“When I see you at the end of the day, I feel safe.”
- Jane
I have to admit I wasn’t entirely sure how to go about blogging this episode. The story structure was very different from what we’ve seen before. Basically,, as the main plot unfolds, we jump back in time to see where our characters were a few hours earlier and what put them in the frame of mind they are in while dealing with the case. The case involved a series of football scores at a local college which Tasha found in the sports section (which makes you worry a little about her gambling since we’ve seen her engaging in her addicting behavior recently). But Patterson is super excited that another member of the team cracked a tattoo. Patterson does a little digging and reveals that there had been some investigations into the scholarship fund at the school for the athletic program but nothing could be proved. And then a few weeks ago, a rising star was kicked off the team for drugs. It’s all a little tenuous as to why it would be on Jane’s body or why it would need the FBI to be involved but things will soon become clear.
The situation becomes pretty clear when the team discovers there is an active shooter on campus (after they talk to Reade’s old coach from when he was a kid. Even though communication is down, the team ends up pairing off and then each splitting up to look for the shooter. This is the framing device for the writers to jump back in time in each act to catch up with where everyone was a few hours earlier. We start with Tasha who was at a Gambler’s Anonymous meeting where she refused to share. But we see that’s where she snagged the paper she got that led them to campus. Reade was getting a new suit and having his tailor snark at him for his break up (and gave him kind of a crazy bow tie to wear). Weller had moved his father back home to the hospital and Jane was dealing with some personal issues with Oscar. He proclaims that she needs a new handler because he’s gotten too close and she kind of freaks out a little bit. Even though Mayfair isn’t in the field, she also has drama to deal with. Sophia has come back and she’s not dead. She claims she went into hiding because she was afraid someone would find out about Daylight. She asks Mayfair for money to get her out of the country.
Back on campus the team splits up and first we find Tasha clearing one of the lower areas. She finds the coach who they’d been talking to and he gets shot pretty badly in the leg. So now she’s got to find a way to get him safely out of the building. He suggests through the auditorium but the shooter pins them in and Tasha quickly runs out of ammo. Cut to Jane’s perspective of things. She and Weller split up on the second level and she spots a shooter but she gets sidetracked for a little bit by a jumpy security guard. She manages to talk him out of shooting her and ends up leaving him to care for a gravely wounded university president. Lucky for Tasha, Jane hears the shots and takes out the shooter that had been dogging them.
We next follow Weller as he clears his area of the building. He finds a different coach who has been shot. This guy identifies a second shooter as the kid who was kicked off the team for drugs. This leads to a confrontation between Weller and the kid. The shooter gets away and Weller discovers a bomb. This calls for some tricky maneuvering on his part to try and disarm the bomb. Well, he tries at least but it doesn’t end well. At least he’s not dead or gravely injured. But there is the matter of where Reade ended up. Especially when the rest of the team finally manages to report in to Mayfair and Patterson.
Reade is having a much more emotional go of it. He finds a young girl who is weeping over her dead friend’s body. He also manages to trip the release on a second explosive. But thanks to an assist from the student, he manages to prolong the detonation so the kids can get clear. But just as Reade is coming around, the second shooter holds a gun on him. This leads to a heart-to-heart as the rest of the team searching for their missing agent. The shooting and the bombs weren’t about football but rather the coach that Reade knew being a pedophile. I guess they had to pull this one from the new a few years back. It also made me think of a plotline on Criminal Minds, too. Unfortunately, despite all Reade does to try and talk the kid into peacefully surrendering, Weller has to shoot him. But this dead galvanize Reade to promise to take the coach down.
At the end of the day, Weller and Reade share some expensive scotch in the locker room while Tasha goes to another meeting and shares. I couldn’t tell if she was being honest about the story (since they called her Lauren) but I have a feeling it was. I’m glad she’s getting help. Mayfair ends up giving Sophia the money that she has and kicking her out. She’s not going to leave her job and her life to be with Sophia. Not after what the woman did. And Jane and Oscar have a heart-to-heart where she basically tells him he is the only one who can be her handler in all of this because he knows her so well and he makes her feel safe at the end of the day. I hope they can make it work in the end. But he’s got some dirty work to take care of involving Carter’s dead body. I can only imagine what they’re going to be doing with a corpse who is probably riddled with bullet holes thanks to Oscar rescuing Jane.
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