“Finders Keepers” – aired on July 14, 2019
Written by: Carol Flint
Directed by: Lee Rose
Grade: 5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

The task of coming up with a compelling and original plot for each episode must be, I presume, one of the most daunting challenges of TV procedurals due to their episodic style of storytelling. Every now and then, the writing room is able overcome that challenge with flying colors and put out an episode that checks all the boxes.

“Finders Keepers” is that type of episode.

It is exhibit A in terms of how a well-crafted script (hats off to Carol Flint), combined with directorial dexterity (same to Lee Rose), can knock it out of the park. The outing’s success is further propelled by some terrific guest-star performances, making us care about their choices in dealing with deeply personal conflicts.  

The central plot features a bitter custodial dispute with lasting consequences on the most innocent, meaning the children. Robby (Jayden Marine) is the boy caught in the middle of a drawn-out quarrel pitting his father Will (Tom Lipinski) against the Alfaros, his grandparents.

Heightening the tension is the fact that Robby’s mother Mimi died under vague circumstances five years earlier, leading the rich and rigid grandfather Theo Alfaro (Carlos Gomez) to unequivocally conclude in his mind that Will killed their daughter and got away with it thanks to his “fancy lawyer” who argued that Mimi was suicidal. We also learn that their dislike of Will even predates Mimi’s death.

Flint’s fine script does a good job of juxtaposing the various agendas of everyone involved. It is difficult to decide whose side to take in the custodial clash. The episode begins with Will leaving his son alone in the apartment to run an errand which puts him in a bad light from the get-go, but not before conveying thoroughly how much he loves Robby in a touching father-son scene in the house. As more background information is revealed, the ambivalence on whether he is a good father or not remains. On the one hand, he used to be a drug user and attempted to take Robby out of state once despite the custodial agreement forbidding him to do so. On the other hand, he has gotten clean since then and truly cares about Robby who, for his part, seems to genuinely love his father.

Theo Alfaro is portrayed in a similarly ambiguous manner. He behaves at times like a judgmental, authoritarian jerk, the kind of wealthy man who is accustomed to getting his way via money and power. Yet, it is evident that both he and his wife Amanda (Rose Arredondo) profoundly care for Robby. What is harmful to the boy is not the time he spends with the Alfaros or his dad, during which he seems to feel safe and loved, but rather the toxic environment created by the clash between them. It is obvious to Lizzie and Dylan that Robby was suffering, but apparently, he was hiding it well (Dylan makes insightful comments on a child’s mental state in such situations).

Robby’s one escape from that febrile milieu, as we find out late in the episode, is the bond formed between him and the two daughters of his godparents, the Lockharts. He has spent extended time with them and they get along very well.

The crisis reaches its pinnacle when Robby disappears from his father’s apartment the night before a court date. The window is broken and there are traces of blood on it. Suspicions of kidnapping and finger-pointing run rampant.  

From the time our two leads arrive to the scene, Lizzie’s terse and edgy disposition grabs Dylan’s attention. After much probing by him, Lizzie eventually explains why the case carries a personal nature for her. This is a clever angle taken by the writing room, shifting Lizzie and Dylan’s positions from one of mere crime investigators to that of human beings intensely invested in pursuit of justice and happiness for the most vulnerable in our society. Back when she was 11 years old, Lizzie’s mother left her and Katie (her sister introduced back in “Secrets and Lies“) alone in the house for a night. They were told not to use the stove, but Katie was desperate for a hot dog, so Lizzie relented. The dishtowel caught on fire and a neighbor reported the incident. Her mom was served, but Lizzie claimed to the judge that her mom left them with the downstairs neighbor named Mr. Keller and that the incident occurred when the two ran up to their apartment. Except that there was no Mr. Keller. The judge bought Lizzie’s tale and the mother got off.

Reflecting on her experience, Lizzie says that she was in a better situation than Robby because she had Katie whereas Robby has had to deal with adversity alone. Upon listening to Lizzie’s recount and reflection, the wheels in Dylan’s head turn and it dawns on him that Robby was not exactly alone either. The Lockhart daughters Emma and Sutton are his friends (Brookly Shuck and Shiloh Verrico are terrific in their roles despite their limited screen time). It turns out that they helped Robby escape from Will’s apartment. Robby knew that his grandfather’s van drove away to Rockaways each night and that is how he ended up, unbeknownst to everyone but Emma and Sutton, at a walking distance away from the Lockhart’s beach house where he was hiding. Lizzie and Dylan find him there watching cartoons on TV. The boy did not want to be put in a position to choose between his father and grandparents the next day in court, so his friends Emma and Sutton helped him escape.

There are a few neat little twists and turns in the script that keep us guessing. For example, when the police search the Alfaros’ home, they find plane tickets to Cuba along with Robby’s passport, which makes it look as if the grandparents were planning to take Robby away for good, considering that Cuba does not have an extradition accord with the United States. Then, blood is discovered in the back of a van owned by Theo’s company and his response is to ask for his lawyer, making it seem likely that he kidnapped Robby (his wife chiming in with her trembling voice as she asks him, “What did you do?” is a nice additional touch). Furthermore, the lab results show later that the blood in the van matches Robby’s DNA which leads to a brief action scene in the precinct where Will tries to attack Theo but our Nebraskan detective Ryan stops him at the last second thanks to an uber-athletic jump over a desk.

Speaking of Ryan, he gets assigned the task of babysitting/interrogating Will at the precinct. He learns that Will got some cash from the ATM on the night of Mimi’s death five years ago. Dylan and Lizzie dig up the ATM records that could function as alibi for Will and clear his name once and for all.

Another example of a twist involves one of the company drivers Mr. Henderson (Daniel Stewart Sherman) who becomes a suspect in the case because he happened to be in the crowd watching the initial crime-scene investigation earlier in the episode and Robby’s blood was later found in his van.

Two late developments, apart from Dylan’s reflection on Lizzie’s childhood experience, help our heroes definitely solve the puzzle. First, the finger-print results from the windowsill in Robby’s room do not match that of Theo, Will, or the driver which causes Dylan and Lizzie to re-focus on Robby’s point of view. Second, when they go back to Robby’s room for a second look, Lizzie finds under the bed the handle of a jump robe in what is the only blemish in the otherwise flawless script. In the beginning of the hour, we see the police force searching Robby’s room with Dylan, Lizzie, and Lt. Gooden present. The jump-rope handle going unnoticed under the bed is simply not plausible.

In any case, it seems that the true heroes in this mess are the children while the adults in the room fail to behave like, well, adults. It’s an hour filled with lessons and although the notion of disaccord between adult family members ultimately damaging children is nothing new, “Finders Keepers” does a great job of capturing the harmful effects of family disputes by shining the spotlight on the consequences of adults losing their sanity and good judgment, rather than on the reasons behind the dispute itself.

Judge Gillespie (Debra Monk) rules that Robby can stay with the Lockharts until the custodial dispute is resolved between Will and the Alfaros. The brief reunification at the end with Robby getting a group hug from Will and the grandparents, with no sound except soft background music, is a beautiful scene.

In other news, Julian and Andy make brief, yet meaningful, appearances in the episode.

In my review of “Broken Record,” I mentioned Julian and Lizzie’s frustration at their inability to spend time alone due to Jasmine temporarily moving in with Lizzie. Well, they appear to have solved the problem as we see them in a five-star hotel room, where Julian claims to live. Lizzie, in her bathrobe, hears Julian, the jack of all trades, speaking in Serbian on the phone and they kiss. He plays a far more important role later in the episode when he modifies the computers at the precinct, under his “Jules the computer guy” persona, so that the company van suspected of transporting Robby can be tracked more efficiently.

Andy, for his part, is leading the search for adoption. A surprise development takes place when he finds out, through an unexpected call at the end of the hour, that his helper at the bar named Samantha “Sam” Arimitsu (Olivia Oguma) is pregnant and considering giving her baby up for adoption. The episode does an adequate job of introducing Sam to the viewers earlier in the episode when we see Andy praising her skills to Dylan on the phone but also expressing his disappointment that she is resigning because of her plans to move back to California. He had even offered her a promotion. Having now learned about her pregnancy, I am expecting Andy to have another talk with her in the upcoming episode(s). It is not clear (at least to me) at this point if Sam is truly leaving for California or if that is just the reason she gave Andy for her resignation in order to avoid revealing to him that she is pregnant.

