fed up with Tate trying to give him Lima Syndrome (but also it is working).
Archer spends the episode dicking around with the dead body of Nurse Angela, about whose death Duncan is very angry to hear since his plan was to keep her locked up until the end of the season or something. He makes Archer bring her dead body to this very creepy thing he does at the end of the episode, and then immediately phones in a tip to get Archer arrested, which I guess will show him who's boss.
Sandrine is kidnapped from the bus station and also spends the episode out of commission, because she is into a drug dealer for tons of money which is why she's always talking about money. And I guess also why she didn't care about Jake being in the exact same position. When she goes to get the dumb kids and bring them back home, she is rough with them. The cycle of abuse.
But the headline, as usual, is what the hell is going on with Ellen Sanders, who is always an entertaining mess. In this installment, Duncan takes her out to the woods so she can dig a grave for herself, and then when she's done with that he springs this super fucked-up story on her about one full moon long ago, when this girl beat up her rapist so bad he went to the ER, but once he was there he got a second wind and chased Ellen around the hospital for more raping, but so she stabbed him to death with a scalpel and watched him die.
Duncan says this vigilante streak is why she was chosen for this mission -- that something is very, very wrong about the President's morals that we still don't get to know about -- but that's not even the big shock. When Ellen's done digging her grave, he puts the gun to her head so she'll scream and holler like every episode, then abruptly Nurse Angela's body appears in the grave and she has to bury her best friend. Traumatic shit! Especially when, on the way back home and in total shock, she tells Duncan Carlisle to eat a dick and she wins because her kids got away, and then when they walk in the kids have been re-abducted and are cleaning up Tate's blood and guts from the kitchen surgery, and Duncan fully goes, "I win."
Next Week: Duncan tries to make Ellen shoot her own sister in the head, which is just so Duncan. And everybody seems tickled by the dumb irony of Duncan taking a third job as the investigator of the murder of Nurse Angela, who was not supposed to be dead but has actually been dead the whole time, and whom has now been buried by her bestie Ellen Sanders, who still has ten goddamn weeks before she has to kill the President again.
On the other hand, those weeks will also contain Tate lunging around with his kidneys hanging out, the excellent Joanne "Warehouse 13" Kelley getting involved in the upper echelons of the Conspiracy and going to war with Quentin Creasy; Beardy getting frisky with Sandrine, and Ellen getting frisky with Duncan. One or both of those could be a strange fantasy, but if one of them is, it's the first one, because this whole show is predicated on Duncan and Ellen one day having sex together, because they are the grossest ones so it's perfect.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Tate is now a double-hostage, having been taken hostage so Ellen will go back to exactly where they've always had her, which is what happens in every episode of this show. Ellen figured out Duncan's a Special Agent with the FBI, but what she doesn't know is that Duncan is a triple-hostage: The Conspiracy will kill him if Ellen doesn't complete the mission, he's working toward some medical quackery he believes will cure his wife's leukemia, and he's now moonlighting on the Secret Service taskforce investigating the President's botched surgery and the weird murders surrounding it. Tate beat up Duncan's brother-in-law Beardy during his daring non-escape, and got himself shot in the abdomen for real.
HOME
Duncan: "I have to save this man from the gunshot wound I inflicted on him minutes ago!"
Sandrine: "That's literally what is going on right now?"
Duncan: "I know! It's very exciting."
BUS STATION
Jake: "On the one hand, I do hate being a hostage. On the other hand, as members of this family we should do whatever fucks everything up worse."
Morgan: "You're right. Let's not get on this bus."
Jake: "That we don't have tickets for anyway."
HOME
Beardy: "If we don't save this man that beat me up and you shot, he will die!"
Duncan: "I know! It's very exciting."
Beardy and Duncan have an exchange also, once every scene, wherein it is discussed that they can't find Archer, where is Archer. Where is Archer? We still don't know. Last time we saw him, I think he was after Tate-as-Ellen in that thrilling Volvo car-chase, which means he should be with Duncan. Duncan needs to keep his shit together a bit better, I think.
Sandrine: "How about some fist in your stomach hole!"
Tate: "Fine, but I'm not telling you anything! Such as where my kids are, or my wife."
Ellen: "Did somebody mention me? I came back. Even though this was exactly the plan we already agreed on."
Duncan: "I knew I could count on you to do the opposite of whatever smart thing you are ever about to do."
Ellen: "It is because I am a good wife and mother!"
Sandrine: "Where are your children?"
Ellen: "I left them to their own devices after making them cut each other up."
Ellen: "Assuming my dipshit kids don't immediately come back here for no reason, like I did for example, Tate is the only leverage you've got left."