by
L.T. Milroy and Veruca Salt
It’s learn a new word week, kids! Exsanguinate – to drain blood from. Yes, it’s a real word, despite how my computer redlines it likes it’s incorrect but gives no other options. My computer appears rather mixed up. I hope it’s not permanent.
We have a little Will & Grace reunion in this episode, which guest stars Eric McCormack. He and Debra Messing have many scenes with just the two of them together, and their chemistry is still very much evident. They play off each other so well, whether it’s comedy or drama. It’s a lot of fun to watch. His character is not altogether unpleasant, and I wouldn’t mind a return appearance. Especially if they use some of Jake’s screen time. Jake is insufferable this week. Ugh.
V: This week?
LT: Good point. Every week. A sleeping woman is awakened by a fly. She swats at it, but it’s insistent. Don’t you hate that? She gets up and is finally able to squash it, but someone grabs her from behind and cuts her throat. Graphically. Thanks, show.
V: What the heck, show? Stop that! You know I watch you for my lighthearted entertainment and to make fun of douchey Jake while I drool over Hot!FTT. Tone down the arterial spray.
LT: Laura and Billy are at the crime scene. Uh oh, Laura’s paired with Billy. Detective Bitchface isn’t going to take this well.
V: I’m sure in two scenes she’ll be teamed with him like she always is.
LT: But she’ll still complain about how he’s always paired with Laura. Jump him already, BF! I’m not going to tell you again…
The victim’s name is Emma Baker. ME Renaldo is there, sans tux this week.
Emma has a nice apartment, and Renaldo comments on her expensive negligee that he estimates costs about $5,000. Laura doesn’t want to know how he knows that, but I kind of want to. He deals with dead people for a living but also teaches dance class and knows all about women’s nighties. Renaldo is an enigma wrapped in a mystery stuck inside a Victoria’s Secret catalog.
V: A renaissance man, for sure.
LT: There are no signs of a break-in, so Laura says Emma must have known her killer. Renaldo estimates the killer’s height by the blood trajectory. Her ex-husband found her and is a doctor but didn’t check the body and called the coroner instead of 911. In the next room we see said ex, speaking like an arrogant jerk to one of the cops. Laura and Billy walk in, and when Laura sees the jerky guy, she freezes. Billy asks if she knows this jackass, and she answers that she almost married this jackass. He’s Andrew Devlin, M.D., Laura’s ex-fiancé. Hello, Eric!
V: *Runs to Eric and wraps my arms around him.* I’m so glad you’re back! Stay awhile. Put up your feet. You can’t be half as jack-assy as Jake.
I also can’t believe she didn’t know him from his voice before he turned around. Eric has a distinctive voice, especially when his character gets all high and mighty. But the look he gives her when he turns around is pure love and devotion.
When he finds out she’s a detective, he says, “Pretty girl makes good.” Oh, just make me melt into your arms, why dontcha?
LT: Back at work, Billy tells BF that Laura is really affected by seeing her ex again. She said nothing on the entire ride back to the station, which is a first, given what a chatterbox she is. They’re interrupted by Frankie, who is going on a coffee run and asks if they want anything, but they’re already holding mugs.
So the office coffee machine isn’t good enough for Frankie? She has to have outside coffee? Apparently so.
V: Perhaps if Jake hadn’t traded the espresso machine for Max, she would have the precinct coffee. But she’s a tea drinker, so I guess it’s the bagged Lipton she’s rejecting.
LT: She leaves, and Billy remarks that with her around, he probably won’t get paired with BF as much. He says that’s too bad, because they’re good together. She says she’ll miss him, too…working with him, that is. Oh come on BF, just jump him, already. Oh, that’s right, I said I wouldn’t remind her again…
V: You can cut the sexual tension with a knife. There needs to be some kissin’ and clothes-tearin’ that has nothing to do with them pretending to be a couple.
LT: Then they discuss the case a bit and wonder if Jake knows. He appears and asks if he knows what, but they clam up. He’ll find out and behave totally inappropriately soon enough.
V: If there’s one thing consistent about Jake, is that he’ll be douchey the second an attractive man gets around Laura. Or just because it’s Tuesday.
LT: Laura questions Andrew, who looks a lot like Will Truman but has none of his endearing qualities.
He says he met Emma ten years ago. She’s a former Miss Nevada. Since he and Laura broke up, Andrew has become a very rich and successful surgeon.
V: He’s quick to point out at the time he met Miss Nevada, he’d won the Cuttriss award for excellence in cardiothoracic surgery. Then when Laura asks whose money bought his ex that fancy nightie, he tells her he invented (yes, invented) a self-eluting stent that is the “gold standard in complex coronary procedures.”
FYI, if you’re interested, a stent is a metal-mesh tube that widens a blocked artery. Drug-eluting stents are coated with medication that is slowly released (eluted) to help prevent the growth of scar tissue in the artery lining. That’s your second lesson of this recap.
LT: He’s also flirting with Laura as she questions him, which is entirely inappropriate, even if he and the deceased were divorced.
V: Not only does he tell her she looks good, but he does the “bring up how we used to be really poor and only able to afford rice and beans in our little shoebox apartment” game.
LT: Andrew says he was in his office all night, the cleaning lady saw him.
V: And to top off how much ol’ Andy has changed, he no longer has his practice. He just runs the company now and chalks up his patients to “chain-smoking overeating slobs whose hearts are ticking time bombs.” Andy, you’re not endearing yourself, here. You’re wandering into Jake territory, what with alternating between hitting on Laura and acting like a jerk. Step up your game. But at least you have actual chemistry with her.