Last-minute thoughts:

– In a nice little nod to continuity, we see Fucci and Stock getting along much better after the positive ending to their stressful collaboration last week. Fucci calls his Nebraskan colleague “Ryan of Mayberry,” and Stock comes back with “Manhattan’s finest” in a funny little banter between the two.

– I also appreciate the distribution of airtime to the recurring actors so far this season. Fucci was more involved in the previous episode’s story. In this one, Sgt. Harris takes more center stage because he was on the team that investigated Will five years ago when Mimi died.

– Robby telling his dad and his grandparents separately that he wanted to live with them signals his concern for the feelings of both parties. The boy is a mensch.

– Robby’s emotional tie to Cheetah, the stuffed monkey, is well depicted in the early going, a detail that comes into play later.

– I found the stylish time stamps that appeared occasionally throughout the episode, telling us how long Robby has been missing, to be an effective visual accessory.

– I love how Ryan explains his impressive tackle of Will to Lizzie by informing her that he played safety, wide receiver, “and the water boy” in high school, before awkwardly adding, “it was a small school.” Ryan’s a cool character and Van Winkle is a good addition to the cast.

– Lizzie and Dylan have a great little banter at the end, in which Lizzie, for once, turns the table on Dylan and analyzes his behavior.

– After three episodes, I feel comfortable enough to conclude that both the Dylan-centric monologue that began each episode in season 1 and the irksome blue-hued tone that accompanied Dylan’s epiphanies are both gone for good. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Michael Rauch, the showrunner (and whoever else may have played a role in making this change). Thank you! I know I harped on this a lot in my previews, but I shall no more.

Until the next episode…

PS1: You can find the links to all my episode reviews by clicking on “All Reviews” at the top.
PS2: Follow Durg on Twitter and Facebook

“Broken Record” – aired on July 7, 2019
Written by: Keith Foglesong
Directed by: Alex Pillai
Grade: 3 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

The main problem with “Broken Record” is its A story’s lack of depth. The concept of the musician who suffers from a rare mental condition that makes him seek new thrills, and unfairly gets killed as a consequence, is simply not conveyed with enough bravado to engross the viewer. The investigation of a far more intricate murder du jour in the season opener “Stay Gold” ended up getting squashed timewise because of too many other plot developments and I could not help but think how much better that story would have played out as the A story of “Broken Record,” considering the ample amount of time allocated to it here. It would have at least avoided the rushed conclusion it had to settle for last week. Yet, despite having plenty of time to flesh out this week’s murder mystery, everything comes across so predictable and so bland that I struggled to care for it. Average performances by the guest actors, except for Lizzy DeClement who plays Annie, did not help the cause either.

A gun-shot victim named Elliott is found dead in the roller coaster of an amusement park. According to his twin sister Annie, he “found inspiration in solitude,” so he picked odd places to write his music in isolation. They formed a band together until a month ago when Elliott suddenly decided to take his music in a different direction.

Lizzie and Dylan search Elliott’s apartment where they find a key and a ton of broken records. Next, they talk to Ross (Samuel H. Levine), the band’s manager, who informs them that Elliott had a storage unit where he kept his music equipment and computer. They use the key to open the unit in which they find a second key to open another one with an expensive Maserati in it. Elliott apparently stole the vehicle from a dealer in Hell’s Kitchen the week before. Dylan and Lizzie also learn that he robbed a bank and recently started skydiving.

At first, our detectives struggle to explain the sudden change in the musician’s behavior. He apparently tried to give the car away and left the stolen money in the parking lot of the bank. He was merely searching for new thrills. There is just not enough riveting material here (and not much action either, for those who enjoy them). Instead, the plotline rather comes across as an exposition on a mental condition called “persistent déjà-vu,” triggered by temporal-lobe epilepsy in Elliott’s case. It stopped him from signing a deal with a record company that would have been lucrative for both Ross and the band. Ross turned desperate and tried to force Elliott at gun point to sign. Agitated and tense, his finger triggered the gun by accident, killing his friend. We learn all this thanks to our behavioral expert Dylan getting the guilt-ridden Ross to confess everything following a profound tête-à-tête at a bar. All-right!

Another reason why this tedious story seems to drag out, apart from endless scenes of Dylan psychoanalyzing Elliott’s music, is the lack of a B story. Instead, we get glimpses of C stories relating to the longer arcs established in “Stay Gold.”

One involves Andy and Dylan doing a “birth investigation” for their adoption. Andy asks in the beginning of the hour if they ready to “dive back in.” Heck, they already have a board ready with all the adoption possibilities drawn out like a family tree. Thus, it comes as no surprise when, during a sweet talk between the two at the end of the episode, they decide to “pursue them all.”

Another C story is Jasmine’s newly found penchant for going out and partying, which is visibly wearing Lizzie out – see her hair through half of the episode. Inserted in there somewhere is a pedestrian scene of Julian and Lizzie secretly “necking” (Dylan’s words) in the front seat of her car parked in front of a night club. Lizzie apparently snuck out and away from Jasmine, to engage in this pre-teenager activity because the two cannot fulfill their desired quota of lustful encounters since Jasmine moved in with Lizzie.

Eventually, Lizzie gives Jasmine a friendly, but necessary, lecture on how the latter’s tendency to party every night only serves to avoid tackling the real issue, which is, for Jasmine to confront the emotional aftermath of her break-up with her fiancé. Lizzie offers to help, but would rather do so by talking with her at home while eating a pizza, not while drinking at clubs and dancing to loud music.

A third C story involves the relationship dynamic between detectives Fucci and Stock. They are assigned by Jasmine to investigate the “Sleeping Beauty” murders and form a link between the two cases. Except that these two guys come from different backgrounds and use different methods. Stock is particularly frustrated because he is in unfamiliar surroundings and the investigation carries a bit of a personal nature for him. He promised the family of the victim, a long-time member of the community back in Garfield County, that he would bring the killer to justice. At some point, he takes Dylan’s advice and goes rogue to find evidence that links the two cases together. Fucci is pleased with the end result and praises Stock in front of everyone, ending the synergy conundrum between them on a positive note.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Neat choice for the episode title, referring to both Elliott’s condition and the broken records in his apartment.

– Second episode in a row with no Dylan-centric monologue to start and no blue-hued tone during epiphanies (if you have read my reviews, you know what I’m talking about). I will wait one more episode to be absolutely certain, before I celebrate and put a big check mark in the plus column for Season 2.

– Nit-picking myself: I was thrown off by Dylan’s use of plural when he said, “The Sleeping Beauties case” at the end of the season opener when Det. Stock showed him the photo of the male victim in Nebraska. I thought he was referring to a series of murders by the same killer, the one in Nebraska being merely one of them. Then again, I am still thrown off, because throughout this episode, the singular form is used, “The Sleeping Beauty case,” yet we know there are at least two such murders.

– Reinhart’s vocabulary lesson of the week: Musical anhedoniac. It refers to someone who is incapable of enjoying music.

– DeClement can sing! Nice pick by the showrunners for the role of Annie.​  

Until next episode…

PS1: You can find the links to all my episode reviews by clicking on “All Reviews” at the top.
PS2: Follow Durg on Twitter and Facebook

“Stay Gold” – aired on June 30, 2019
Written by: Michael Rauch
Directed by: Stephen Surjik
Grade: 4,5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

The first act of Instinct‘s season 2 premiere closely resembles that of “Pilot,” the episode that launched season 1 and the series. It begins with the murder du jour when Justine Crowley (Rosie Benton), a successful businesswoman who was doing research on the prospects of extending the lifespan of humans, gets locked in her cryogenic chamber from the outside by unknown assassin and freezes to death. Next are scenes with our two leads in their familiar surroundings. Det. Lizzie Needham is carefully observing the corpse of another victim neatly wrapped in a blanket and left in Central Park (in “Pilot,” the crime-scene observation was passed over, understandably, for the sake of introducing the two leads to one another), while Professor Dylan Reinhart is playing the super-witty genius in the classroom with his students.

Lizzie’s interaction with Det. Fucci at the crime scene and Dylan’s playful social experiment with a student named Jenny (Alicia Crowder) are good reminders of why this duo is Instinct’s best asset and how much fans of the show probably missed Bojana Novakovic and Alan Cumming playing them. True to their form, the straight-shooting Lizzie questions Fucci’s use of the term “intellecty” and Dylan, for his part, blows his students’ minds with the link he forms between happiness and narcissism via the brief question-and-answer moment with Jenny. The synergy between Lizzie and Dylan when they banter back and forth later as they are walking to see Crowley’s frozen corpse is as impeccable as it was when they first sat down to chit-chat at a bar back in “Pilot.”

