“You don’t have to check Charlie’s hands for tinfoil soot. I already did. She’s clean. And I’ll be checking every day now. We have to have each other’s backs.”
- Paige
We pick up pretty much right where we ended last week. Mike’s walked in on Briggs at an NA meeting. We spend a little time with Briggs talking to the group and Mike listens. Briggs compliments Mike on his ability to tail since Briggs prides himself on being hard to follow. And then we get a bit of an info dump from Briggs on how he got his heroin habit. He was working undercover a few years back and his training officer was under in the same gang (just south of the border). The gang happens to be the one that Bello is going up against right now. We learn that the FBI lost someone to Jangles (a sort of boogeyman who would go around cutting up people). So Briggs’ assignment got pulled and he went on vacation…to Mexico. He admits it was the stupidest thing he’d ever done because his CI was dead and he got jumped by a bunch of gang members. Briggs meets Jangles (who has a bandana over his mouth and face and doesn’t speak. But from the face, I kind of feel like it’s his training officer for some reason. And as Briggs explains to Mike, all they did was shoot him up with heroin for two weeks and then let him go with the intent that all of his cases (including numerous ones against the gang) would be reviewed and overturned. But Briggs didn’t do that. He got his head on straight and cleaned up his act.
Speaking of getting clean, Charlie thinks she’s gotten the withdrawal and low side beat but Johnny isn’t so sure. Charlie is still gung ho about getting to Odin and Johnny offers to do it for her but she’s kind of in it to win it. He’s still worried about her. Meanwhile, we get a little funny bit with Jakes and Johnny over some toys that had been used to smuggle prescription drugs. Briggs and Mike get back to the house and feed the other guys a story about being out with Bello all night and Briggs doing surveillance. I’m kinda surprised they believed that.
Mike swings by Bello’s place to see his guys making due with the amount of heroin they have by adding in other stuff that makes it even more dangerous. Bello blames Mike for him having to do this until a new shipment arrives. Mike then pops off to the FBI to have a chat with Juan. He doesn’t spill the beans on Briggs’ heroin addiction but he does float the idea that maybe Briggs isn’t stealing the drugs to sell. And then in a sort creepy moment, Juan gifts Mike a photo taken by Mike’s grandfather while working in the field (he caught himself in a reflection). Mike seems pretty impressed with the gift. He then heads out for lunch with Paige, Johnny and Abby. Abby wants a photo of her and Mike and to prove to her East Coast friends that he’s real. Paige does a little sleight of hand after Johnny takes the picture to snag the phone. Being an undercover agent means you can’t have random photos floating around in cyberspace. Both Paige and Johnny tell Mike he has to end with Abby but he’s not going to do that. He cares about her too much to lie to her like that. But he does dump her phone in a glass of water.
Meanwhile, Jakes pays a visit to a man named Cassandra who it turns out is his wife and they have a seven-year-old son. But given Jakes’ day job he can’t really be a family man. And part of that was his choice. His son doesn’t even know him as his father which is rather sad. He does convince Cassandra to give their son one of the robots from the bust. I have to say I feel bad for Jakes. And I’m glad we’re getting to learn a little more about him since we’ve learned some about the other characters already.
Charlie is a busy little bee while her roommies are doing their thing. She’s hitting up all the corner dealers she knows trying to find out who knows Odin. A couple say they know him but give crazy descriptions. She gets back to Graceland (rather frustrated) to find Mike and Briggs tossing a football around while Briggs explains why they can’t take Bello out yet. But between the three of them they manage to hatch a plan to kill several birds with one stone. They will set up a meeting with Odin and Bello. And it actually looks like it might work. Mike floats the idea to Bello, dropping the hint that Briggs has a connection. And then Briggs hits the streets getting word out he wants a meeting and he scores one too for the following day
Charlie should be happy about this but she realizes she’s been keeping the secret about shooting up from the house and doesn’t believe Briggs’ mantra of keeping it to herself is going to work. So she spills to the rest of the house and they are all supportive of her. Mike does a bit of fishing as to who she got the drugs from but she doesn’t implicate Briggs. Mike goes to check on Charlie a little later on but Paige assures him that all is well and that they’ll look after each other going forward. Jakes is out trying to cultivate a new CI and I saw it coming that the guy is out of the game, trying to do right by the nurse he met after he got shot twice in the chest during a drive by. Of course, that nurse is Cassandra. So Jakes’ CI is raising his son. That to be tough. And Jakes didn’t show like he knew the kid or anything. But I’m thinking using him as a CI isn’t going to work out so well, not only because he’s out of the game but because he’s too linked to Jakes’ family.
Briggs is still pissed at Charlie for telling the house. His rationale is now if anyone ever asks if she’s done heroin, the house will have to lie to cover her ass. And he’s not okay with that. Meanwhile, Mike tells Juan about Briggs and asks for help. Yeah, I really wouldn’t have told Juan anything about Briggs, Mike. That’s going to seriously come back and bite you both in the ass. Big time. I mean now all of Briggs’ cases will be under scrutiny and the Bureau can come down on him for not fessing up if they want.
The night before the big meeting with Odin, Briggs and Bello, Mike gets some interesting advice on the Abby front from Jakes. He says to not give up and don’t let Graceland define him. Interesting. Mike goes and meets Abby and tells her he might be heading back to the East Coast so they could continue seeing each other. And then shit hits the fan. During the op, Odin doesn’t show…at least to the team it looks like he doesn’t. Briggs cuts his watch recorder and admits to Bello that he is Odin and always has been. I can’t tell if this is because he’s really a bad dude or if he’s just trying to take out the cartel that hooked him on heroin. Either way, the team is none the wiser while Bello has a little nugget of secret info on Briggs now.
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