Laura: “Are you sure you don’t want a lawyer in here? They could reduce the obnoxious things coming out of your mouth.” She has a point. This guy seems like the type to call his fancy lawyer if he’s pulled over for speeding. But he says he’s got nothing to hide.
LT: He says Emma had called him to come over. When there was no answer, he let himself in with his key.
V: So she calls him to come over then goes to sleep? Did she call him to take care of that fly? Anyway, after he mentions how he let himself in, Laura kind of bitterly says that ex-husbands need to return their keys when they leave.
LT: This prompts him to ask Laura if her ex gave his back. She asks when he found out about her divorce, and he says she just told him. Can’t believe you fell for that, Laura. Andy really has you off your game.
V: She informs him she married another cop and has two (totally obnoxious and thankfully not seen for several episodes) twin boys. I might have added some of that. Andy gets jealous. Oh, Andy, I really wish you’d hung in there.
LT: He says that Emma has a sister named Connie who lives in Vegas. He already called her, and she’s on her way. Emma cleaned him out in the divorce and was involved with an ex-con rehab charity called Heart of the Hood. She spent a lot of time and money on those “thugs.”
V: Seriously, Andy, shut up.
LT: Jake walks in. Andrew gets up and introduces himself as Laura’s ex-fiancé. Jake stares him down and says he’s Laura’s boss and ex-husband.
Great, a pissing contest between two preening, obnoxious males. Fun. Laura tells Andrew not to leave town.
Max is on the street, talking to his mother on his cell phone. Frankie walks up, and he tells her his great aunt has died.
She starts to sympathize, but he says his great aunt was evil, and even in death she’s ruining his life. Seems Max is the only one who isn’t carrying on the family tradition of marriage and kids, and he was so tired of getting crap about it that when he got drunk on egg nog over the holidays, he lied and said he was engaged. The funeral is Friday, and he can’t show up alone.
Frankie says she’ll go with him and play pretend fiancé, but Max laughs and asks if she realizes he’s gay. Come on Max, even Emma’s corpse knows you’re gay.
V: Yeah. I do like that he said it out loud, though. It’s kind of a cool moment. I also love the Frankie/Max dynamic, as I figured I would. These two are going to be BFF in, like, three minutes.
LT: Frankie babbles that she guessed about the gay thing, due to the sweater vests and bedazzling. Hee! I’m starting to warm up to Frankie.
V: I knew you would! Anyway, she thinks his family doesn’t know and is traditional, so she’s offering her bearding services.
LT: But he confirms that the closet door has been open ever since he wanted to be Mariah Carey for Halloween three years straight.
And I bet he was gorgeous. His family is very accepting; in fact, his mother would like nothing more than to throw him a big, fabulous gay wedding. Aw. I don’t know Max’s mom, but I already like her.
V: Me, too. It’s great they didn’t go with the cliché, and they made his family accepting. This show isn’t about the drama, unless you count douchey Jake, who I try to forget.
LT: Max says a fake fiancé isn’t a bad idea.
Laura is in Jake’s office. He asks if Andrew is the guy whose photos she kept hidden from him when they were married. She says she was hiding all the bad nineties fashions, not the guy.
V: And she says this as she wears a plaid button down over a shirt. In other words, she hasn’t drifted that far.
LT: You’re lucky you weren’t in your twenties in the seventies and eighties, Laura, then you’d know what bad fashion really is. Imagine Andrew in a leisure suit and mullet. Yikes.
V: Hmmm…do you think there are old pics of Eric like that?
LT: As painful as they might be, I’d enjoy seeing them. Laura says Andy has been very forthcoming and consented to have his home and office searched, but Jake isn’t impressed. He clearly thinks Andrew is guilty, simply by virtue of asking Laura to marry him before Jake did, no doubt. But he says Andrew is the right height, and as a surgeon he’s good with knives. That’s good enough for him. Laura tosses him Andrew’s keys.
V: Jake says Andy just knows they won’t find anything, but Laura gets a text from Billy that the cleaning lady verified Andy was asleep on the couch, so he has an alibi. Douchey Jake continues to be douchey by trying to take her off the case, because she used to sleep with the victim’s ex, even though that ex was just cleared. He wants to send BF and Frankie to check out the charity, which NO. Do not pair those two up, Jake. There will be blood. You can’t put Little Miss Sunshine with BF.
LT: However, he does. At the soup kitchen, BF and Frankie are trying to get information from a priest, but he’s decidedly hostile. He thinks all they want to do is railroad some ex-con and won’t cooperate without a warrant. He stalks away. As they go to leave, Frankie bubbles about what a great team they make, and BF pretty much tells her to stuff a cork in it.
V: Seriously. Worst. Pairing. Ever. Not to mention, BF is not with her future bunkmate.
LT: A guy calls to them, and BF recognizes him as Big Nasty. She busted him for manslaughter. He comes toward them, and Frankie puts her hand over her gun, but the guy gives BF a hug. He says prison straightened him out, and things are going well now. He says to call him Big Happy.
V: Frankie says it’s sweet and kind of shoves BF in a playful way that almost makes BF go for her gun.
As she said, Frankie, dial it down. BF will wind up killing you. She is not in the mood for you and your sunshiny ways.
LT: Frankie says he can repay them by telling them what he knows about Emma, and he says the week before, a guy named Tank threatened her. He said, “Give me the money, or you’ll be sorry.” He says Tank is at the pastry shop, and they go there.