Welcome back Instinct!!

“Stay Gold,” Penned by showrunner Michael Rauch, is a strong start to the season. There are several positive signals emanating from it, such as the return of all main characters and recurring cast, meaning that the audience will not need to adjust to new faces and that even accessorial characters like Doug the Medical Examiner (Andrew Polk), Det. Anthony Fucci (Danny Mastrogiorgio), Sgt. Kanter Harris (Michael B. Silver), Det. Jimmy Marino (John Mainieri), and Zack Clark (Stephen Rider) will get to grow further and perhaps earn the chance contribute to storylines in significant ways – well, ok, to be precise, Zack did that once, in “Long Shot,” in his first appearance. These guys display the types of comportment and humor that mesh well with Instinct’s light-hearted genre of procedural.

There is also the fact that “Stay Gold” does not feature couple of trends from season 1 that I found somewhat annoying. If you read my reviews regularly, you can probably guess what they are because you noticed me incessantly complaining about them.

First of all, the Dylan-centric monologue that began each episode in season 1, and did everything but scream that Lizzie (the female co-lead) was, after all, a complementary character to showcase the nonpareil virtuosity of Dylan (the male co-lead), appears to be gone. Or, so I hope. Second, Dylan’s epiphany moment was devoid of the blue-hued visual that accompanied his epiphanies throughout last season. Please, let it remain that way.

As for the episode itself, there are a couple of murder investigations crammed into the hour, as noted above. Justine is our victim du jour, meaning the reason behind her death gets solved by the end of the episode. As for the victim found in Central Park, it appears to be an attempt on behalf of the writing room at a long-arc story involving a serial killer and a nation-wide search. Thus, the appearance of Det. Ryan Stock (Travis Van Winkle) who visits the precinct at the end of the episode. He has found similarities between the murder he is investigating back in Garfield County, Nebraska, and the one discovered by the NYPD at the park.  

Although “Stay Gold” spends hardly any time on the mystery of the body found in Central Park, it is bound to be explored in the upcoming episodes. Dylan seems to have prior knowledge of the investigation of the “The Sleeping Beauties” case (use of plural suggesting there had been more than one) when Stock shows him the picture of the victim wrapped in a blanket in Nebraska.

Since the long story-arc is merely introduced, one would expect the murder du jour to take center stage in the episode. This is not exactly what happens in “Stay Gold.” There are important B, C, and D stories taking place involving the main characters, thus taking away from the bravado of the A story tackling the Crowley investigation.

On the one hand, it’s completely understandable, because the episode, being the season premiere, needs to establish direction for the main characters and act as a signpost for the season to come. On the other hand, it’s too bad, because the A story, as cleverly built up as it was, suffers from a reductive, ham-fisted conclusion, simply because there does not seem to be enough time to do otherwise.

I am specifically referring to the two sequences leading to its conclusion, the one in the restaurant with Andy, Dylan, Julian, and Lizzie and the other with Dylan and Lizzie apprehending the perpetrator and saving the day.

The first one features a process of deduction by Dylan and Lizzie so far-fetched, and a starting point of that process so half-baked (some guy yelling at the host about his table not being ready), that it’s in your best interest to simply put your attention on the much better part of the scene, its saving grace frankly, which is the disbelief on the faces of Andy and Julian as they stare at Dylan and Lizzie putting 2,4516354 and 2,8594986 together in a minute and a half, identifying the murderer, realizing that he is on the verge of killing another, and rushing out of the restaurant. Julian turns to Andy and asks, “How’s the sea bass?” once Dylan and Lizzie depart. It is a moment of pure bliss because it is meant as sarcasm with regard to how they were ignored by their lovers, yet it also comes across as a punctuation mark on the absurdity of the scene. I shouldn’t complain though, at least I was spared the blue hue with Dylan’s epiphany.

When Lizzie and Dylan do finally with the killer who is about to commit another murder, the show falls back to its safe zone, where Dylan plays the ‘distractor’ and Lizzie the ‘apprehendor,’ after the perpetrator spills out the “hows and whats” of his crimes. Yes, we’ve seen that before.

It’s a shame because the Crowley murder story is nicely built until then, and it is one of the more intricate schemes by a perpetrator that Instinct ever had to offer, with good performances from the guest actors (Jennifer Ferrin as Dr. Becker, John Lavelle as Mr. Crowley, and Andrew Rothenberg as the villain, and Paul Alexander Nolan as the Olympic swimmer from 2004 on whom both Dylan and Lizzie had a crush). I just wish it had more room to breathe once time came to bring it to an end. Again, I cannot help but believe that it was somewhat inevitable, because there are important developments involving the main characters as individuals and as couples.

A lot happens to (and around) Julian in “Stay Gold.” He arrives to his apartment to find an intruder hacking into his system. He decides that it’s best to destroy the system than let the intruder grab any sensitive information, so he blows it up himself with a remote. He then escapes and spends the rest of the episode attempting to identify the one who burned him, using the computers at the precinct. Maybe I missed something, but why did he not even consider neutralizing the intruder and questioning him? Or at least, learn his identity?

Speaking of Julian helping himself to the precinct’s computers, the last thing Lizzie wants is her secret lover, of whom only Dylan and Andy are aware if memory serves, spending extensive time at her workplace. Yet, there he is, posing as “Jules” the computer guy who is there to solve the precinct’s computer-virus problem, the one that Lizzie mentioned to Dylan on the phone while Julian was lying next to her in bed after a steamy session of sex. Needless to say, Lizzie, the straight shooter, is vexed at the prospect of having to daily pretend not knowing “Jules” around her colleagues. There is a great little back-and-forth between Dylan and Lizzie as he tries to assure her that it’s no big deal, which sends Lizzie into a hard-whisper tirade to which Dylan responds with a defensive riposte of his own. It’s another one of those golden Dylan-Lizzie verbal spats and Cumming and Novakovic look and sound so natural doing them that they are delightful to watch.

Julian (half)lies to Lizzie at first saying that he took the computer-guy job to be closer to her, but little by little, he realizes that he may have miscalculated Lizzie’s unwavering penchant for honesty and openness. There is a touching scene at the end in which Julian, recognizing that his presence at the precinct is hurting Lizzie more than he ever expected, decides to come clean to her. He reveals his real name, Reuben, and confesses to her that he is not at the precinct solely for the purpose of being closer to her as he had claimed before, but also because of another reason that he cannot share with her at the moment, but promises to do so very soon. Lizzie rewards his confession with a passionate kiss. Well done Julian! In fact, this is the best ‘Julian episode’ so far in my opinion, at least the one that carries the most substantial developments involving his character.

But of course, someone had to ruin the magic moment between the two, and that would be Lt. Gooden who rings the doorbell as they are kissing upstairs. To make matters worse, she brought a suitcase, meaning that she is planning to say with Lizzie for a while because she broke her engagement to David (who cheated on her) and needs a friend. For some reason, I never cared one iota about the Jasmine-David relationship, so I’d be more than happy if David is never mentioned again. I just feel bad for Lizzie who had to interrupt her kiss and open the door to a depressed Jasmine, and Julian who had to escape through a window (or something) once Jasmine showed up.

Dylan, in the meantime, gets back to working within the fold of the NYPD, because Andy decided to use his dexterity as a lawyer to find a loophole of some sort to get Jasmine to reinstate Dylan. Of course, Andy the consummate diplomat also twists Dylan’s arm into apologizing to Jasmine without “making the other person feel as if they should be apologizing.” As Dylan tries to object, Andy pulls one of the most effective “shush”s ever and Dylan properly shushes. Later, there is a brief conversation that suggests that Andy is considering practicing law again, and if so, count me in. I would love to see Andy’s character go beyond the portrayal of the lovely domestic partner to Dylan. By the way, these two are also looking to get back on the “adoption horse” (Dylan’s words, I promise).

I am curious to see how all these threads develop, including the “Sleeping Beauty case,” as the second season progresses further.  

Last-minute thoughts:

– Lizzie dressed in full suit, runs after young and athletic dude wearing a track suit and running shoes, and catches up with him fairly quickly. O-kay. We’ve seen that before too – “Long Shot” – so I guess I should not be surprised.

