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« Day Break
February 12, 2007: What If She's the Key?
First thing’s first: did anyone have problems with this episode being edited out of order? The show seemed out of sequence when I first tried to watch it: Immediately after Brett was running out of the courthouse, it cut straight to him finding Margo tied up in some remote location. I realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t so out of it as to miss an entire plotline and figured that it was a problem with the episode itself. Sure enough, towards the end I got another mixed-up sequence that explains what happened to Brett from the time he was threatening Uncle Nick to his freeing of Margo. At least I know now that I wasn’t going crazy. Did this happen to anyone else? It’s possible that it was a one-time glitch that caused the wrong act to play after the commercials. Hopefully it’s been fixed by now.
Just about everything we thought we knew about our characters changed yet again tonight, and I was happy to realize that their motivations are always surprisingly consistent with how we’ve seen these people act in the past. The writers have thought out this story line to a remarkable degree so that nobody is pulling a 180 at the last second and being revealed as the master villain, even though he or she had been helping Hopper all along.
In this case, I think it’s safe to assume that, based on the ending to this episode, the head of the conspiracy is... (dramatic pause) Barry Colburn, the crooked lawyer. He’s clearly the one controlling Tobias Booth and calling the shots for him. The twist ending also implies that the ever-helpful Spivak is also in on the scheme to frame Hopper somehow, although it’s not clear how; all we know for sure is that he had been subpoenaed in an upcoming trial involving most of the other major conspirators. Since Colburn mentions having an inside man in the department, maybe he meant Spivak (or Chad, although that would seem too obvious since we’ve known about that connection all along).
And just as crucially, we find out Rita’s deep dark secret, which she’s been hiding all this time. It’s actually pretty disturbing: she attacked and accidentally killed her father with a flashlight in order to protect her brother Billy, who was on the receiving end of one of their father’s drunken rages. She was still married to Chad at the time, and he helped her avoid the police and get rid of the body. That’s a pretty grisly secret for a couple to hide from the world. Maybe the strain of knowing what they had done eventually took a toll on their marriage?
I’m not quite sure I believe that an ace lawyer and Shelten’s police connections are all that you need to cover up a murder, but I guess it’s all a part of the film noir attitude that Day Break is aiming for, where nobody is purely good and we all have dark secrets that we’d rather not face. When Rita finally confesses all of this to Brett, he in turn reveals to her a secret he’d been keeping: His father didn’t get killed in the line of duty. He committed suicide. It’s interesting to realize the thematic link that the writers are drawing here. Just as Brett Hopper’s day is repeating itself endlessly, trapping him in the same situations over and over again, so too is the past repeating itself in the present: The tragedies of Brett and Rita’s parents are coming back to haunt them. For Brett, the case that destroyed his father’s integrity and drove him to suicide is now ruining his own life. It’s a clever little way of showing that this story is all about karma, and the realization that even if we’re trapped within the same period of time, our past mistakes will catch up to us eventually.
Other noteworthy mentions: I laughed out loud at Brett’s cheesy one-liner, “Consequence, bitch!” as he shot Detweiler, although I’m glad that this show doesn’t stoop to having our hero yell out a catchphrase every time he takes out a bad guy. I think it worked this time mostly because Detweiler’s “Decision... consequence” mantra has been set up as the show’s unofficial tagline. Also, has anyone else noticed that it’s become incredibly commonplace for a thriller TV show to have a scene where the good guy (in this case, Brett Hopper) is eavesdropping on a meeting between two bad guys (in this case, Booth and Uncle Nick) and then suddenly the hero’s cell phone goes off and alerts everyone in the nearby area that they’re being spied on by someone in the bathroom stall/broom closet/telephone booth/etc, forcing them to hunt down said hero? I keep seeing this plot device used over and over again. When are people going to learn to set those things to vibrate mode when they’re doing their espionage work?
Just one episode left now, and more than anything else, I’m curious to see how Brett will be able to right every wrong and resolve every story line within the span of 24 hours. He knows just about everything that will happen during this day now, but is that foreknowledge really enough for him to save Rita and bring down the conspiracy in one fell swoop?
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Feb 12, 2007 7:35 PM
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Great recaps, thanks for doing it for the 10 or 12 of us still watching. 
I first thought he was repeating the day without the little day2, day3 thingee telling us, so I was surprised when Day2 popped up. It was a little mixed up but still a good episode.
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Feb 12, 2007 8:14 PM
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Glad im not the only one who noticed the episode was out of order. At first i thought it was some kind of twist in the format but when it said "day 2" i knew it was messed up. My favorite was it going from us seeing the guy walk up to Rita's car to then Brett finding out her and Chad were shot in the hotel room.
sure would have been nice to see it all in the right order, but otherwise it was a good episode. cant wait to see the rest.
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Feb 12, 2007 9:07 PM
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I just finished watching the episode and it's still out of sequence. It was terribly confusing to watch out of order. After about 25 minutes (and after Rita had gone to the motel for the third time), I started the episode over again, assuming I just missed the "Day 2" and "Day 3" tags. Anyway, I think it would have been a great episode if it was properly sequenced.
I agree the cell-phone-going-off-and-alerting-the-bad-guys-being-spied-on thing is getting old. They just used that in last week's Lost episode in a Juliet flashback, too.