They see Tank, who matches the perp’s description.
Frankie asks if she can do the honors, and BF tells her to go crazy. But when Frankie identifies herself, he throws a big bag of flour at her and takes off.
BF chases and tackles him. I’m not sure she could take down such a big guy, even in the shape she’s in, but she tackles and cuffs him.
V: So, BF gets a hug, and Frankie gets a bag of flour thrown at her. That’s interesting. She recovered after being bowled over and says she’s better than ever. Then she tells Tank he’s under arrest for suspicion of murder.
And since it’s early in the episode, plus he’s an ex-con, I’m going with “no way” that he’s the one who killed Emma. It’s never the person other people say threatened the victim.
LT: Tank tells BF and Frankie he was pissed at Emma because she broke a promise to pay for new ovens for the pastry shop. She said she was broke and that “someone messed with her money.”
V: I didn’t like it when BF said that maybe Emma was tired of wasting her money on “no-hopers” like him.
First of all, Big Happy just got finished saying how rehabilitated he was. Second, Tank doesn’t seem at all like he is still doing crime. He was baking bread when they found him. Even Frankie gives her the side-eye.
LT: He confirms he told Emma he’d kill anyone who messed with her then says it was only a figure of speech. He adds that he has an alibi. He was up all night at the shop, baking.
V: Did you catch the part where Frankie mimicked toking and said “Figure of speech again?”in regard to baking?
Oh, Frankie. He was in the pastry part of the shop actually baking when you found him. These cops need to remember they’re cops.
LT: But no, it’s baking for real. A bridezilla made them pull an all-nighter.
V: Back at the station, as bridezilla leaves her interview, Laura says she agrees that lemon custard would have been a travesty.
LT: She tells Billy that Tank’s alibi checks out. He asks about Emma stiffing the charity, leading Laura to remark that the rich “change charities like my kids change underwear. Not every day but close.” Thanks for that glimpse into your home life, Laura.
V: Hey, I’ll take that to the kids actually showing up. All references are welcome, if it means they stay out of sight.
LT: Billy says the last checks Emma wrote were three for $10,000 each, made out to cash and one to Aura Therapy Institute for $250,000. Laura laughs at the ridiculousness of aura therapy.
V: Billy says a boho girl he’s dating won’t, and I quote, “get down on me when Mercury’s in retrograde.” Okay, WHAT? And wait. Dating? As in current? Stop flirting with BF until you break up with boho!
In what this show does the WORST at, clunky non-sequiturs, Laura says she used to tell both Jake and Andrew that her nose was stuffed whenever she wasn’t in the mood. Billy says he can’t imagine her ever being in the mood for Andrew.
LT: I can’t imagine her being in the mood for Jake.
V: They keep trying to make him a thing but no.
LT: Then he asks her how she and Andrew met. Laura says she fractured her ankle playing beer dodgeball, and he was on call in the ER. She says they were wrong for each other from the start, but Billy notes how he was flirting with her, so he must not think so.
V: When Billy asks if there’s still a spark, Laura assures him there isn’t then says she’ll continue interviewing Andrew. Billy points out how Jake put the kibosh on her continuing with the case and to let Frankie and BF handle it, but did we really think Laura would just lie down and let Jake tell her what to do? She insists it’s still her case. Frankie and BF can check out the Aura Therapy. Unlike Jake, Billy knows not to argue.
LT: Max is scrolling through hot guys on his tablet, trying to find a funeral date.
Billy walks by and offers his services as faux fiancé, but Max says his family has excellent gaydar and would know immediately that Billy is straight. Then Max gets frustrated and mutters “Damn this marriage equality!” Hey, nobody said it would be a bed of roses, buddy!
V: I am tickled that Billy offered his services. One, it shows how much he cares for Max. Two, Billy was totally fine with a bunch of people thinking he was gay. I didn’t think I could love Billy more than I already do, but there ya go.
This exchange cracked me up:
Billy: “I thought there’d be plenty of gay dudes online.”
Max: “There’s nothing but gay dudes online! But this is my fake fiancé we’re talking about. I can’t lower my standards.”
LT: This is truly an interesting situation for someone like Max to be in, and I like how they’re handling it. Of course Max wants marriage, and all other kinds of equality, for himself as a gay man. But that doesn’t come without occasional complications. He just has to look at the relationships of all the divorced folk around him to see that.
V: Hell, just Jake and Laura should give him the heebie-jeebies.
LT: But taking these things into consideration is new for him, and he’s figuring it out as he goes along. An interesting process to see played out on a network show. Hope to see it more often.
V: Maybe the Will & Grace pairing is rubbing off on the show.
LT: Max looks so frustrated that Billy suggests just coming clean and telling his family the truth, but Max knows they’ll put him through hell for it.
V: Yeah. Aunt Ellen and her “horse face” smiling at him from across the coffin.
LT: Billy tells Max there’s only one option. He’ll have to choose a prince charming, or at least a reasonable facsimile, and points to a few of the guys Max has on his screen. Oh, the dangers of the straight world!
Frankie and BF go to Aura Therapy Institute, a place that Frankie says looks like “Bollywood threw up on the Armani store.”
After Frankie hits a gong, a peaceful-looking guy comes over to them and says, “Namaste.” He says it unironically, which takes some talent.
V: Frankie: “And a good Namaste to you!” Also said unironically.
LT: He’s Swami Sanjay. They ask him about Emma, and he gushes about how much he loved her then is distracted by Frankie’s aura, which is apparently in disarray. He has her stand in front of a computer screen that shows her surrounded by orange, which he says means her aura is low and offers an immediate aura massage.