– Lizzie handcuffs the runner and walks him back to Fucci who, in the most casual manner possible, says to the guy, “Come on, you’re going to jail,” after cracking a wise-ass joke to Lizzie. Fucci rules!

– Fear of dying from boredom: Thaasophobia. I probably said this before but if you watch Elementaryand Instinct weekly, you will probably learn more from Sherlock and Dylan than you have ever learned in school. Then again, Dylan did not appear to know the term “corpsicle” when Doug the Med.Ex. used it. That’s a firm minus on Dylan’s vocabulary card.

– Speaking of Doug, I adore his brand of sarcasm and Andrew Polk is terrific in delivering those lines. Just watch him say to Dylan and Lizzie, while standing next to the corpsicle of Justine, “You guys are really struggling with the notion of frozen. Let it go. Let it go.” Priceless!

– Time to nitpick myself. I just realized that Lt. Gooden runs the “11th” precinct. I guess I never paid attention to the official designation of their workplace. I knew it was “a” precinct, just not the number. Was it ever mentioned before?

Until the next episode…

PS1: You can find the links to all my episode reviews by clicking on “All Reviews” at the top.
PS2: Follow Durg on Twitter and Facebook

“Tribal” – aired on July 1, 2018
Written by: Michael Rauch
Directed by: Michael Rauch
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Showrunner Michael Rauch wrote and directed this episode, a first for this season, and his timing could not have been more appropriate. Not only did he make sure that his show stuck the landing by delivering a season finale that qualifies as one of the season’s best outings, but he also corrected Instinct‘s course after the bad turn it took with last week’s dismal “Live.”

“Tribal” is not perfect TV, but it is an even-keeled, sober episode. It advances at an authentic pace, delivering a well-rounded hour that takes into consideration all portions of its viewership, those looking for character development, as well as those seeking an captivating crime story.

The episode begins with a murder, after which it turns to more personal matters with two B stories centering on our main characters.

In one B story, Andy seems to brood over the fact that the adoption process is not at the top of Dylan’s priority list. He appears more interested in answering work-related calls from Joan or Lizzie than sharing Andy’s enthusiasm about the upcoming meeting with the social worker about adoption. It took us 11 episodes – “Blast from the Past” – to discover that Andy is not the perfect, dreamy, flawless husband that the first ten episodes made him appear to be (although, let’s be honest, he is still pretty damn close) and that the couple does indeed experience some disaccord. Well, there is trouble on the homefront once again. The meeting with the social worker does not go well and Andy is blaming Dylan for being hostile to the social worker. Dylan, for his part, insists that the social worker was a “bigot.” It does not help that Dylan’s phone is beeping in the middle of their argument, because Lizzie’s texting his partner. You would think that Dylan would ignore the notification (or turn the phone off) and sort it out with his husband. He does not. Instead, he reads the text and informs Andy, “It’s Lizzie… our case… .” Andy is seething as he says, “Ok… Well be sure to ridicule her too,” and walks away.

So, whose side were you on? Let’s recap what took place during the meeting before considering the answer.

The discussion with the social worker felt awkward from the beginning and the comfort level dipped even lower when she asked, “What about teaching the child about normal families?” Dylan replied: “Normal? Do you know any normal families? ‘Cause I sure don’t.” The worker apologized and explained that she meant “more traditional” before finally realizing, under Dylan’s icy stare, that she needed to drop this line of questioning altogether. The malaise grew further when she stuttered as she was searching for the right word to use for “spouse.” Dylan, fuming by now, snarked back: “The word you’re searching for is ‘husband,’ we are both ‘husbands,’ but [sarcastically] in a traditional way.” The meeting ended shortly after. Dylan and Andy were later informed that they will need to wait at least six months before scheduling another such meeting.

Now back to my question above… 

Did Dylan go overboard in expressing his anger, thus causing the delay of at least six months in their quest to become parents? Or, did you side with Andy who was basically willing to swallow the social worker’s offensive – albeit, unintentional – phraseology in the name of advancing the process? Was Dylan out of line in answering the call from Lizzie at that moment? Did the case matter that much? Then again, is Andy paying the price for having been so agreeable to Dylan’s whims for so long? I certainly remember my comments all the way back in “Wild Game,” when Andy voluntarily rearranged the furniture in their house so that Dylan could have a comfortable work space at home? Regardless, the emotional conflicts that “Tribal” puts on display in these side stories work remarkably well in the hands of talented actors like Alan Cumming, Daniel Ings, Naveen Andrews, and Bojana Novakovic.  

In the other worthy B story, Lt. Gooden puts Lizzie on the spot by asking her if the evidence in the “live-streaming steampunk case,” the central crime story of “Live,” was “properly obtained.” Apparently, the DA wants to know how Dylan and Lizzie were able to “pinpoint the victim given the scrambled GPS information” and track down the killer. If you recall, Lizzie refused, at first, Dylan’s suggestion to contact Julian to find the GPS signal, but then relented when Dylan reminded her of the urgent nature of the situation. Facing pointed questions from Jasmine to which she has no choice but to reply with lies, is precisely the position she aimed to avoid when she first refused to consult Julian. Lizzie strives to adhere to her principles and to remain a paragon of playing by the book. Yet, the one time she decides to veer away from those principles, it comes back to bite her right when she is being considered for a promotion.

Some continuity between episodes is usually appreciated by viewers, but showrunner/writer Rauch takes it one step further here, by cleverly adding an element of consequence in this particular plot. Lizzie finds herself in a precarious position. Should she choose honesty and reveal Julian’s involvement in solving the case to Lt. Gooden, and consequently, put her own career at risk? Or, should she compromise her long-held principles and lie to Jasmine in the name of protecting Dylan and Julian? Much to her relief, she has to do neither. Dylan comes to her rescue.

In an effort to protect his partner, Dylan confesses to Lt. Gooden that they did indeed receive help from a friend but claims, untruthfully, that Lizzie was kept in the dark – although his lie (Dylan claims he made up a legitimate source when Lizzie asked him) would fall apart under the slightest scrutiny by Jasmine, but never mind. It works. Lizzie tells him the next morning that Jasmine called and told her that she was off the hook.

In the meantime, there is a C story – only because it can no longer be avoided now – involving Julian and Lizzie who kissed each other at the end of the last episode after having spent a total of (maybe) seven minutes together since they met. Heck, why not hop into the bed right away too? They do indeed. Dylan’s jaw drops when he arrives to Lizzie’s house in the morning and finds them both there. Lizzie apologizes later to Dylan for not having told him. The seemingly mature Dylan assures Lizzie that it is none of his business and that he is not there to judge her, before he immaturely adds, “even if sleeping with my closest friend who happens to be an award-winning playboy is a stupid, stupid idea.” Lizzie blitzes back with a sour smile: “Thank you for not judging.” Brilliant!

The central crime story is an intriguing melting pot of social acceptance, secret societies and past skeletons. A woman named Kristy Walker (Paton Ashbrook) – Joan refers to her as her “favorite junior editor” in an otherwise trivial appearance by Whoopi Goldberg – is found hung by the neck. According to her publisher Charles Whitehead (Terrence Mann), she was writing a promising book, although nobody seems to know where it’s located or what it’s about, except for her high school sweetheart Chad with whom she has recently been seen together. There is a time-filling side story here with a jealous ex-fiancé named Max (Babak Tafti) who believes Chad stole Kristy away from him. He conveniently appears to be the main suspect for a short while, thanks to a fairly creative motorcycle-related evidence, before the lead, to nobody’s surprise, turns out to be fruitless. He was essentially framed. Next, Dylan and Lizzie turn their attention to Chad, except that they never get to talk to him. He is also found dead, hung by the neck.

This adds urgency to the case because the Reinhart-Needham duo is now racing against time. The murderer is going after anyone who knows about the book. Rauch’s writing and directing manages to avoid pitfalls associated with predictability and ordinariness as the plot moves forward until we get to the crux of how far members of a secret society are willing to go in order to protect their “brotherhood.” Dylan and Lizzie feel the heat themselves when the former finds a high-end surveillance mic inside his home and the latter is barely saved by Julian from a car explosion intended to kill her.

The explosion scene is probably the episode’s weakest portion. Julian and Lizzie notice a woman who is following them in the street. They begin chasing her. Although they get within a few steps of the woman who is running on high heels with her purse slinging around, they somehow cannot catch up with her. “Let her go, we have her car,” Julian says to Lizzie, dubiously equating spotting her car with actually catching her. We understand quickly that the chase was merely a plot device for bringing the close-call explosion sequence to the screen. While examining the car, Julian discovers a bomb inside and our heroes plunge away to save themselves just in the nick of time.

