Maureen is the emotionally scarred one in this episode. A guy she's getting close to, Tom Larsen, suddenly walks off the top of the building where she and the guy and 40 or so others are partying — if partying can be considered standing around on a rooftop with drinks in their hands.
Strikeforce Vicodin team leader Andre McBride refuses to believe it's a neuro case, getting quite pen-up-the-ass about it. That is until Painkiller Jane talks to a black guy at the same place, The Sky Bar — where Maureen's friend walked off the roof as casually as breathing. Jane's acquaintance is intense, as only a friend who's been through a lot can be. However, we get no indication of this. Jane gets the same vibes that he might try and walk on air so spends more time trying to protect him, including inviting him back to her place.
Whether he took her up on her offer (or what might have transpired if he did) remains unanswered. But her vibes set the ball rolling on an investigation. The guy who died has no identity, or rather one that should be as obvious as anyone else's. Riley pushes past what he calls the "all signal, no noise" to find the guy's real name — Gene Crowley, a former Mafia accountant.
We get flashes of this dowdy-looking guy in a green room. He has a slight Russian accent and he reads out the name of some other high-flying, BMW-driving suicide. That guy drives of a cliff without so much as a scream. We see him and it's clear he doesn't realize what he's doing. Turns out he's a contract killer.
Later, the neuro rubs his finger over a picture and it looks like the guy's daughter may have been killed, somehow, making him the avenger, but never as suave or playful as John Steed.
Michael Varga, a shoe store owner now, is another person who has turned state's witness and been given a new identity. A total of four have died in a variety of ways, but all suspicious; Kevin Moree, plane, Halle Watson, drowned. Officer Cook walks into the police department, keys jangling, and it looks like he's going to shoot himself, but he doesn't. We linger on Sheila in a cloudy evidence lockup room. Cook and Sheila know each other and swap a little flirtation. Then he gets called away. We suddenly see a blue-tinged hallways get all its colors back. The neuro literally materializes where Sheila is sitting and starts looking, through her eyes, at some case files in a briefcase. The neuro looks like a younger, less smug David Stern (NBA Commissioner).
Maureen – who looks like she has a slimmer face here – realizes the guy who was falling for her was a sleaze so feels better, but the whole team wonders what's going on. Judging by the personal criminal history of the people in charge, Maureen starts to think this neuro is bucking the evil trend (well, except for the old sentimental neuro in "Piece of Mind") and works for the good guys.
Jane tries to convince Maureen that the neuro needs to go behind bars, giving her what the faithful – with the emphasis on faith – have come to know as the responsible, do-the-right-thing, follow-the-rules McBride speech.
Gregory Hazen, currently Monty Lento, and the neuro are in a subway. Hazen keeps stealing glances then gets up at the Water Street … no, Graham Street platform. It changed to our eye, from what Hazen is obviously meant to see to reality. Hazen walks down from the above-ground rail and the neuro creates a whole new landscape around him. This time, though, the new vision hides the four SF Vicodin team members who follow Hazen and see him act strangely. Hazen's vision is the classic car auction he wanted to see, though really it's an empty lot that extends into an abandoned manufacturing plant.
By the way, don't ever try and get a job where this crew hangs out — through all the episodes it's clear, no one makes anything anymore.
The vision is quite complex and involves beautiful models, stroking imaginary cars, and a man Hazen talks to about a 'Vette. But it's clear Hazen is going to get himself ground up in one of these machines. Our team is watching and wondering.
Finally, the guy opens a secure area and flips a switch to reveal a downward pointing cutting laser beam. We see it and Team Vicodin move to turn the switch. Maureen is the one who quickly finds the switch – but she hesitates to turn the laser off because she knows the next victim will have a seedy, criminal past as well. What's wrong with taking out a few bad guys?
And then comes the sweet part of the show – Jane gets hurt. She whips over the fence where Hazen and the laser are about to become. Apparently, but unconvincingly, she can climb over this seven-foot fence and get to him before she can get to Maureen and make her push the OFF button. While it's great to see Jane injured – as this is the purpose of the show – she pushes Hazen out of the way … and then, um, well, why couldn't it stop there? Answer, it could have. Jane didn't need to get in the way.
And while we have watched Maureen struggle for being happy to kill criminals she finds out Hazen was a defense attorney, not a murderer. McBride gets his "I told you so" moment after Maureen says, "I almost let that man die." No, darling, you really did let him die – he just got saved. Hazen lawyered for Robert Grant who murdered his wife and kids. Hazen did his job and got the guy off due to faulty evidence,
Wow, hours after the laser sliced through her back, she's still got scars there. Dr. Carpenter suggests that she was under it so long that her flesh started healing while the laser was still burning. Doc gets to probe Jane, but only in the most clinical of ways. There's coolness and increased sensitivity; she thinks he's pressing hard and he is not.
It's been clinical but sitting there without her shirt on, she pushes an odd sexual moment with the doc and colleague. But it goes nowhere.
Connor King, former prisoner, is gaining access to the witness protection program on some computer somewhere. Riley got him in. The computer he's accessed has all their pictures and a detailed layout of their Deckard Street subway HQ. He rushes back there — and sees a dead Riley and Mcbride, and destroyed equipment. It's obviously an illusion to us but not to him. Perhaps Connor was somehow involved and the neuro wants him to think he's got nothing left to live for?
In fact McBride, Maureen and Riley are standing there trying to get through to Connor but before they do – and brilliantly for the show – he starts firing guns everywhere at the masked gunmen he sees. It seems like he's in a game. He does the arms extended, double-clip drop, Tomb Raider pose. And yesssssss, Painkiller Jane gets shot tons of times.
Bleeding, she's finally gets through to him. "If it wasn't for Jane and her freakazoid healing, I'd a killed all of ya," he say but he's embarrassed to have been fooled.
Riley somehow finds out that their neuro is Ruben Hennessey, whose 19-year-old daughter was killed by a guy who should have been "three strikes and you're out" before he could go for number four. He is disgusted by the criminals AND the system and is "inexacting" his revenge
Team Vicodin lets the news run a completely false report about Connor King successfully shooting them down. It's the first step in a quick and dirty reverse trick on the neuro himself – to make him see what isn't really there. Jane walks in to where he is and is believable as an illusion because she shoots a huge hole in her hand and holds it up to him. It's where he works, which they just found out, though a first thought is, "If it was so easy to find him why didn't they before?"
Stunned by the action, Jane walks up. Boom, he's chipped and left to wonder what hit him. She does feel pain though and her hand is killing her, her blood is left on the wall.
THERE WE GO! Instantly the best one because she's doing what she's supposed to be doing — getting hurt a lot to save the day.
As a sly aside at the end, McBride and Vasco drive up to a prison – and we find out the captured neuros usually get taken to this specific detention center to be held. But that may change, though we're not told why.
Because this is airing sixth but was filmed third, I'm putting it in that position of the story arc – and it still wouldn't have fit in, but it's good. This is an episodic show, rather than one that has threads of story weaving together all the episodes. But since we're dealing with a very small cast of characters, that hurts. This small band of thespians has to be able to act to carry that closeness. Not yet, that's for sure, though this one was a cut above the rest, ironically making me see something I want to see.
Next episode, yes, as we have been led to suspect, Painkiller Jane is identified as a neuro, and she goes a little crazy at the thought (though she had perhaps suspected, too?).