As her aura is stroked, Frankie asks if he did the same for Emma.
Sanjay says he can’t discuss Emma’s treatment, but he was available to her 24/7 and can do the same for Frankie.
V: For a “reasonable monthly fee” no less. If that 250K check is any indication, clearly Sanjay does not know a cop’s salary. He also volunteers that he had a key to Emma’s place.
LT: BF has seen and heard quite enough, and she speaks to Sanjay in Hindi, something she says her grandmother used to say. He smiles and says her grandma was a wise woman. That makes BF get out her handcuffs, because she just basically called him a filthy liar.
She cuffs him. Wow, that was a quick arrest. I’m of the opinion that if he was guilty, he wouldn’t have offered up that key information so quickly, but I’m not a law enforcement pro like Ms. BF, so what do I know?
V: Can they just arrest someone on evidence that flimsy? I would think there would have to be more evidence than he doesn’t really know Hindi. I think the reason he volunteered the key info, is because he must think she’s alive, since he says “I’m available” not “I was available.”
LT: Another reason this is a hasty arrest. Meanwhile, Laura goes to see Andrew at his beautiful office, which is bigger than many Manhattan apartments. She walks around, looks over his desk, then opens what she thinks is a closet. But it’s not, it’s a sauna, and Andrew is in there, naked.
Didn’t his secretary tell Laura that Andrew was in there? If not, he needs some new personnel.
V: She said Andrew would be right with her and that he was just finishing his workout. You’d think Andrew would close the door when he does nekkid sauna-ing. Or at least notify his assistant to give him a heads up. A knock on that door, perhaps? Laura also sniffed his clothes that were sitting on the couch and discovered he still uses the same cologne.
LT: She’s shocked, quickly closes the door, and tells him to get dressed. He says something about it not being a big deal, since she’s seen him naked before, but she brushes it off. She asks about his divorce, and he says Emma was costing him $100,000 a month in alimony until she remarried, which would have likely been never, because she was getting filthy rich just sitting on her ass being his ex. Is he in the market for another ex? Because I’d like to officially volunteer.
Upon her death, her estate now goes to charity. Laura tells Andrew about the checks Emma had written and asks what her money problems were. He says they’re divorced so he has no idea, but Laura says if Jake buys anything she knows about it, so he must know something about Emma’s finances.
V: Is this the same woman Jake was able to cheat on multiple times? Because I don’t know how observant that makes her as to Jake’s activities.
LT: But he says their marriage was never good in the first place, they never really connected. Laura says they must have, since he cared enough to propose to her.
V: It’s interesting to note the hint of hurt in her voice. As if she didn’t marry douchebag and have two obnoxious brats.
LT: He reminds her that his proposal to Laura was storybook on bended knee by the Brooklyn Bridge, but she reminds him that he dropped the ring. He says he never gave Emma a ring but a cheap necklace she liked, and she started telling everyone they were engaged. Before long, they were married.
It kind of took place before he knew what was happening. Laura says that doesn’t sound like him, he was always so decisive. So Andrew gets decisive and asks her to dinner. She turns him down, due to how she’s in the middle of an investigation.
V: He not only asks her to dinner but tells her what she’ll order. Laura turning down free food at a fancy restaurant? I guess once she’s had home-cooked food by HOT!FoodTruckTony, she has no more need for fancy restaurants.
He thinks she’s afraid of enjoying herself, but she says she’s not afraid of anything. She’s just not interested. Maybe if she would have brought up FTT about ten thousand years ago, Andy would leave her alone. That she hasn’t, brings up all kinds of questions for me.
LT: I should mention that Andy walked out of the sauna in his boxer-briefs.
Then he proceeded to get dressed in front of Laura as she questioned him. Classy.
V: Well, they had been engaged. And his clothes were there in the office where Laura was snooping around. It was either get dressed in front of her or stand there in his boxer-briefs. I wouldn’t have minded, but for Laura it might have been awkward.
LT: Frankie and BF question Swami Sanjay, or Brian, which is his actual name. He swears he’s legitimate, but he changed his name because nobody wants their aura read by Brian from the Bronx.
V: I’ve gotta hand it to the actor. He switched accents and personas pretty well. Frankie gets hard-nosed for a second when she finds out Brian stole the identity of a cab driver and tells him he should be ashamed of himself then turns to BF and backpedals as she says, “I mean, not that your heritage is anything to be ashamed of.”
Poor Frankie. Running mouth disease at its finest.
LT: To prove he’s good at what he does, he asks Frankie how she feels after the massage, and she kind of mumbles that she had a headache and now it’s gone.
BF interrupts this spiritual talk. She accuses Brian of killing Emma, but his alibi is that he was on a different astral plane, meditating. His spirit animal can confirm that. Even Frankie has to guffaw, but he says he put a lot of work into cleansing Emma’s aura. It was toxic from fear.
Someone was threatening her, and he figures it was her ex. She mentioned to him that she got married during a thunderstorm, which is a bad omen. I’m not sure about that, but I do know that rain on your wedding day is ironic, thanks to Alanis Morisette.
Afterward, BF says Swami Brian had a key to Emma’s place, no alibi, and is the right height. She thinks that adds up to him being guilty. She says that until they find someone better, he’s staying in custody.
As the Swami is being escorted down the hallway, he passes Max and is critical of Max’s aura.
