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Episode Recap: "In Security"
Written by Sean Crouch, this might've been the best episode of the season so far.
We begin with FBI agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) out on a date with a woman, Leah Wexford (Jennifer Riker), whom we soon learn is in the witness-protection program. After the chastest of goodnight kisses, Wexford goes into her house and greets her teenage son (Kevin G. Schmidt), who's watching television. Don sits in his car for a moment after she goes in, obviously a bit torn about what to do next (she's made a gesture that suggests that she might be open to his coming in, too, but we haven't heard their dialogue). Then he starts his car and drives away. A moment later, someone knocks and presents an FBI badge at the front door of the Wexford house; Leah opens the door, clearly expecting Don, only to be shot by the man who bursts in, but she's not brought down till after she shepherds her son upstairs (his shoulder is grazed by a bullet, but she takes several to the abdomen before she collapses on the stairwell). The son hides till the assassin flees, spooked by the burglar alarm and the approaching sirens.
With relatively slight asides involving the early promotion of (David Krumholtz's character) Charlie Eppes' new book, and the growing desire of the monks at the monastery where Larry Fleinhardt (Peter MacNicol) resides to be rid of him, the rest of the episode is devoted to working out the interlocking conspiracies that led to Wexford's murder... and how much blame Don deserves for it. Don's subordinate agent and woman friend Liz Warner (Aya Sumika) is understandably less than thrilled with the situation; the U.S. marshal assigned to the Wexfords, Tricia Yaegger (Erika Alexander), is also not too impressed with Don's involvement with Leah Wexford. As she notes, Don dates a lot of FBI agents; it would seem almost inevitable that he might get around to dating a witness. Over the course of the episode, we learn Don had been romantically involved with Wexford just as she and her son had been placed in witness protection several years before, and had faced official reprimand for doing so. Leah's husband had been a mid-level mafioso, killed after he'd turned over evidence, and his ex-boss is the first of the suspects we see interrogated. This leads to the hit man, and his involvement with a sting on a local street gang, masterminded by L.A. cop Chris Frederickson (James Morrison), who seems quite willing to use people as bait to bring down his target. That Wexford was killed strikes Morrison as unfortunate but acceptable, inasmuch as he feels breaking up the gang's drug-running and other criminal activities will save "hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives." Morrison is also savvy enough to see through an attempt at getting him to incriminate himself, set up by Yaegger and Don; however, he's rescued from the street gang in the nick of time by the FBI agents, as the gang is seeking retribution for Morrison's forcing one of their members to testify against the rest. Liz, having worked the case throughout the episode, gets Don to all but admit that he was the one who tipped off the gang about Morrison's manipulation, a bit of underhanded endangerment almost as irresponsible as Morrison's own. She also tries to get him to come clean about his relation with Leah, but he refuses. Their already rocky affair looks like it might be over.
This is a very neatly worked-out and briskly-paced episode; while Charlie is in the majority of the scenes, he is primarily a supporting player in the drama, mostly trying to find ways to prove that Don is not primarily responsible for leading the murderer to Leah... when not helping to work out the chain of events more directly, or dealing with his first book signing, or talking with Larry about the case and Larry's predicament at the monastery. The series is clearly trying to either give a number of its actors a break or not crowd each episode too much. For example, Diane Farr and Navi Rawat are completely absent from this installment, and Krumholtz, who has been the primary focus of most episodes this season, seems like he has to carry a little less of the burden this time out, with Morrow more thoroughly at the center. A small matter of series continuity arises with Larry's seeming regret at being made increasingly unwelcome at the monastery, when he spent much of the previous episode musing about how it was time to leave anyway. But it's a very small lapse, if one at all. Aya Sumika gets to shine here, as Warner is both an acute detective and an increasingly suspicious and alienated lover; Don's refusal to tell anyone, including Liz, the whole story of his involvement with Leah has a nice allusiveness to both his default secrecy and his occasionally demonstrated problems with romance. Erika Alexander gives a good, no-nonsense performance as well, and Judd Hirsch is allowed to be charming and believably paternal without the overlay of shtick he is sometimes encouraged to engage in.
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Nov 3, 2007 7:24 AM
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Sorry for the late posting, folks...ISP problems on my end held me up to the point where I fell asleep. We work hard, we sleep hard, at TV Guide.
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Nov 3, 2007 7:26 AM
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Pretty good ep as usual. I've learned to just take the math with a grain of salt because sometimes there seems to be major leaps of logic when Charlie comes to some of his arithmetical conclusions. Then again, I ain't no genius either. BTW, shouldn't the agents have been able to use their detective skills to figure out that Leah's assassin was sticking around to buy drugs? Maybe they're getting soft relying on the Professor so much lol.