The investigation goes through some elaborate layers and requires the attention of the viewer, which is never a bad thing per se in the land of prime-time TV where procedurals are often known to go through the motions. The twists and turns lead us to the mysterious disappearance, from 15 years ago, of a college named Tony Holt whose friends back then, belong today to a secret society called “Lambsmen.”

The strength of the episode’s crime plot lies less in the revelation of the killer’s identity than in how Dylan and Lizzie make discovery after discovery and overcome one hurdle after another to solve the puzzle. The attention to detail is terrific as the story unravels, even if the execution occasionally wobbles.

Kristy and Chad were basically writing a book that was bound to expose the cover-up of Holt’s murder. The “extreme tribal mentality” (Dylan’s quote, thus the episode’s name) under which secret societies like the Lambsmen operate cannot allow that to happen, thus their motivation to eliminate anyone with the knowledge of the book.

Overall, “Tribal” has well-written dialogues, praiseworthy production values and notable guest-star appearances. Gabriel Ebert (playing Tucker Brophy) deserves special mention, if for nothing else than for his performance when Lizzie and Dylan go to Brophy’s office to question him. The conversation takes an unsavory turn when Brophy harangues Dylan in front of Lizzie, targeting our good professor’s most intimate fears. Ebert brings alive Brophy’s repulsive persona of a privileged secret-society member. Add some stellar character development to the mix (see the earlier part of this review) and “Tribal” emerges as a compelling stand-alone season finale.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Dylan says that his father was a Lambsman. That explains how Brophy knew so many intimate details about Dylan when he launched his diatribe against him. Dylan’s father must be an even bigger asshole than he appeared to be in “I Heart New York,” if he shared that many embarrassing details about his son with his Lambsmen brothers.

– Fucci and Harris rule, not because they play noticeable parts on screen (they do not), but because they collect all the tedious data off-screen and feed it to Lizzie and Dylan in one-liner appearances, so that our two leads can remain noticeable instead. 

– There is the threat of Dylan being fired by Jasmine that hangs in the air when the season ends. Is anyone taking that seriously? I hope not.

– Nice bluff pulled by Lizzie and Dylan on the “next Senator” Bobby Concannon (Roderick Hill) as he is filming a promotional spot for his campaign at the public park.

Until next season… 

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“Live” – aired on June 24, 2018
Written by: Michael J. Ballin & Thomas Aguilar
Directed by: Edward Ornelas
Grade: 1,5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Boy, did Instinct dip into the grab bag of mediocrity for this particular outing, or what? (Hint: the correct answer is not “or what.”)

After the episode opens with the discovery of a dead woman named Charlotte in a cinema seat, we move on to a pretty entertaining scene in which Lizzie meets with Dylan and Julian at a bar. The twist is that she did not let them know that she had invited both, so the two men are bewildered to see each other when they arrive. Lizzie’s intention is to put “everything out in the open.” She wants Dylan to know that she already met Julian, that she knows Julian is his super-secret-spy friend, and makes sure that Julian knows that Dylan knows that she knows. Get it? “No lies between us,” she insists. She also pulls the episode’s best line when Dylan wants to know who came to who first: “‘Who came to who first’? What are you, 12?” (Insert fist-pump gif on behalf of Lizzie).

Once that scene is over, “Live” goes downhill fast, in a series of rushed, contrived, and disjointed events that mark a low point in the series, probably the lowest since “Secrets and Lies,” on the heels of an otherwise-solid run of episodes as of late (except “Bye Bye Birdie”). It almost feels as if the showrunners received the news that Instinct was renewed for a second season right before the filming of this penultimate episode and changed the menu at the last minute by slapping together a hodgepodge of events that move at warp-speed nine without much build-up via coincidences that defy plausibility, including “the kiss” at the end (more on that later).

Both having left the bar, Dylan and Lizzie arrive to the theater to check out the crime scene where several officers and forensics had already begun investigating. They are taking pictures and looking for clues. Yet, somehow, they all missed the trail of blood that Lizzie discovers in the walkway by the corpse. The writing is not stellar here, unless we are to believe that the most incompetent crime-scene officers on earth work for the NYPD, except for Lizzie who immediately informs them of her discovery: “There is a trail of blood coming from the exit. She wasn’t murdered in here.”

Lo and behold – more uses of “lo and behold” to follow – the projector starts running again and the screen shows the actual murder. As Dylan watches it, he does not neglect to describe to Lizzie (and to us) the intentions of the murderer in making them watch the gruesome act. Reminiscent of the opening scene of “Pilot,” there is a fatuous dark-red-blue-ish tone to the smoky murder sequence which aims to function, I reckon, as a visual storytelling vehicle to complement the gloomy nature of the act. Instead, it is so overloaded with distorted colors that it only serves to drown the intended tension.

Next, Dylan and Andy are at home getting ready to welcome Maddie (Onata Statler-Aprile), the 12-year-old daughter of a friend of Andy. She asked him to take care of Maddie while she goes on a cruise for some “me” time. Andy, the magnanimous friend that he is, did not refuse the single mom’s request. If you remember, the last episode ended with Dylan and Andy deciding to have a kid. Lo and behold – I warned you to prepare for lo-and-behold mentions –, “Live” conveniently paves the way for their parenting skills to get tested immediately when Maddie gets suspended from school after getting caught (allegedly) bullying another kid online.  

This forced B storyline falls flat for the most part due to mediocre dialogues and a subpar performance by Statler-Aprile who previously shined in What Maisie Knew (2012). Maddie tells Lizzie at the precinct (yes, Dylan brought her there, long story – or no story) that she is innocent. Yet, she will not snitch on Mia, the girl that she believes to be the miscreant. She fears that Mia will make her life miserable. Furthermore, she actually likes the boy she has allegedly bullied, but her friend Zoey, you see, told her that she would receive a bad rating on “ChitterPix” if she liked “just one guy.” Thus, if she “flirts around,” she will get “more guys” to like her (or something), because this is how that online domain apparently rolls.

This teenage-problem-explanation scene lasts gratuitously long and it is hard to get invested in Maddie’s flow of superfluous information delivered in a lusterless tone (token appearance of a tear does not help). A film/TV expert could probably come up with dozens of much more poignant scenes (or dialogues) than this one when it comes to online bullying or teenagers’ obsession with social popularity. This particular B story gives the impression of being tossed into the hour, just so that Maddie can be used as a plot device for Dylan’s blue-hued-epiphany moment, thus killing two birds with one stone, simultaneously solving the case and overcoming the problems that Dylan and Andy are experiencing in their effort to connect with a teenager.

The A story features a draconian professor, a teaching assistant with an inferiority complex, and bunch of students whose fervor to please their professor supersedes all else. It’s essentially the classroom version of a cult to which Charlotte had belonged. This set-up helps to reduce the list of possible suspects to Mosher and his students. In the cliché of all clichés, he also happens to be sleeping with his students. We know this, because Lizzie and Dylan conveniently walk over to his desk and check out his computer while he stands there**. Lo and behold (again), they discover the clip of him having sex with Charlotte. His explanation is laughable: Charlotte made a “film about “subverting the male gaze.” Oh-kay.

**As a professor, I can guarantee you that nobody gets to look at my computer without my consent, unless they have a warrant. 

Other than Mosher, a student named Henry (Andrew Burnap) becomes a possible suspect when he is caught by Dylan and Lizzie during his re-enacting (with a female student) of the exact same scene as the one in which Charlotte was killed. Yes, it also includes the smoky look and the distorted colors. Dylan says to him, “Some of your colleagues suggested that the film in which Charlotte was killed was very similar to your own work.” Excuse me Dylan? Did you not just witness Henry’s work, seconds ago? Was that also not you watching Charlotte’s murder in the beginning of the episode? The two are virtually the same. Hello?

That scene ends with a sequence that reeks of daytime soap-opera drama. Henry looks nervously at Dylan who throws him back an accusatory stare and we fade to a commercial break. How did Dylan and Lizzie catch him in the act by the way? They were walking through the campus after their talk with Mosher – I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say, toward Henry’s dorm – and, lo and behold, loud screams from the building right next to where they happen to be walking fill the air. Just like that, they run inside the building and bust the very Henry whose name, lo and behold, came up for the first time during their interrogation of Mosher moments earlier.