Max says he ran Brian’s rap sheet and thinks he’s a con man, but Bri won’t give up. He tells Max to be on the lookout for the colors purple and green, because a handsome stranger will come into his life and solve his problems. That rattles Max a bit.
V: I especially like the “Hey, bro, auras don’t lie.”
I already like Brian a ton more than Jake.
LT: And I cross Bri off the list of suspects, because anyone who can relate to our Max like that can’t be a murdering scumbag. By the time this episode is over, there will be so many red herrings it would make a great bucket of chum.
V: Awwww…It’s nice how everyone is connecting with Max and not treating him like an annoying pet.
As the cop drags Brian away, Andrew appears and asks for Laura.
Max looked hopeful for a second and says he thought for a moment bizarre swami premonitions really do come true.
LT: Max says, “Straight,” and it sounds more like a question than a statement, so Andrew says yes.
Max clarifies and says straight ahead, then points down the hall.
Andrew stops by Laura’s desk and apologizes for being a jerk earlier. She says he can make it up to her by taking her out to dinner. That was a quick change of heart, and he thinks so too, as now it’s Andy’s turn to look a bit rattled. She gets up to get her coat.
Jake walks in, and Andrew snarkily tells him he’s taking his ex out to dinner, then baits Jake.
V: He says he’s taking Laura out for a nibble then asks if stroking the back of her neck still drives her crazy. Uh, Andrew? You’re creeping into Jake territory again. Stop.
LT: Jake smiles and says Andrew is everything Laura said he was.
V: I was surprised by his restraint. FTT has been nothing but nice to Jake and has gotten shoved as a thank you. Jake tries to tell Laura that Andrew is a material witness, and she can’t go, but she makes it clear this “date” is kind of an informal interrogation.
Laura thinks Jake is jealous, which is a reasonable assumption, but he says he’s just being protective of her, as he would any of his detectives. She points out that she’s off the clock.
Jake has the NERVE to imply that Laura is letting her emotions cloud her judgment, and that she doesn’t tackle him to the ground and taser him, shows great restraint on her part. She claims her only emotion is hunger.
LT: Andrew reels off a list of snooty dinner options, but Laura wants to take him to her favorite haunt.
V: Andrew, who doesn’t know Laura as well as he thinks he does, offers to have his assistant make reservations.
LT: Of course where she wants to go is the dumpy bar the cops frequent.
I would have let him buy me a nice expensive meal, but I guess she was more comfortable on her own turf. He’s worried that his arteries are hardening even as he speaks. He has no respect for people who would eat horrible, greasy food like this on a regular basis. He seems kind of upset about bad eating habits and overweight people who abuse their bodies, so I’m sure it’s not important.
V: Yeah. After his speech about the overeating slobs, I’m surprised she seems surprised he hates bar food. Yes, after it’s brought up twice, it won’t be important, I’m sure.
LT: Speaking of that, did I mention that Eric McCormack is in butt-kicking shape? Will Truman always looked great, and EM has obviously looked after himself well since that show ended. Very impressive effort for a fifty-one-year-old.
V: Mmmmm hmmm…I noticed when he walked out in his skivvies.
LT: *Ahem*, anyway, Andrew wonders how they wound up strangers, and Laura says it’s because he dumped her, but he insists it was she who dumped him. She doesn’t really remember, because it was a tough time. Her father had been indicted for embezzlement and disbarred, but he says no matter, she walked out on the engagement. He could have helped her through that tough time, but she ran off to California for six months.
So she reminds him of a certain aerobics instructor.
V: A flight attendant who taught aerobics on the side. So, that’s two for two? Laura knows how to pick them. Stick with FTT! Bottom line, they were both young and stupid.
He gets up to play darts, and she joins him. He shows her a pic that was probably taken during their Will & Grace time together. She’s got a lot of big hair. She tells him to burn it.
LT: She throws a dart that goes nowhere near the dart board, so he helps her throw.
V: With a “longer, smoother stroke.”
Wow. Seriously. I love FTT, but the chemistry with these two is combustible.
LT: He says he missed her and she mentions FTT (finally!), and gets back to the case.
V: OMG. Seriously! The one time she doesn’t tell FTT to “unexpectedly” meet her is the time it’s most important.
She gets a bulls-eye, and even though they have no bet, she says it’s time to pay up. She kind of pushes him into a chair and gets in his face. Clearly he’s expecting some action, but instead he gets questioned.
LT: She asks about Emma’s problems and who may have been threatening her, but he says she didn’t have any enemies. She was a saint, her worst vice was Pilates. That makes him remember that the instructor, Richard, trained her at home and had a key to her place. Did Emma just go handing her key to random strangers?
Jeez, I don’t give anybody my key, Emma seemed to hand hers out to everyone she met. Laura asks why she even bothered to have a lock on the door. Indeed.
V: My thoughts as well. Especially since she was rich and probably had some nice stuff. A rich woman who lives alone handing out her key to everyone? No wonder she got killed.
LT: The next day, Laura walks into the squad room and tells Jake that Pilates guy is kind of shady and filed for bankruptcy three times. Jake’s standing with Connie, Emma’s sister, who pipes up that she can vouch for Richard.
He’s their cousin and is kind of a loser but a nice guy. She insists they’ll be wasting their time looking into him, which makes Laura give her the side-eye. Is there anyone Connie does think should be investigated? Why, yes, now that you ask, Andrew is guilty as hell. She says Emma told her that if anything ever happens to her, Connie should tell the police that Andrew killed her. Alllllrighty…
V: He was off-screen, but I’m sure Jake leaped for joy.
