Posted by Sarah
Old Man Samuels is on the floor of his office, oozing blood as Alex tries to grasp what’s just happened. Alex calls 911 and puts his coat around Samuels and tries to stop the bleeding, but of course it’s not doing anything. Alex: “I want you to make it so you can rot in prison for arson and the attempted murder of my son.” OMS: “I’ll die happy knowing you didn’t get the satisfaction of killing me.” Alex: “I hope it hurts, Joe. I hope it hurts, real bad, all the way down.” Old Man Samuels dies, and then the cops bust in and tell Alex to get his hands up. “I didn’t do it!” They confiscate the gun he’s carrying, the one he borrowed from Santo, and he tells them it’s fully loaded, no shots fired, “And while you are wasting time frisking me, the real killer is getting his ass away!” Cop-voiced cop isn’t amused when Alex tells him why he came to the house, especially when they find Alex’s REAL gun on the premises. The gun from Alex’s safe. Alex is hauled down to the station for questioning, and the game is afoot …
Alex phones Isabel from the police station when he’s done being questioned. She comes to pick him up, and on the way home he says he’s innocent. Instead of saying “I believe you” or “Of course you are, I know you are,” Isabel replies, “Then this will be okay.” Ouch.
The next day, Alex drives Artie to school and has that father/son talk about how people are going to say bad things about daddy, but they’re not true. Then Alex goes into a meeting with Frank and Pancho, and many insults and grumpy expressions are thrown around. Alex’s meeting with his lawyer doesn’t start much better — she isn’t very hopeful about the possibility of everything working out in the end, but she’ll do her best.
While Frank and Pancho are harassed by phone calls from the press, Alex goes to see his thug friends, and asks them to find the P.I. for him. He’ll owe them one.
Artie gets a black eye in a fight at school.
Alex decides to try and figure out who shot J.R. — I mean, who shot Old Man Samuels. He makes a list of people who hated the old man and another list of people who hate Alex, trying to find overlaps. Frank’s on both lists, so Alex heads over to Frank’s yacht to snoop. Just as he gets his hands on Frank’s laptop, Frank comes aboard, and Alex is saved by a cellphone he appears to have planted there for just such an event. Whew. When he’s safely off the yacht, he gives the phone to Artie.
At Henry’s club, everyone’s ordering Death Row Mojitos. Apparently, the media buzz about Alex being a killer has given Duque rum some serious street cred. Or, as the whitest man alive tells Henry, Duque rum is now “bad-to-the-bone gangsta fuel.”
Pancho calls a meeting with Frank and Henry, and the only item on the agenda is “How do you solve a problem like Alex Vega?” Pancho makes it clear that he won’t ask Alex to step down. Frank brings up the fact that he and Henry disagree with Pancho on Alex’s status as a member of the family. This again? Really? Give it up! Which is pretty much what Pancho tells him before reiterating that Alex is as family as you can get and will stay CEO. Then he calls Alex into the room, and repeats it for him. Alex: “Was it unanimous?” Pancho: “Not unanimously, but definitively.” Alex: “I appreciate that, pop, but I’m resigning.” He cites the fact that his CEO-ship has caused nothing but family strife and drama. He wants to strike out on his own, make a name for himself without worrying about dragging the whole family down. “This company is called Duque and someone named Duque should be running it.” As Alex leaves the room, Frank tries not to look too pleased.
That rainy night, Ramon calls Alex to say he’s found the P.I., but that there won’t be any interrogating. He’s already been shot. Thunder rolls. Perfectly timed lightning strikes. I try not to hear Garth Brooks in my head. Alex hangs up, and while some bluesy soul plays in the background, he walks in slow motion in the rain, and keeps walking in slow motion in the rain, and walks in even SLOWER motion in the rain, and then gives the camera an angsty closeup before the credits roll.
I could’ve done without all the clichés at the end, but apart from that, it was a great way for Cane to close out the calendar year. We’re left wondering whether Alex’s quest to find the real killer will turn out well, or whether it will consume him and end badly anyway. There’s the promise of a trial, and of new business ventures. We still want to know who the real killer is, and why the P.I. is dead. How will Pancho handle the business with Alex gone? Will Frank finally have his moment in the sun? Plenty of questions to keep us coming back for more, if there is more to come back to. Did CBS have a stockpile of scripts before the writers went on strike? I worry about this fledgling show if that’s not the case, because it just hit its stride, and to have the rug pulled out so soon could really hurt its chances of surviving for the duration. Unless it’s built up a large enough, loyal enough fan base, which I hope is the case, because it’d be a shame to lose this show. We’ll just have to cross our fingers and wait …
