Ah, we start off in a courtroom. A drama usually can't go wrong with a courtroom scene; there’s instant conflict and precise adversarial roles.
Before I get into the episode, let me step aside a moment to acknowledge at the beginning (in case people don’t get to the end here) that the impossible has been happening and people sticking with the show have been rewarded. Painkiller Jane is better than the stilted, ungifted acting and plodding plots it started with. I really wanted this show to work – and it really is. It’s been improving by leaps and bounds – just like a real superhero.
This was a stand-up episode about Strikeforce Vicodin aka Team Neuro member Connor King being accused of serial arson and murder.
Connor King is in the defendant’s seat after being arrested for a series of arsons including one house fire that killed Lucy Samuels. What’s been happening though is the team has been tracking a fire-starter neuro, and naturally Connor been seen at nearly every scene.
Combine that fact with his combustible personal history and we have a conflagration. Connor King's shit is about to hit his least supportive fan. His former police partner is about to testify against him and among his record as a criminal are arson charges.
“Ex-cop, ex-con — kind of cute in a borderline, sociopath kind of way,” series heroine Jane Vasco muses. “Here's the deal, I’m able to heal and Connor isn’t.”
It's a high-profile case and not only is the situation looking dire, Connor's government lawyers are working against him to keep the neuro program quiet. Connor cannot put Maureen, Jane, Andre, Riley, or Dr. Seth on the team (and certainly not former railway man and former team neuro member who’s lost in a subway tunnel somewhere, never to be seen again).
We get to meet some of the leaders behind the team, including Gerald Morgan, delicately referred to only as "supervisor of Andre's team." Morgan is willing to sacrifice King to save the secrecy of the team. “He was always a liability,” Morgan says, which ain’t exactly a vote of confidence.
Connor is feeling frisky in jail when Maureen comes to visit. She breaks the bad news that his background on the legit side of the law on Team Neuro won’t be part of his defense. He’s feeling despondent and hopes that his “going away present” is with a “sympathetic” Mo and “the Supergirl.”
So they bond by hitting on each other, but also Strikeforce Vicodin becomes a legal defense team. Connor refuses to tell McBride more about his background, which strains their working relationship and gets the whole team tense.
Instead, Connor tries to escape twice just because he feels there’s no hope; he has obviously been railroaded before. The first time the jailer gets a little trigger happy and fires into an occupied courtroom. Jane jumps in his way as she sees them ready to shoot — and takes two slugs in the shoulder.
Riley, who now sits at an upgraded bank of screens, is figuring out the connections again. The target houses are two-story blue houses that all face West – or something equally random and absurd. All but one that is, though no one can shed light on the anomaly. Riley suggests maybe the arsonist grew up in a similar house.
McBride, who you would think would favor the law and order approach, has a cunning plan. It’s bold. It’s ambitious. When Bill Cole, the ex-partner, ex-cop, ex-cellmate, shows up at the courthouse, he’s given a message. He is told to go to the back of the courthouse and there’s McBride, gun in hand, pretending to be a hired killer for King to dissuade Cole from testifying.
It seems to be a plan burdened and fraught with risk and doubt. If it doesn’t work, Cole still testifies and Connor gets hiring a contract killer to his list of charges. Luckily, Jane poses as a witness too, and McBride, which, of course, is rather convincing.
In fact it works and Cole refuses to testify in court several times, pleading the fifth even though he’s been granted immunity. His loyalty to fear gets him a quick contempt of court.
Scott Samuels, Lucy Samuels’ husband, testifies and he’s a just-the-facts-ma'am type. He gets about as emotional as a frozen rock.
Doing their investigative due diligence, Riley and Maureen figure out that oil stains in a couple of the garages show that the arsonist arrives at the scene on a motorcycle. McBride points out the drawback to this brilliant sleuthing — Connor rides a semi-custom Saxon chopper.
Back in the courtroom, expert witness Dr. Erich Wilson creates some huge elaborate theory – involving basic magnifying equipment – about how the fires are started, yet don’t leave any evidence. Connor’s defense lawyer thinks he’s got the guy when he gets him to say the glass and the device would not have melted completely in a fire. Except the good doctor, as he talks, crumbles in his hands the device that had just burnt a small towel in a demonstration. It's made of crystallized sugar. Further evidence finds Connor King renting a storage unit, and several of the magnification burning devices are found there.
It is a flimsy frame job – by Connor’s defense team against Connor. Riley later "finds” the original contract document online and finds it’s been modified and created recently rather than when Connor had the storage unit a few years ago. Morgan arranged the frame job.
“I don't like your tone,” Connor’s attorney Richard Stanley tells McBride as the latter is getting pissed at the lack of support. Great response: “You're not supposed to.”
McBride, going way out on a limb, says he’ll stalk Stanley for the rest of his life if he has to, and the country has spent a lot of money to do that well.
Riley tries to find information on Samuels under the theory that they were the intended target with the others burned as cover. Somehow in his digital travels, Riley finds pictures of a beautiful woman – Ellen Drake – and mumbles, "If this isn't a reason for murder…" as he pastes himself into a picture with her.
Turns out yes and there’s Blue Ridge Motel video footage to prove it. Ms. Drake owns up to the affair on the stand and it’s discovered Lucy has $500,000 worth of life insurance, just purchased. And, she’s low-risk as she doesn’t ride a bike like he does.
Richard Stanley finally gets a pair and interrogates him fiercely – and Samuels sets the courtroom ablaze. He’s the neuro. Connor, hand-cuffed, runs across and deep-sixes the guy to the floor with a body slam.
The moral of the story is Strikeforce Vicodin members realize they’re a team and everything is warm and fuzzy. Or at least warm OR fuzzy. "He is cute, isn’t he?" Jane repeats again, about Connor. And I only mention that because it looks like in the next episode Jane becomes pregnant. It's billed as "the episode that changes everything." She discovers a part of her power she never knew about.
Next episode, airing June 22, “Lauren Gray” where Jane poses as a (pregnant?) model who is turning young women into old corpses.