LT: Frankie and Jake speak with Connie, who expectedly says that she and Andrew never liked each other.
He thought she was just some cheap Vegas bimbo. She always hated him but kept her mouth shut in the interest of family harmony, until Emma wised up.
V: Speaking of “can’t keep emotions out of it,” Jake says he can’t disagree. SHUT UP, Jake.
LT: The breakup happened when Andrew, who Connie says always had a temper, started getting violent. He smashed a wine bottle one night because it wasn’t the kind he wanted. Well, some people are picky about their wine.
V: Jake, with steel balls, makes tsk-tsk noises. Because he doesn’t live in a glass house. It’s good he’s interrogating with Frankie, or Laura would have had the jewels in her hand and squeezed them.
LT: Emma filed for divorce. Connie says Andrew took Emma leaving him badly and went berserk. The last time she saw Emma was when Emma visited her in Vegas for New Year’s. Emma was upset and thought Andrew was spying on her. He was furious that twenty-five percent of his income went to alimony. Connie goes on and on about how bad Andrew is.
When told he has an alibi, she says it’s because someone is covering for him. He’s a manipulative control freak, and she compares him to some villain in some movie she saw on the plane ride over that I wouldn’t see if you paid me.
V: Heh. That would be Iron Man 3. I paid to see it, so….there ya go. She compares him to Tony Stark’s evil twin. He uses his money and power to crush people. Except Tony stark uses his to crush bad guys. And he’s considered a hero. So, I’m not sure where she’s going with this.
LT: Laura and Jake discuss the case in his office. Jake is more of a tool than usual in this episode.
V: Really? Because I think shoving Tony into a wall is level-ten Jake douchery.
LT: Laura says Andrew might be insufferably arrogant, but he’s not a violent control freak, and she doesn’t think he’s the killer. Jake dismisses her opinion on the basis she’s too emotional about the case and says again he wants her off it.
Jake, you’re the emotional one here. Laura seems to be handling the investigation just fine. She says he’s so threatened by some guy she was with fifteen years ago that he’s accusing him of murder, and he reinforces that by saying Andrew is obviously guilty. Laura reminds him of Andrew’s alibi, and Jake says the cleaning lady must be lying.
V: She says the cleaning lady lying is something she can verify, but Jake orders her home, and even though Laura does an exaggerated, “Where else would I go?” that wouldn’t fool a two-year-old, he believes she’s headed home.
LT: I’m not sure why he keeps saying she’s off the case, and she just keeps blowing him off and getting away with it. We’ve all had jerky bosses that make stupid decisions we nevertheless have to follow, so why she keeps ignoring him and he keeps taking it, I’m not sure.
V: Because Jake is her ex who’s still in love with her, which is why this situations is so effed up to begin with. In real life, this would never fly.
LT: Laura speaks with the cleaning lady, Olga, who confirms that Andrew was in his office the night of the murder.
Then she gushes about what a great guy he is. He even offered to do her father’s coronary bypass surgery for free. She talks a bit about her dad and how she promised to make him her special fudge, and Laura asks to see a photo. Olga’s pop is pudgy and unhealthy-looking. The very picture of the kind of person Andrew said earlier that he has no respect for. Hmm.
Max is at the bar, pouring out his tale of funeral-date woe to the bartender.
He says he must be destined to die alone. The bartender reminds Max that he’s cute and funny and a nice guy and anyone should be happy to have him. Max just tells straighty to get him another appletini. But bartender says Max has him all wrong about the straight stuff. Max is surprised and says his gaydar must be on the fritz. Bartender smiles at him, and Max suddenly notices the purple and green bar lights the guy is bathed in. Just like Bri the swami said!
V: Dude! Bartender is SMOKING hot! GO MAX! You get you some hot bartender! You can double date with Laura and HOT!Tony. It will be hotness overload.
I love how the lights form a glowy halo around him and Max’s half-smile. Too cute!
LT: Laura is in the interrogation room with Andrew again. She tells him Olga is lying and asks him point blank if he killed Emma? He says no, and his alibi is fine. She says Olga loves him because of her dad’s free surgery, but Laura points out how the dad is the kind of overweight mess who has no respect for his body that drives Andrew nuts, and he’d never waste his time and talents on such a person.
Andrew backs off and says he can explain. He knew he’d be an automatic suspect, so he asked Olga to lie for him. But it isn’t a lie, exactly. He was in his office but not napping on the couch, as he’d claimed. He was getting a massage and not one of the aural variety. His had a happy ending.
V: Laura: “A rub and tug.”
Oh, THIS she knows, but was unfamiliar with different names for pot a couple of episodes ago? Okay.
LT: He’s embarrassed that he paid for a hand job, but he’s had no luck dating since the divorce and had to improvise.
V:A good-looking, successful, smart, rich doctor can’t get a date? That’s the most unbelievable part of the story for me.
He has to admit he did it twice, and the second time Mr. Happy wouldn’t stand at attention.
LT: He says even when he was married, it was never very good with Emma. Not like it was with Laura. Again with the flirting. Laura asks for a phone number of the massage place.
Jake confronts Laura again about working on the case.
Haven’t we been through this endlessly? She says he can’t seem to separate being her ex from being her boss, which is true. He again tells her to back off. Ho hum.
V: This kept happening on another show I watched, until they realized they couldn’t keep doing this season after season and had to get the boss to accept the employee’s crazy ways. But this has to stop. It makes Jake look even more impotent than he already does. Like he’s the boss in name only.