He is brought to the precinct and questioned in an interrogation room with a wall décor that would make the owners of plush homes in Potomac Manors, MD, envious with rage. Burnap’s performance as Henry leaves a lot to be desired as he keeps switching from looking guilty one minute to secretive the next, but failing to convey either effect. Reg Rogers, playing Professor Mosher, is the only guest star of this episode who adequately fills the screen, which is a shame because Instinct has, until now, benefited from worthy guest-star performances.

Spencer (David Corenswet), to whom the arrogant Mosher refers as his “talentless” T.A., turns out to be the killer. We know this before the climactic scene because Spencer, in one of the most vacuous moves of all times by an evildoer, recites to the camera the very quotes that Mosher used to humiliate him in class, while the whole precinct is watching the broadcast of him getting ready to end Henry’s life. How did this dude become a T.A. with an I.Q. like that? Or, did I simply miss the part where he revealed his plans to spend a substantial portion of his life in jail?

Speaking of the climactic scene, in which the screen is engulfed once again in the dark-red-blue-ish smoky tone, Lizzie and Dylan stop Spencer from killing Henry just in the nick of time. Dylan distracts Spencer with his psyche-chatter (haven’t we seen this before?) while Lizzie approaches and tackles him down.

The last bit of the outing begins with a sweet conversation between Dylan and Andy. As I begin to think – and hope – that the episode has reached its end, the image on my screen switches to Julian surprising Lizzie by the river as she finishes her exercise routine. Following an extremely mundane dialogue that contains no more than three or four sentences each, they begin to passionately kiss each other. Huh? I guess I should not be surprised that, in an episode during which writers apparently decided to toss aside their prudence, they would also dismiss their common sense. Julian and Lizzie have literally seen each other four times so far (three of them, under not-so-pleasant circumstances), each meeting lasting no more than a minute or two. Yet, they become a romantic unit in the blink of an eye with zero build-up.

Look, I have no problem with the two of them hooking up. I like both Bojana Novakovic as Lizzie and Naveen Adrews as Julian. I do, however, regret ham-fisted narratives that don’t do such characters (and actors) justice, especially when those narratives border on implausibility in the name of artificially accelerating plot-advancement and at the expense of interpersonal dynamics. Even Inara George’s wonderful song “Stars” playing in the background cannot sweep under the rug the far-fetched nature of this wait-what moment. With two talented actors like Novakovic and Andrews, a fleshed-out build-up to the two of them finally plunging into romance could have generated a much more electrifying first-kiss moment by the river. Instead, we experienced a reverse-engineered ploy at the eleventh-hour without having had any time to invest ourselves in the relationship. What is next? One will cheat on the other and they will break up within the first 10 minutes of the next episode? Note: that was a rhetorical question.   

I am hoping for a more arrayed finale to close out season 1.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Zack has lately been reduced to the role of a line filler. I wonder if he will stick around for season 2.

– The theater where Charlotte’s body is found by Travis looks like an artifact from the 1920s. Nice touch.

– Travis is played by Danny Flaherty who also played the recurring role of Matthew Beaman, son of Stan the FBI guy in The Americans.

Until next episode…

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“Blast from the Past” – aired on June 17, 2018
Written by: Lee Ellenberg
Directed by: Cherie Nowlan
Grade: 4 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

For a welcomed change, this episode begins with a recap – “Previously, on Instinct…” – of key moments from earlier episodes. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is the first time since “Pilot” that an episode began without the testosterone-ridden monologue by the male co-lead beginning with “My name is Dylan Reinhart,” continuing with reminders of how brilliant he is, and finishing with the token mention of the complementary female co-lead (I know, this isn’t my first diatribe against that monologue, sorry).

The new recap is not the only fresh dish that this episode brings to the table though, far from it. The crime plot carries intricacies that bring to light an extraordinary event buried deep (but not forgotten) within the younger years of one of the two leads, justifying the episode’s title. To add spice to the menu, there are two B stories that revolve around the interpersonal dynamics between the main characters. “Blast from the Past” does a decent job of compartmentalizing these narratives, neatly packing a considerable amount of character development into 42 minutes.

One of those fresh takes is the break-away from the image of the perfect couple that “DylAndy” has portrayed since Instinct began. They have their first veritable argument on screen 12 minutes into the episode. The source of the disagreement is complex enough to where you find yourself hesitating as to whose side to take. Is Andy simply against the idea of having his private life publicized or is he keeping secrets from Dylan? Does Dylan have a point that Andy is not as proud of his accomplishments as he is of Andy’s or does his seemingly overblown reaction to Andy’s desire to keep his private life out of the spotlight stem from selfishness?

The disaccord takes place early enough in the episode to allow time for the eventual reconciliation to occur – no make-up sex, don’t hold your breath – but dialogues leading to it are written thoughtfully enough to be taken seriously. It also helps that Alan Cumming and Daniel Ings are two consummate actors who manage to portray the emotional swings that both characters go through with remarkable credibility.

The other B story centers on the concerns of Julian and Lizzie with Dylan’s exposure to the public sphere. Dylan now has a publicist named Ashley (Nikki M. James) and she is gung-ho about having Dylan grace the cover of New York Magazine with his presence. Julian is alarmed. When he talks to Dylan, he brings up a former MI-6 officer named Tony Collins who, as we learn later, wrote a “tell-all” and began discussing his work on TV. According to Julian, he “became so distracted by the attention that he stopped taking proper precautions” and paid for it with his life. Dylan does not heed Julian’s warning which leads him to surprise Lizzie at a pizza parlor and ask for her help in the matter. He also reveals his name to Lizzie and gives her his phone number. “Dylan’s super-special-secret friend,” no more.

The central-crime plot is quite elaborate and involves multiple victims. It is written with care and requires the viewer’s attention (kudos to writer Lee Ellenberg on its lucid flow). Unfortunately, it also contains four blue-hued epiphanies by Dylan, catering to those that seemingly cannot keep up. “Blast from the Past” would have been a lot more efficient if took a leaf out the book of a show like Elementary and counted on its viewers’ intelligence to solve what they see, especially when the episode oozes high-IQ writing like this one does.

For example, was the blue-hued epiphany by the motorcycle necessary? While checking out the motorcycle and the dead body of the supposed suicide bomber, Lizzie asks, “What kind of a bomber gets on a motorcycle, starts it, and blows himself up in the middle of a quiet street?” Zack responds, “I don’t know.” Well, I did, along with probably a ton of other watchers. By then, it was clear that bombs were being planted by someone else. Dylan’s blue-hued epiphany (his third at that point, if I counted correctly) only recited – not revealed – that which was barefaced.

As he looks around the scene of the motorcycle incident, Dylan recognizes a house that brings back bitter memories for him. When he was 15 years old, he participated in a two-week-long program for gifted children there, then-called Meacham Townhouse. It turned out that it was a covert psychological (and unethical) experiment, the Whitford Project, conducted in collaboration with the government on unwilling teens. How do we know this? Why Julian, of course, in a scene that reminds us of his role as a plot device, à-la-first-two-episodes, rather than as a character with a substance.

If you can make it past these little shortcomings and the outré connection that Dylan makes in one of his blue-hued epiphanies when he hears Andy utter the words “childhood dreams,” the richly layered A story of “Blast from the Past” works well. Composer James Levine’s score, once again, adequately complements the suspenseful moments such as the one in the park. Cherie Nowlan’s adroit directing, particularly during the intimate one-on-one dialogues (strongest portions of the episode), helps tremendously.

We are treated to a nice two-scene sequence to conclude the episode, building on the already charming synergy between our main characters. It includes one more stepping stone in the ever-tightening friendship between Dylan and Lizzie and also a major revelation, ripe for exploration in future installments, with regard to the marriage of Dylan and Andy. If someone were to ask me to pick the one area in which Instinct excels, I would have to choose the episodes’ closing sequences.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Lizzie calls Ashley the “lunatic publicist” and she is right. Ashley is annoying and pervasive. Thankfully, we learn before the end of the episode that Dylan fired her. The only good thing about her appearance is its contribution to a funny moment involving Det. Fucci’s “Moroccan red-clay mask.”

– You know that other cop who appears a lot with the team in the precinct, the one not named Fucci? That’s Sergeant Harris (Michael B. Silver). I thought I would throw that in for no reason other than the fact that he makes a token appearance in most episodes.

