WARNING: SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 12!
Will Meachum Be Climbing the Ladder?
In the penultimate episode of Season 1, Todd gets scarier – and his threats get more personal – and Meachum contemplates his future, now that he has one.
Blythe asks him if he’s thought about moving up the ladder to Lieutenant or Captain, and when Meachum makes a joke of it, calls him on it.
Blythe: Your main problem is you sell yourself short. You make jokes because you’re insecure. You’re a natural leader, don’t have disdain for ambition.
Meachum: I didn’t know we were doing an FBI psych profile…
(Thereby proving Blythe’s point)
It seems like something that Meachum hasn’t really let himself consider, but he does often take the lead and the team follows him almost instinctively, so I think Blythe is onto something. Meachum has a lot of baggage though, and his defense mechanism of knocking himself down before someone else can do it keeps getting in his way.
He admits that to Blythe later that day.
Meachum: I was thinking about what you said this morning… I appreciate it. Sometimes I have a tendency to get in my own way with things, I don’t know why.
Blythe offers to put in a word for him with the LAPD higher ups.
He does start taking charge more, calling more of the shots when the team is out in the field and generally starting to seem like a leader.
Jensen Ackles had his own explanation for Meachum’s reluctance (and occasional self sabotage), saying that he sees himself as the “hammer” whose forte is getting the job done, not sitting at a desk planning it or negotiating with politicians. I think that’s valid, that’s where Mark has excelled and that’s where he feels comfortable. I do think, though, that he has great instincts and alot of intuition about what’s really going on, and that could make him a real asset being one of the people who’s putting the pieces together.
The Twists and Turns of Todd
In a brutal opener, Todd executes the governor’s press secretary while she’s just trying to get some gas, with some truly The Boys-esque blood splatter and shock factor.
The team investigates, watching the security camera footage of her being shot by a sniper in the hills.
Bell is really coming into his own too, befriending the local law enforcement so that one of them later entrusts him with some remarkable observation skills from watching the grainy video of Todd taking something from the victim’s car after – it turns out instead he was putting something IN. (This show has me so on edge that for a while I was totally convinced that the officer had lured Bell there for some nefarious purpose!)
Blythe advises the governor to cancel the big fundraiser event coming up that the President is also attending, but he doesn’t want to – and Blythe gets in big trouble for even asking.
Oliveras figures out that Todd might actually be law enforcement, or getting help from law enforcement. Todd knew exactly how long it would take police to arrive at the gas station, knew they’d try to reach out through TK, cleaned the cabin of all DNA and then left the body there for them to find.
Oliveras: He’s trying to trigger a response.
Now It’s Personal
Finau checks out the slain woman’s car again to see if anything was planted there, as the local cop suspected. Turns out he was right – there’s a cryptic note stuffed inside a vent, with a triangle that’s Todd’s “signature” on it. It’s from a flyer for a bar nearby.
They realize he wanted them to find the signature but assume he won’t know they could find the flyer so quickly, so maybe they finally have one up on him.
Oliveras and Bell, and behind them Meachum and Finau, converge on the bar, Raising Bane – a bar that attracts the ‘fringe element’. Oliveras and Bell bluff their way into being as fringe as the regulars, which amazingly works. Oliveras is good at this, never backs off or backs down or blows her cover. The guy they meet with tells Oliveras that some guy will give him $1000 if he gives the cop who comes looking around undercover something from behind the bar. She doesn’t fall for it though.
Meachum, like I said, has good instincts – he immediately senses that something’s off with the place. In fact, he figures out they’re not ahead of Todd after all. He wanted them there – and he’s there too, taking photos of the task force!
Meachum goes after him through the crowd, and almost gets shot following him outside. They lose him as everyone in the bar takes off.
Bell: They knew we were coming.
Todd drives away, still listening to his propaganda radio. Bites his lip so hard it bleeds.
Meachum: He set all this up so he’d know who’s on the task force, who’s hunting him.
The note he left behind the bar says “Only death can stop me.”
Relationship Status(es)
The awkwardness between Meachum and Oliveras continues. He compliments her on figuring out the law enforcement angle and says they should grab a celebratory beer at the Cocoa Room.
Oliveras: What’s the Cocoa Room?
Meachum: I don’t know, I read about it online…
Oliveras: I’m beat.
Meachum: Yeah, terrible idea, I don’t know what I was thinking, see you tomorrow.
Poor Mark.
Ackles does a good job of showing a different kind of vulnerability in Mark now that we don’t have the physical vulnerability of his brain tumor onscreen. He’s (obviously) very attractive, but he’s not overly confident; in fact, he can be a bit bumbling and awkward, and that’s endearing. It unfortunately also ensures that he gets hurt sometimes, but that humanizes the character and keeps him from being larger than life – and thus too unrealistic.
Meanwhile, Molly calls Shepherd and says she needs a reset, knows she’s been going too hard and wants to just chill. She asks Shepherd to come over and join her in staying home and watching bad TV. I’m so on edge with this show that I was convinced she’d find Molly gone when she got there – or worse – but the sisters have a nice sibling bonding night watching bad TV in the dark.
Phew!
I still don’t entirely get Todd like I “got” Volchek, but it’s more ominous now that he’s going after the task force personally. Give me a threat to an individual character I care about over a threat to someone I don’t (the fictional governor, for example) any day. What do we think is going to happen? Will they wrap up this story line in one episode or are they hoping the story will extend into a second season??
One more episode left – catch the season finale next Wednesday on Prime Video!
-Lynn
You can read Jensen Ackles’ thoughts on fandom,
Dean Winchester and Soldier Boy in his chapters in
Family Don’t End With Blood, There’ll Be Peace
When You Are Done, and Supes Ain’t Always
Heroes – Links on the home page or info at:
