“Manhunt” – aired on August 18, 2019
Written by: John Cockrell
Directed by: Constantine Makris
Grade: 3,5 out of 5
Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers
“Manhunt” features more action scenes than most others, one of the two reasons why it lives up to the billing of its title. The other one has to do with the fact that it is solely focused on chasing and apprehending Cormac Rego whom we know now to be the Sleeping Beauty killer. It is the most single-plot focused outing of the series, even more so than “Broken Record.” There are no B stories here – Dylan’s talk with his dad in the last 60 seconds does not count as one since it only comes in at the 11th-hour to put forth a twist about another main character. More on that later.
“Manhunt” begins with Cormac riding in a cab from JFK to the city. His mother informs him on the phone that Ryan and Dylan stopped by their house in Garfield, asking about him. This sends red alarm to Cormac and he tells the driver to take the next exit and drop him, except that he also strangles him before leaving. Except that he made a gross miscalculation, the driver is not dead. Ryan and Lizzie will later learn of Cormac’s destination in the city through the driver while he is recovering in the emergency room.
Next, we are in the confines of the 11th precinct where, thank heavens, Jasmine is back to her Lieutenant role (see my review of last week’s “Go Figure”) giving directives to the police force, briefing everyone on the identity of the Sleeping Beauty killer whom we know now to be Cormac Rego. Ryan and Dylan are back from Nebraska, and nobody can locate Julian. He shows up a little later in the episode but where he was during that time remains a mystery to everyone including Dylan and Lizzie.
Andy stops by the precinct on his way to the bar to let his husband know that daddy Reinhart stopped by the house and wants to talk to Dylan in person.
Lizzie, Dylan, and Ryan conclude through some clever deductive reasoning that Cormac must have been staying at the apartment where they currently are because it’s the only one, among many that he acquired, through a cash transaction. He was buying property in New York although his family thought he was going to Mexico because that is where his father wanted him to relocate the business before dying. Our detectives find a ton of evidence in the apartment, including cowboy blankets, a murder weapon, and a wall covered with newspaper clippings of his victims, but not Cormac himself.
The next step is to get Candace (Rebecca Faulkenberry), Cormac’s sister, to come to New York and help them draw Cormac out. Ryan is not too keen on the idea of using her as bait – they used to date and are childhood friends – but he goes along. They believe that Cormac still loves his sister and that she can get through to him. Through Candace’s stories, our detectives also learn that Mr. Rego was sometimes abusive with his son, demanding a lot from him.
The tactic works, Cormac calls Candace and wants to meet with her at the Seaport District. Dylan vehemently opposes the idea of a public location of Cormac’s choosing but he gets overruled by the others, including Jasmine who gives the green light.
While everyone is in place at the location waiting for Cormac, Lizzie notices him on the roof of a building and alerts the others. Ryan blatantly jumps out of the hide-out truck he was in, in plain view of Cormac, which alerts Cormac to run, unsurprisingly! I can only imagine how much actual detectives watching this episode must have cringed at that moment. The good news is that an action scene follows as Ryan chases Cormac in a parking garage and the action scenes are the episode’s strong parts thanks to the dexterity of director Constantine Makris in using limited camera angles to increase the suspense.
Somehow Cormac gets away from Ryan despite getting shot in the arm (where are the others? Don’t ask. Nor did Ryan when he finally ran into them outside the parking garage).
Candace is angry because not only is Cormac not apprehended as promised, but he also got shot. She leaves the precinct in a fury, but Dylan assures Ryan that she is not going far because she left her bag behind. Sure enough, she is sitting outside the precinct when Lizzie finds her and convinces her again (by showing photos of Cormac’s victims) to assist them in finding her brother. There is the underlying theme of the unbreakable bond between siblings at play throughout the episode which gives Dylan plenty of opportunities to psycho-analyze Candace and Cormac. It’s an apt use of the main character’s primary skill through A story, kudos to the episode writer John Cockrell for using one of the show’s central assets in a compelling manner.
But the moment that steals the spotlight in this sequence is the pep talk that Dylan gives to Ryan who was feeling gloomy for not being able to keep his promise to Candace. Waving his arms and raising his voice, he pumps Ryan up with the following: “Show me some of that… midwestern, steak-eating, cornfield-loving, oh-what-a-beautiful-morning optimism, okay?” Priceless!
Another odd moment in the shuffle: the most insignificant recurring character of Instinct, det. Jimmy Marino (John Mainieri) who probably averages 1,3 seconds per episode of airtime, actually gets to say a full sentence that is relevant to the case at hand. Whoop-de-doo!
Next in the playbook of our detectives is to have Candace address Cormac via Dennis’s podcast without giving any names and implore his brother to turn himself in. It seems that our detectives have forgotten to check in with Lt. Gooden because her plan differs. She decided to release the killer’s identity and photo to the public, despite Ryan and Dylan’s objections.
In the meantime, Cormac apparently contacted Dennis and offered to talk with him face-to-face. Naturally, Dennis accepted, and naturally, Cormac took Dennis hostage at gun point. We know this because Cormac sent Ryan a clip of him holding Dennis hostage. He wants Ryan to come and attempt a rescue of Dennis so that he can kill the “Golden Boy of Garfield.” Through the clip, our detectives figure out where Cormac is (thanks to a pharmacy bag with a name on it, if you must know) but by the time they arrive at the location Cormac and Dennis are gone. But hey, you don’t get away from the trio of Dylan, Lizzie, and Ryan that easily, right? They determine (please don’t ask how) that he must have taken Dennis to some maritime terminal to hide.
Finally, we get to the final showdown between Ryan and Cormac after another quality sequence of search-and-pursue suspense. During the standoff, Ryan pulls off Dylan-esque psycholo-babble to engage Cormac in a conversation although the latter is pointing a gun at him. Dylan naturally steps in with the tough daddy talk (using the “man up” bark that Mr. Rego regularly threw at Cormac when he was a child, according to Candace) to distract Cormac by jolting his painful childhood memories, which gives Ryan just enough time to jump on Cormac. A short scuffle ensues, Lizzie shoots Cormac, and the Sleeping Beauty killer is at last apprehended. While the long-arc investigation of the case brought an intriguing dimension to the second season of Instinct, I cannot help but feel a bit underwhelmed by the fact that Cormac’s ham-fisted decisions and insecure behavior in “Mahnunt” did not correspond to that which one would expect out of a mastermind who meticulously crafted this series of murders through so many previous episodes.
“Manhunt” has one last trick up its sleeve at the very end. In an unpleasant meeting between Dylan and his dad (who works for the CIA and first appeared in “I Heart New York,” played by the great John Doman), the older Reinhart tells his son that the CIA believes Julian is behind the malware attack. Dylan refuses to believe it, but looks deeply concerned by this revelation as the screen goes dark.
Until the next episode…
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