– Dylan manifests some self-doubt and vulnerability which is nice to see from a creative standpoint.

– I like the way Ellenberg manages to inject the theme of trust into every single storyline of “Blast from the Past.” Each character ends up having to take a leap of faith in some way to build trust with another.

– Another recurring, yet relevant, theme in the episode: numbers.

– A bit lost in the shuffle is an early scene in which Lt. Gooden’s informs Lizzie that she recommended her for a promotion to second-grade detective. Even in this dialogue, which is supposed to be Lizzie’s moment, we get reminded that Dylan is “the genius” of the duo. Oh-kay…  

Until next episode…

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“Bye Bye Birdie” – aired on June 3, 2018
Written by: Constance M. Burge
Directed by: Doug Aarniokoski
Grade: 3 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

Dylan and Andy are attempting (and failing) to prepare dinner when the phone rings. It is Joan the editor calling and Dylan does not wish to talk to her. He explains to Andy that he is going through some sort of a writer’s block. Andy contends that Dylan’s problems are related to him allowing his dad to get inside his head, which is fast becoming the writers’ favorite go-to excuse for a number of Dylan’s mental anguishes. The phone rings again and it’s Lizzie calling this time. She informs Dylan that they are assigned to a new case. A woman named Celia Baxter (Sutton Foster) claims to have been attacked by a man wearing a mask. Lo and behold, she also happens to be an author who is also experiencing writer’s block – “also” deliberately used twice.

This sequence is a small example of the larger problem that sabotages the episode. It suffers from pedestrian contrivances and forced coincidences that lead to a considerable amount of ham-fisted scenes. The premise of the central crime is actually interesting but clunky execution and below-average performances by some guest stars (other than Foster) do not allow it to flourish.

There are several minutes unnecessarily going to waste during the episode that could have been used to develop further the A and B stories. For instance, I am not sure about the purpose of the flashback scenes to imaginary crimes. Celia describes the attack that never took place, as we learn later, yet her description is embellished with flashbacks. They appear to have been inserted for the sole purpose of throwing the viewer off, which is an odd and rare practice. It certainly does not add anything to dramatic dynamics.

There are some other miscues and unnecessary moments. The episode spends too much time with the two-dimensional Ben Richfield, underwhelmingly played by Isaach De Bankolé. He is a wealthy, rude, and narcissist writing professor who is guilty of committing the cardinal crime in the arena of literature: plagiarizing. He has repeatedly stolen his students’ works, including the most meaningful piece Celia has ever written according to her, and made a living publishing them under his name. He becomes an immediate suspect because his DNA is found on the knife that Celia’s assailant used. Dylan and Lizzie go to his office to meet him and subject the viewers to the most bizarrely written scene of the hour.

At first, Richfield’s assistant comes out alone, acting as his mouthpiece.  The assistant’s first words are, “Sorry to have kept you waiting, but I do have answers to your questions,” as if he were the one that kept them waiting. Dylan, who was getting irritated seconds earlier because Richfield was making them wait, seems to be perfectly fine with this. The assistant begins by informing our protagonists that Richfield knows Celia because she took a class from him. Dylan and Lizzie seem to have forgotten all about Richfield and carry on talking matter-of-factly with the assistant.

They ask him a succession of questions about Richfield, “Has he seen her recently?”; “Does he know that Celia was attacked in her home last night?”; “Where was he last night?” The assistant reads from his notes to answer the questions, and at this point, I am thinking:

Knock knock, Lizzie and Dylan!! Aren’t you going to ask where Richfield is so that he can come out and answer these questions himself? Didn’t y’all go to his office so you can talk to him directly? Helloooo?

Thankfully, Richfield enters the office (certainly not because Dylan and Andy asked for him) and takes over his assistant. If you are wondering what the purpose of the question-answer scene with the assistant was about, join the club. 

Dylan’s first question to Richfield is, “Did you try to kill Celia Baxter last night?” Really? Lizzie chimes in next, by beginning her question with “let’s just save us all a lot of time” (which, I thought, Dylan just did with his overkill question), and tells him to roll up his sleeves to check for scratch marks. Richfield says, “not without a warrant,” and just like that, the poorly written (and executed) scene is over. It was almost as if the writing room mysteriously decided to replace Dylan and Lizzie with their low-IQ versions for one scene. 

Another woman named Renata Pendell is murdered and evidence now strongly points to Richfield not only because Renata was his student at some point in the past just like Celia was, but also because his DNA is found again at the scene. Richfield is arrested this time, in a lackluster scene in the interrogation room at the precinct. A low-toned “Are you kidding me?” is Richfield’s only reaction.

It eventually turns out that Celia wanted to take revenge on those who hurt her, so she stabbed Renata, who turns out to be her ex-husband’s mistress, 31 times (mind you), staged an attack on herself, and planted Richfield’s DNA in both scenes to make him look like the guilty party. You can hear the superfluous medical technobabble of how she acquired “synthetic blood” to plant the DNA in the episode, if that sort of stuff tickles your fancy.

Dylan quickly figures out that Joan could be Celia’s next victim because he remembers her telling him about the time when she rejected, harshly to say the least, Celia’s request to edit her first book. According to Joan (told in a flashback), the two were walking on the street when Joan waved Celia’s manuscript in her hand and said to her, “Look, I cannot rep you, ok? I hate the beginning, I hate the middle, I hate the end. I have to tell you, this title, I hate it too.” Then, Joan chucked the manuscript to the trash can on the sidewalk and said: “It’s boring Celia.” Wow Joan! Even if Celia were not a murderer, I have no doubt that she may have considered killing her right at that moment.

In any case, Joan arrives at Celia’s house only to have Celia tell her through a small screen next to the door to “come on in,” make herself at home, and serve herself to the iced tea that she made for her. It is not clear if that means Celia is not home and will arrive shortly or if she is upstairs and will come down soon. Joan enters, grabs the tea from the fridge, and pours herself a glass. Dylan and Lizzie arrive in the nick of time for heightened dramatic effect and Dylan shoots the glass right as Joan is about to drink. The acid that spills dissolves on the kitchen island, i.e. Dylan just saved Joan’s life. Joan scolds him: “What the hell? You couldn’t just yell ‘drop the glass’?” Miraculously, not one drop of the acid liquid reached Joan although the glass was shattered by a bullet right as she was putting it her mouth on it. 

The whole scene is forced, hardly anything makes sense. We are expected to believe that Celia – who meticulously planned the killing of Renata, staged the attack on her, and skillfully planted Richfield’s DNA in both crime scenes – rested her plan to eliminate Joan on the flimsy speculation that Joan would voluntarily drink the iced tea in the fridge? Apparently, yes. 

Dylan finds Celia’s completed work upstairs, named “Bye Bye Birdie,” with a note addressed to him. She is long gone. We learn later that she is Bermuda, enjoying the last few weeks of her life because she has cancer, or so she said to Dylan earlier in the episode. I can’t help but wonder if she was lying. It would be nice to see Celia reappear in a future episode to haunt our protagonists again, although both the character and Sutton the actress could use a better-scripted episode than this one.

Luckily, there is a consequential B story that could (should) pass for the A story. It is also handled with a lot more care than the Celia one although it suffers from a rushed closure.

Lizzie is informed that Charlie, her deceased ex-partner and fiancé, has been chosen to receive an honor and that she should accept it on his behalf. She has mixed emotions about it because she has been suspecting for some time that Charlie may have been dirty himself. Dylan asks Julian to look into the incident that resulted in Charlie’s death, and what Julian uncovers does not bode well for Charlie.

Julian takes it upon himself to come face-to-face with Lizzie for the first time, posing as someone sent by Rodrigo, Charlie’s covert informant at the time of the operation that killed him. Lizzie is devastated to learn that Charlie was playing both sides and that the cartel regularly deposited money in an account set up in his name. Novakovic plays the betrayed lover and colleague extremely well here as you can literally feel Lizzie’s misery as she turns around and tears begin to roll down her face. It is the most terrific scene of the episode.

We find out later, partially thanks to Dylan’s blue-hued epiphany, that the signature on the account does not match Charlie’s because Dylan momentarily saw the real signature at one point in the past on the card that Lizzie kept in the drawer (Carrie Wells of Unforgettable would be proud of Dylan here). In a convoluted scene, it is revealed that Det. Sosa (Alejandro Hernandez) from the precinct is the one who killed Charlie, but nobody in the team knew it, because he acted alone during the operation.