Liked that we got more Liz and Don time, but did it have to lead to a breakup? WTH is with him, why the commitment issues? I thought he was working some of his crap out with his therapy sessions. Trust your team, open up, do the same in personal relationships. Seems simple to me. And she's a smart babe! Knucklehead.
I missed Megan and Amita, but I'm hoping we get a little time in the future when Amita's folks come to town. That should be interesting. Still waiting on Millie.
I always wondered why they used the term Witsec when referring to Witness Protection, now I know. Now, if someone could explain the use of Bolo instead of APB that the cops on TV seem to be using this season. I'm thinking it's short for "Be on the lookout for"? Maybe.
Charlie: "Using your logic, I could make the case that without your relationship with Leah, her and Steven would have died 5 years ago."
Maybe the writers can use the time off during the strike to take some English refresher courses. What's with all the horrible grammar on my television? The "Her"s instead of "She"s, the "I"s instead of "Me"s. Pretty elementary stuff. And I wish I had a nickel for every time a character started a sentence with "I mean". I get that it's right up there with "you know" and "like", but talking is one thing, why the heck write it that way? Rant over.
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Nov 3, 2007 12:39 PM
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Lately I've found some of the recent episodes to be confusing, and I've had trouble following the turns of the cases without a map. I also think, as someone mentioned (somewhere, not sure if it was this board), that the FBI turns to Charlie almost immediately. What, they don't know how to investigate on their own, and only bring in other resources when needed? Admittedly, in this case, Charlie got involved on his own to prove that Don wasn't responsible for the woman's death, but still....
And by the way, Don had an innocent dinner with this woman. She clearly would have liked more, and invited him inside at the end of the evening, but it was just a dinner, and Don didn't make any romantic overtures to her. I'm just sayin'....
I liked how Liz was able to stay professional and set aside her emotions until the case was solved. Finally, a positive representation of a woman who can do her job and put her personal feelings aside. Yay!! It happens all the time in real life, it's about time we saw it on TV. I really didn't notice the lack of Amita, altho I did notice Megan wasn't around. What I really did miss was the lack of Eppes family bonding. Poor Charlie and his book... are we supposed to infer that Larry is the one who put his copy of the book on eBay? That's what it sounded like to me.
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Nov 3, 2007 1:01 PM
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What happened to Milly? I enjoyed the interaction between her and Alan.
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Nov 3, 2007 2:05 PM
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Another great episode, but like others have said it was kinda hard to follow but now i am really interested to see what happens next week to see if there is much of a carry over. Plus, being a math major, i really miss the math the last few episode have really been lacking it. Oh well, there is always next week.
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Nov 3, 2007 2:38 PM
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To me, any episode without Diane Farr is a sub-par episode. This week's show was good, but I missed her and just couldn't get past it!
And lately Charlie has been getting into math-theorem overdrive, and can't seem to express himself or answer a simple, everyday question without spewing out some obscure geometric principle before getting around to "I'm fine, thanks, how are you?"
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Nov 3, 2007 3:57 PM
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Can someone explain to me why the lady "had" to die? Why did Morrison's character need her dead? Who arranged for the drug dealer to kill her and why (did Morrison's character put a hit on her?)? Why then was it arranged for the drug dealer himself to die?
Nothing was explained well in the episode and I'm still confused.
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Nov 3, 2007 4:32 PM
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This one was an excellent one except for the absence of Megan. She is a major player in this show. Her absence was really felt.
The bothers are what attracts me to this show in the first place. The way they have grown and their devotion to one another is a real plus for this show. Don is learning about Charlie's love and devotion to him. I think that has really surprised him. He can do no wrong in Charlie's eyes. His team is also devoted to him. I like the way Colby and David are working things out. Colby was forced to do the things he did because no one else could get that close to Dwayne.
I am routing for Don and Liz to work things out. They are such a HOT couple. She has to trust Don, even though it is hard, she has to do it. He would never betray her.
The bad guys were really bad. They were kind of playing God with other people's lives. I just hate that Don stooped to that level. I guess the ends justify the means. I just never thought that Don would do a thing like that.
The book signing and Alan being so proud of being Charlie's Dad was the best part of the show, and Larry getting kicked out of the monestary. He did not belong there anyway. We need more Megan and Larry. They are the cutest couple around.
Next week looks like a great one. I can't wait. This is the only show on TV that I really care anything about.