If the other employees see he lets her get away with it, that makes him look even worse.
LT: Frankie and BF go to the massage place. The babe at the front desk sees them and tells them she doesn’t do women, or couples.
She’s way too picky and uptight to be working in a happy-ending massage parlor, if you ask me. The look BF gives her!
V: Uh, yeah. That’s just weird.
LT: Frankie starts to babble, and BF badges the babe, who immediately looks nervous. They show her Andrew’s photo. She says she went to see him at midnight the night before and stayed for a couple of hours. She also says he paid in cash, $1,000, and is a good tipper. Frankie wonders how her hand can be worth $1,000. I was wondering the same.
V: It’s a dragon hand.
I thought it was weird how she says a client is coming. Like, she had no idea at first they were about to question her about a murder. She’s doing illegal stuff. She should be keeping her mouth shut if she’s the owner.
LT: The babe says she’s massaged Andrew before, usually in his office, but once on his boat.
V: She also confirms that the second time his “heart” wasn’t in it, and BF points out it might not be his heart that was the problem. Oy. BF also asks for a receipt. If you’ll remember, she’s big on getting receipts. But there aren’t any.
LT: BF thanks her and says she and her hand have been very helpful. Hee!! As they leave, they run into Renaldo on his way in.
Yes, the dancing ME Renaldo. Unlike Andrew, he’s entirely unembarrassed and just says “Sciatica.” Then he goes to the desk and says he’s there for his usual. Cause, you know, sciatica. I’m a little disappointed in Renaldo. If Food Truck Tony walks in the door next, I’m dumping this show, recapping be damned.
V: I’ll be walking out right behind you.
LT: More interrogation. Laura asks Andrew why he never mentioned his boat. He says he didn’t think it was important. She says people change, but he says she’s still the woman he fell in love with, and he admits to being arrogant, condescending, and judgmental but not a killer.
Billy and Jake watch through the glass, and Jake bleats again about pulling Laura from the case. Yeah, we’ve been over that, idiot. Like, a hundred times.
V: So first, BF ran to Laura to tell her about the boat, then she said it was okay for Laura to interrogate him, then Jake must have given his consent, because he’s there watching it happen.
LT: Billy says if Jake takes Laura off the case, Andrew will just lawyer up.
The only reason he’s talking is because he wants to be with Laura. Good thing Billy’s around. At least there’s somebody on the squad who can think straight. He says Laura can break Andrew. He just needs to trust her.
Jake says he’ll send BF and Frankie to the boat.
V: Billy is my hero. Even he can tell Jake is the one whose emotions are compromised.
LT: Didn’t both the Heywoods and Paper Lace tell Billy not to be a hero? That’s an ancient song reference, kids, look it up.
V: True that.
LT: Before boarding Andrew’s boat, Frankie and BF talk to the harbormaster.
He says Andrew had a regular visitor. BF shows him hand-job chick’s photo, and he confirms it’s her. Except for the other night, when he saw a leggy blond there. Inside, Frankie and BF find the boat fully stocked with food and drink. There’s also a map on the table, with a course charted for Cuba. The whole thing certainly makes Andrew look guilty, and they sympathize with Laura. In a cabinet, Frankie finds a bloody knife.
V: Nothing looks staged at all. Particularly for a meticulous man like Andrew who himself pointed out that if he killed his wife, he’d leave no evidence lying around. Sure, he’d have the knife, blood still on it, in his closet. It’s not like he had an ENTIRE BODY OF WATER to throw the knife into. Nobody brings this up.
BUT! BF totally sticks up for Laura when Frankie hints how Laura’s involvement could be a problem. She says Laura put the cuffs on her old boss, and if it came down to it, Laura would do the same to Andy. Gee, you’d think the guy who used to be married to Laura would know her as well.
LT: At the station, Renaldo the dancing sciatica hand-job ME says the knife is a match for the murder weapon.
V: Wow. If that’s his new title, I’m gonna need a macro.
LT: It’s open-ended. We’ll see what he does in the next episode, maybe his title will have to be expanded.
The knife contains Emma’s blood and DNA, but has no fingerprints. BF notes that as a surgeon, Andrew has access to latex gloves. Jake says he had motive and opportunity. Everything adds up, he’s their man. Laura still can’t believe it. Jake looks smug.
Have I mentioned in the last three minutes that he’s a huge tool?
V: With a tool on top. And AGAIN this show with the clunky non-sequiturs. BF mentions how Brian talked about the bad omen and the thunderstorm. If that doesn’t scream NOT IMPORTANT!
LT: Laura goes back to the holding room and tells Andrew about all the incriminating evidence. He says he’s being framed and can’t believe she would think he’s a killer. She says the alimony is a pretty good motive. He again says he didn’t do it and asks how he can convince her? Then he grabs and kisses her.
V: Oh, geez. Why, Andy?
LT: She pushes him away and says it’s not about her, but he says it is: if he’d married the right woman in the first place, none of this would be happening. Then she brings up the thunderstorm during the wedding thing and how he should have paid attention to the omen.
He says he got married in South Beach, and it was sunny. Laura suggests that maybe Emma got married again. He says no, because if she had, he would have been off the hook for alimony, and he never was. Laura says that’s why she kept it from him, but someone knew about the marriage: her killer.
V: Did you hear that? It’s all of the anvils falling. Wow, I cannot believe how they worked in the thunderstorm.
LT: At Emma’s place, Laura is running a tag sale. They’re selling Emma’s valuable stuff quite cheap. Connie walks in and is quite pissed.