I'm assuming Rita will no longer feel distrustful of Hopper in the morning now that they had their mutual "Sorry I lied about my father" moment.
I can't wait to see next week's finale -- I wonder how many "days" it will take for Hopper to bring the whole thing down now that he knows about the lawyer being in charge.
By the way, thanks for the great recaps, Jack!
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Feb 12, 2007 9:43 PM
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I had to keep rewinding the scene with Margot bc I was sure I had missed something. As if it wasn't obvious enough they didn't care about this show, they couldn't even edit it in the correct order. It is really a shame that it didn't make it bc I really look forward to Mondays now and I am upset that next week will be the last one. Thanks for still covering this.
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Feb 12, 2007 10:02 PM
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Thanks for doing this. From what I could figure out, it was good, but count me in as another confused viewer who streamed the episode out of order and got confused. I would really like to figure out how to see this one again in the right order before the finale; since it still seems to be a problem which they are not yet addressing, is there a way we can get ABC to re-endcode the episode or something and resolve this?
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Feb 12, 2007 10:40 PM
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I just got done watching it, and it still hasn't been fixed. I was like "What the heck.." That said, I figured out fairly quickly that the order was messed up. I'm glad it wasn't just me.
I thought I kinda had it figured out where they were heading, but I see that I don't at all. So it seems that the inside man is Spivak, and perhaps he really did sign the gun out in the first place.
I had a feeling that Margo would prove to be important to Brett's day.
I'm so sad next week is the last one. Brett and the rest of these characters have been really fascinating to get involved with. Kudos to the writers for taking one day and keeping it interesting.
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Feb 12, 2007 11:26 PM
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Well, it looks like the editing is still out of order. At first I thought the episode had been edited that way on purpose, but then I realized it had to be a mistake. Hopefully ABC will fix the sequencing so we can all see the episode the way it was supposed to be shown in the first place before next week's finale.
All that aside, I have thoroughly enjoyed watching this amazing day unfold. Each episode has been like a new piece to an incredibly complex puzzle. I truly wish this show had caught on with more viewers. But it's really nice to know we will finally get to see the completed masterpiece next week!
Jack, on a personal note, I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to write these blogs for us every week. I look forward to your commentary about as much as I look forward to the episodes themselves! It's nice to know that there are actually others out there who have enjoyed this incredible show as much as I have.
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Feb 13, 2007 1:00 AM
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HERE IS THE CORRECT ORDER TO WATCH THIS EPISODE
(Note: *The online episode was incorrectly edited. Some parts appear in the wrong order which may cause confusion. The correct order is the entire first segment, third segment up until it says 'loading', entire second segment, fourth segment until it says 'loading', third segment after loading, and the fourth segment after loading.)
A simplified version of this order should be 1,3,2,5,4,6. Below is a list of each sections time frame:
Section 1: 00:00 - 07:14
Section 2: 07:14 - 12:23
Section 3: 12:23 - 18:32
Section 4: 18:32 - 25:49
Section 5: 25:49 - 32:56
Section 6: 32:56 - 41:06
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Feb 13, 2007 9:26 AM
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Thanks for keeping this blog going for those of us who still love the show. The episode being out of order was annoying, but it was still good. I found myself wanting to smack Rita for not trusting Brett enough to tell him about her family, but by the end of the episode she was back in my good graces. Now, if only I could find a man like that....
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Feb 13, 2007 9:30 AM
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And here I thought I was the dummy for not being able to follow the action thread - huh. Glad you all cleared that up for me.
thanks for the great re-cap, Jack - it really helped clear the confusion and now I really can't wait for next week!
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Feb 13, 2007 9:31 AM
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Oharb - Thanks for reminding me about Juliet's cell phone going off in last week's episode of Lost. I knew there was somewhere else that recently pulled that trick. It also happened in the fall finale of Veronica Mars this past November, although I'm sure there's a few other TV shows and movies that I'm probably forgetting.
Grand13 - Excellent work rearranging the episode into chronological order - many thanks! Impressive work.
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Feb 13, 2007 9:58 AM
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What if They Can't Edit Worth a Crap?
Yeah, so the order sucked and I hope if they dump this all to DVD sometime that'll be corrected.
I liked the Spivak thing because they've set it up really well. I was noticing when those first 4 new episodes were released online that for a few episodes in a row he was the one sending people into traps. First with Hopper's brother in law being sent home for the ambush. Then after telling his partner not to look into the dirty cops, he did a 180 and insisted that he go check out that bar where he gets jumped. Sure he eventually saved them at that bar the second time around, but it was still too much of a coincidence for him to suddenly be good. So it's been kinda obvious, but at the same time if you did miss the clues you couldn't feel too bad about them slipping by.
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Feb 13, 2007 2:00 PM
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JAy - can't edit worth a crap - so good! And right, too -
I'm kind of mad that ABC messed all that up for me - it's bad enough that their streaming isn't all that tight in the first place (I don't have problems with other networks' streaming video) -
Thus, I can't slide the doohickey back and forth to watch the scenes in the proper order (thanks Grand13 for giving that info!) *sigh of frustration*
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Feb 13, 2007 2:24 PM
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What if They Can't Edit Worth a Crap?
Now that was funny!
You're right, Jay! I'd totally forgotten those other traps. All the other stuff distracted me from Spivak. Good call.
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Feb 13, 2007 4:00 PM
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