And after a few months off, we are back with Westen and friends! “A Dark Road” picks up a few weeks after we left off with a lot of reminder about the previous half of the season, and the result of working with Tom Strickler. Someone is currently hunting down all of Strickler’s old contacts to clean up any loose ends he might have had. Fiona doesn’t have much play in the episode as she continues to recover from getting shot during her rescue, while Sam doesn’t have much to do just because he doesn’t do much anyways.
The main plot is to help a window who was the victim of an insurance scam where her husband died. The insurance scammers are now forcing her to file for wrongful death and collect a large award from the city. It was a pretty generic and weak plot overall, but the who purpose of the episode was to reunite Tyne Daly with Sharon Gless (Madeline) for a Cagney & Lacey reunion. The chemistry is immediate and works well.
If it weren’t for the desire to put Daly in the episode, I can’t help to wonder if it was not easier to just break into the insurance office and get the records in the first place, negating the need for Maddy to befriend and then betray Tina the clerk. It would have been a lot faster and easier I think.
For takeaways, we do get a small clue as to our new bad guy for this part of the series, Mason Gilroy, a ruthless and cunning assassin. In the end, this episode gives the viewer plenty of high energy car scenes, a few explosions, and a lot of run of the mill social engineering to provide a pretty low key start to the second half of the season.
Interesting observation
- Firebombing a hotel room is a good way to get someone’s attention.
- “The day that the cell phone call log was invented should be celebrated as a national holiday for spies.”
- Michael’s identity for the week, “Alex” the sleazy wheelman.