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Nov 3, 2007 7:52 PM
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NSGal: Wexford "had" to die for dramatic weight and to get the plot moving, and to shock everyone. OK, also, she "had" to die to give Morrison leverage over the hitman...Morrison's character Frederickson appears to have traded the address of her would-be safe house for the task of doing the drug deal with the street gang. Then, to cover up his (Frederickson's) criminal exposure of the the Wexfords, the hit man and pusher had to be gotten rid of...which the gang bangers would do with little provocation, and it would be yet another crime to hang on them, Frederickson's primary targets. (BTW, I'm not mocking your use of quotation marks...I agree, she didn't have to die, but it does make everything a bit more visceral, almost literally as presented.)
I see we don't yet have a Profile for Riker...I'll bother someone about that.
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Nov 3, 2007 9:02 PM
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First, this is an exemplary example of how a TV Blog/review should be written: a clear recap fo the epsiode followed by an even clearer review of the episode and its players.
Second, Numb3rs has always been, in my humble opinion, one of television's most underrated series and last night's episode, as Todd examined, underlines this fact. No need to expound upon or regurgitate an already great review.
Finally, and this is superfluous at best, in a television landscape filled with beautiful women and competent female characters (not to say this is mutually exclusive), but the cast of Numb3rs boasts three spectacularly beautiful women and their respective characters: Navi Rawat/"Amita," Diane Farr/"Megan" and Aya Sumika/"Liz." That these women/characters are smart, competent and well-respected in their fields (not a bimbo or mere piece of eye candy in the bunch) is one of the unsung virtues of this great show.
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Nov 3, 2007 9:33 PM
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Thanks Todd.
I was a little lost...
BTW guys, I didn't even notice that neither Meghan nor Amita were in the episode. I guess I was too busy being confused.
What a convoluted way for an LA cop to bring down a gang. Not the best plot set up in my opinion.
I wasn't even liking James Morrison's performance in this episode; he wasn't given much to work with. I enjoy him immensely on 24 though.
...and what does it take to get the inside scoop on the absense (on screen) of Millie? I even e-mailed Ausiello about her absense!!
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Nov 4, 2007 1:28 AM
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OK, this must have been confusing to everyone since I got a completely different take on what happened, as follows:
Morrisons' character was FBI Gang Task force not an LA cop. He was the one Charlie found had accessed Don's secret files and then gave the womans address to the mob assassin - no LA cop would have that access.
Don then tipped the gang leader that the mob assassin was going to kill him at the buy - that was pure revenge for the killing of his woman 'friend' and before he knew about Morrison.
The gang leader then tipped his gang with the safe house address so they could break him out. Charlie got to figure that one out.
This episode was much more convoluted and tightly written than most and had red-herrings all over the place. I thought it was just great. It also showed the dark side of Don that we've only had glimpses of before - remember when he killed the woman that had kidnapped the teenage boy rather than letting the sniper take the shot? I agree the rest of the family had a little less involvement but at the same time I liked that Charlie spent most of his 'math time' trying to clear his brother more than catch the crooks. Dad at the bookstore was absolutely priceless and Larry at the monastery was getting old and they're handling him 'leaving' in a cute and humorous way - 'even the brothers with a vow of silence are grumbling...'. Wonderful!
This show is unique to begin with and an episode that was a little less math/magic (it might as well be magic to me-lol) and more murder/conspiracy was a nice twist and a breath of fresh air. They are obviously throwing some 'change-ups' at us this season while still maintaining the main elements of the formula. They keep surprising me and I love it.
I only have one little nitpick and it's more about Hollywood writers than this show - do the writers think that just because a person becomes a partner and/or lover, the other person is going to tell every secret in their lives after a few weeks? That's just stupid as that was Liz's reaction. I thought Don handled that perfectly, though.
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Nov 4, 2007 1:28 PM
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Boy, after reading the recap it seems I was confused about what happened in the episode.
At first, I couldn't understand why Liz was so upset with Don at the end. Now, I'm beginning to wonder if he not only had an affair with Leah but that he was in love with her and never got over it.
I missed the women very much last night - Diane Farr's character and Amita.
I also agree with other posters about Charlie - it seems lately that he can't open his mouth without spewing math principles. He's getting geeky.
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Nov 4, 2007 2:42 PM
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You know what's a wonderful thing????
This show is available anytime both On Demand on your Digital TV ( at least on my Comcast cable) and online at CBS.com....
you can watch it over again.... and figure it out better.... I sometimes miss stuff since I watch it late after I get home on a Friday night and sometimes dose and miss stuff....
And Charlie... he is a geek... Math people are like that and is actually more accurate....
D
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Nov 5, 2007 4:32 PM
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