We never get any explanation as to how in the world Dylan and Julian figured all this out in a matter of hours. We are expected to simply accept that they did, because the other choice is to consider the possibility that they are omnipotent beings who can see everyone and everything at any moment. Sosa was also the one collecting the money from the account opened in the Cayman Islands. We know this, because Dylan tells us so: “He set it up so that he could take the money and Charlie would take the fall.” Never mind the how or what.

Lizzie has her rough-Sosa-up moment in the precinct before Internal Affairs and the DEA come to take him away, but the whole sequence, from Dylan revealing the details of Charlie’s innocence to Lizzie, to Sosa getting arrested by the authorities, lasts two minutes, and comes across hasty and under-climactic in relation to its gravity. The fact that Sosa has barely gotten any screen time despite having appeared in six episodes also lessens the dramatic impact of his betrayal. We never got to know him. He was just… there.

Let me finish on a positive note by underlining the one thing that Instinct constantly gets right: the closing scenes of episodes with Dylan and Lizzie. This one also lives up to the standard.

Last-minute thoughts:

– Pete the ex-stalker makes his fourth appearance in a brief-yet-hilarious conversation with Joan, and Zack makes his third as the eager cop who takes care of the info-gathering portion of investigations. It gives me great joy to now officially call them recurring characters.

– Some nit-picking of the highest order here: Lizzie realizes that Charlie was trying to say “It’s Sosa” as he was expiring in her arms, and not “I’m sorry” as she had thought. I don’t blame her though. I watched the scene few times and I swear I am hearing “I’m sor… I’m sor…” and not “It’s So… It’s So…” Would it not have been more plausible to have him simply say “So…”?

– Nit-picking in a positive way: Dylan almost bumps his head into a lamp as he is walking up the stairs in Renata’s apartment building. Zack even says, “be careful” to Dylan. This seemingly trite moment at the time turns out to be important later when Dylan and Lizzie watch the footage of the killer going up the same stairs. Nice attention to detail.

– Reminiscent of “Pilot,” this episode features several instances of the annoying practice of having one of the main characters feed the audience a concise, two-or-three-sentence explanation of what is happening, under the pretense of talking to another character on screen. Hint: there are three of them within the first 15 minutes, two by Lizzie, one by Dylan. I guess I have to accept the fact that shows do this to cater to those with low focus and/or short attention spans. I find it irksome nevertheless.

– Lizzie was astute enough to realize that Julian was Dylan’s “secret friend” and not Rodrigo’s informant as he claimed to be, and scolded Dylan for it. Dylan, in return, scolded Julian for meeting Lizzie without his knowledge. I can’t explain why I do, but I love these scolding moments between the main characters.

– Instinct needs a recurring forensic-lab expert. My vote goes to the one played by Zainab Jah in this episode.

– I learned a new word: trustafarian.  

Until next episode…

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“Bad Actors” – aired on May 27, 2018
Written by: Dan E. Fesman
Directed by: Jim McKay
Grade: 4,5 out of 5

Notice: All episode reviews contain spoilers

“Bad Actors” is the third solid Instinct outing in a row (and the strongest out of the three) which may signal the piecing together of the puzzle that most showrunners, in an effort to create a definitive identity for their product, seek to solve during the course of a show’s first season. Once the identity established, they aim to build upon it and extend the show’s longevity.

This episode veers away slightly from previous ones in that it is largely devoid of light-hearted moments that are usually sprinkled throughout the hour. The two non-essential scenes featuring Joan the editor do not change that either (even though Whoopi Goldberg and Alan Cumming conversing in real life or as Joan and Dylan should otherwise manage to put a smile to anyone’s face). The tone remains serious, bordering on dark at times, and the usually chirpy dialogues between Dylan and Lizzie are supplanted by sulky ones leading to some genuine self-reflection on their part. To be clear, this veer-away is not a bad thing. This episode works. If anything at all, it should help the showrunners flesh out the show’s sought-after identity.

“Bad Actors” is a tightly written outing (kudos to Dan Fesman) to the point where even the greatest nitpickers would struggle to find inconsistencies. It also accomplishes a few other things that no previous episode does:

(1) It shows that our two leads are perfectly capable of solving a crime (and Instinct, of providing quality entertainment to viewers) without having to resort to the blue-hued epiphanies of Dylan.

(2) Julian’s contribution to crime-solving involves more than just spitting out hard-to-get information from his computer screens. He actually participates in the action.

(3) It includes more violence (Lizzie gets violently attacked, Julian kills a man) and intensity than any other episode without going over the top.

(4) It explores, in a compelling way, Lizzie’s trust issues that were mentioned, but glossed over, in the past.

It helps that the narrative is straight forward and does not include attempts at risky twists in which all the evidence points to one individual, only to have some miraculous plot device pop up late in the hour for the “oh-snap” effect. The crime’s scope expands because we go from one victim who dies while wearing a dog costume and entertaining kids in a parc at first, to an international conspiracy involving more victims later. It does not, however, increase in complexity since they are committed by one person who happens to be in the NY area, with a not-so-secret connection to the victims.   

Basically, there are actors being skillfully murdered via the use of chemical components, making it look like they died of accidental doses of medicine or allergies. After some digging, our protagonists learn that they all took part in some B-movie filmed in Morocco three years ago.

Julian and Dylan discover that the so-called B-movie was a propaganda film aimed at undermining the Chechen President, creating unrest in his country, and prompting a regime change. The only name still alive from the group is a man that Julian identifies as Bishop, a former MI-6 operative. Around the same time, Lizzie, who has been doing some digging of her own at the precinct, texts Dylan to let him know that she located Nelson Grimes, the last man still alive from the filming crew in Morocco and the possible next victim, or so she believes.

Julian and Dylan are alarmed because they know that Grimes is actually Bishop, the rogue operative who is behind the filming of the propaganda movie. They need to contact Lizzie and tell her who Grimes is, except that they can’t, because her phone does not get reception as she drives to Bishop’s safe house in a remote location. Dylan realizes that they can locate her through the GPS on Lizzie’s dog Gary who is in the car with her as she rides to meet with Grimes/Bishop. This is where the action kicks into high gear. The last act’s frantic pace is enhanced by director Jim McKay’s dexterous camera work and composer James Levine’s apt score.

The most brilliant part of “Bad Actors” lies in the way Feston and McKay utilize the plot’s advancement to flesh out the tension felt by Lizzie who suspects that Dylan is keeping secrets from her (she is right), and to a lesser degree, the frustration felt by Dylan who cannot, at first, get Julian to share his knowledge on the case with him. Their intentions are noble though. Dylan does not reveal his collaboration with Julian on the case to Lizzie, nor their findings, because he believes it will put her in danger. Julian, in a similar fashion, keeps information from Dylan that could help him solve the case, in the hopes that he can convince him not to pursue it because he believes it could put Dylan and Lizzie in harm’s way.

The consequences of those noble intentions, however, are dire. For one thing, Dylan pursues the case with even more zeal when Julian refuses to share information with him. For the other, Dylan’s decision not to share his findings with Lizzie almost causes her death. Add Lizzie’s trust issues into the mix and you have a powder keg with a short fuse.

Squeezed between all of the above is a much-needed C storyline dealing with Dylan’s fear of mixing his personal life with his professional one. He dreads the idea of mingling with others in the precinct. The storyline allocates some deserved screen time to Det. Anthony Fucci (Danny Mastrogiorgio) who has made token appearances in the precinct. He throws a BBQ party at his house, inviting Dylan and his “domestic whatever.” Dylan is terrified at first but relents when Andy tells him that they should go, not only because he wants to meet Dylan’s colleagues but also because he wants to encourage his husband to “come out of [his] shell.” Cumming, Ings, and Mastrogiorgio milk this limited C storyline to the max with great acting, and Lesli Margherita makes a brief but meaningful appearance as Anthony’s wife Maria.

Last minute thoughts:

– Remember my rants in my reviews of “Long Shot” or “Flat Line”? No complaints from me on that front this time.

– This is probably the most forgettable episode for Joan the editor. What purpose did those two scenes serve exactly?

– Andy socializes better than a life-long public-relations expert. Is there anything this man cannot do well?

– When filing the report at the precinct, Lizzie appears unscathed and remarkably fresh for someone who was struck full-force on the face with the handle of a gun and on the back of the head with a forged iron fireplace shovel in full swing, less than 24 hours ago.

– Zack is back! Yay!

Until next episode…

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