V: Especially when Big Happy helps a woman carry out an original Andy Warhol silkscreen Laura just sold a woman for forty bucks.
LT: Connie says Emma’s things are hers now, and Laura corrects her, that Emma left her estate to Heart of the Hood.
V: That’s weird, because earlier Andy made it clear earlier it wasn’t just HotH but a bunch of charities. Ah, maybe Laura is lying to her.
LT: Connie insists it’s all hers, so Laura clears the room. She brings up that New Year’s trip, and how Emma wound up in a whirlwind wedding with a hotel bartender named Clay. Connie was a witness. There was a rare thunderstorm in Vegas that night. Connie says the marriage was annulled the next day.
V: Goodness, I hope Max’s bartender story ends happier than this one.
LT: Laura says it still would have voided the divorce settlement if Andrew found out. So Connie started blackmailing Emma, $10,000 a week until Emma was going broke. Then she killed her to get Emma’s estate. Connie says she was home in Vegas when Emma’s body was found, and Laura says yes, but not the night before.
Then Iron Man 3 comes up. Laura checked with the airline, and the movie is only shown on westbound flights. Connie was coming back from New York after killing Emma when she saw it. She was also seen on airport security video, and she was the leggy blond the harbormaster saw. She planted the knife on the boat. And she was wearing heels that would make her the right height. Killer heels, Laura says. Literally.
V: One must always be stylish when one goes to murder one’s sister. Did she think wearing heels would make her more stealthy? I’m confused.
I’m also confused as to the motive. The sis didn’t know her estate went to charity? And she’d rather kill her sister and possibly be caught than just decrease the payments? I don’t follow the motive here.
LT: Connie is marched through the station in cuffs as Billy and Jake watch.
Billy asks if Jake intends to apologize to Laura. Jake doesn’t see why he should, since all the evidence pointed to Andrew. He was their best suspect, and Jake had every reason to think he was guilty. SUCH a tool.
Billy says Laura never thought he was a killer and kept digging until she proved it. Jake finally admits he wanted Andrew to be guilty, because he couldn’t believe “Laura almost married that jerk.” Very professional of you, captain. Billy says bad boys seem to be Laura’s kryptonite, and Jake says maybe that’s his mistake: he’s too nice a guy. T.O.O.L.
V: How can one man be THAT un-self-aware? Billy looks at him like, “Did you not understand I meant you, idiot?”
LT: He thanks Billy for the advice, and Billy mutters that it wasn’t advice. I’m truly at a loss. Did I say tool yet? Yeah, I think I covered that.
V: T.O.O.L. If Laura ever goes back to this creep, I will reach through the TV and shake her.
LT: Max comes dancing into the squad room, saying he found a date.
Billy asks if it’s a fake date, and Max says not so fake. It probably won’t end well, he says.
V: He references Miss Saigon, and by the look Billy gives, I’m sure he knows the reference.
LT: Max says Swami Bri told him he’d find the perfect man, so you never know. Then Max asks what happened with Laura’s ex: “Tell me they’re back together.” That was kind of surprising. I’m glad Will Tru-, er, Andrew isn’t a scumbag murderer and all, but I can’t root against FTT. That just seems wrong.
V: Max! How dare you go against HOT!FTT. Shame on you!
LT: That night, Laura is relaxing around her incredibly messy home when the doorbell rings. It’s Andrew, of course. He says she has a nice place, it’s full of life. Just like the place he always thought they’d have one day.
As he says this, a football goes flying across the room and hits him square in the nose. It totally reminds me of Marcia on the Brady Bunch. I was waiting for Andrew to shriek, “Oh, my nose!”
V: ME TOO! Exactly! It can’t be an accident. That’s also the “Something suddenly came up” episode.
LT: Laura sends her brats upstairs. Tell them to apologize, Laura! She doesn’t, then she apologizes. Set those little hooligans straight for once, would ya?
V: I guess it was too good to be true. At least we only saw them for a moment. And of course that moment included them being obnoxious, hurting someone, and not apologizing for it. She tells him to sit down and PUT HIS HEAD BACK.
Then he says he knows, because he’s a doctor, and I yell at the TV, “Then you should have corrected her and put your head FORWARD!”
LT: She says her house isn’t usually this crazy then admits that it is. He smiles and says insanity suits her, and she tells him the case is over and he can stop acting so nice. But he says he’s not kidding. He says this has made him see what a mess his life is.
V: I guess he’s decided to go back to working on overeating slobs. It seems his views have changed, as he now wants to treat people who need his help.
LT: She thinks it was being accused of murder, but he says seeing her made him remember the man he used to be.
V: Laura: “Before you became a complete jackass?”
Gosh, Laura. Save some of that for Jake. This one has seen the error of his ways and wants to be a better man. Jake is content to wallow in tool-ness. Andrew says he loves her and calls her twins adorable. He’s not done lying, I guess.
LT: He gets up to go. Laura asks him what he’ll do now, and he says that now, she’s really going to let him kiss her. They kiss sweetly, and he leaves.
Laura looks a bit wistful as she stands by the door.
V: I think Laura was also contemplating what would have happened if she’d married the right man.
And so ends another mystery. I’m glad Andy didn’t do it, so maybe he can come back. Any of Laura’s other men would be preferable to Jake. And if his promise holds true, we should expect he’ll act even douchier. Good. Anything that makes Laura remember why she divorced him can’t be a bad thing, even if we have to suffer through it with her.
You Watch Too Much TV 