It takes a real group effort to uncover Joyce Tercek, but it leads to Paula’s biggest break in the case.
Photo: Apple TV
Avengers Assemble! The gang is back together, yeah. Did anyone else cheer in front of the TV screen when a distressed Paula walked up to her apartment building to find Rudy and Geri there offering help and apologizing? Just me? Fine.
Things are getting more serious for our motley investigative team. At the beginning of the episode, Rudy is attacked while lounging in his apartment. He has a giant bong on his coffee table – I knew I loved you, Rudy – and Jennifer, the scary official, uses it to disable him and find Dennis’ phone. It’s a miracle she doesn’t kill him, especially since she’s not sure what he saw on the phone, but let’s thank the TV gods because we all know Rudy is real. Jennifer, for her part, is pretty sure that the information about Dennis’ burner phone is completely useless. The joke’s on her! This is incredibly useful! And armed with this information, our super investigators are going to get to the bottom of Joyce Tercek’s case.
However, before the group reconvenes, Paula takes some time to dig through the files on the flash drive that Ashley dropped off at the police station. Paula has some serious skills: she finds all these people using the information she gathers from their surroundings and sexual conversations with Trevor. She creates an insane looking wall of evidence in her apartment, cataloging everything she learns about each of Trevor’s marks. She clarifies something we already knew – Trevor and Dennis were working together to scam some of his clients – but what we didn’t know was that Dennis would direct Trevor to target specific, vulnerable people via DM and then proceed to blackmail them. Once Trevor receives the incriminating video, Dennis will appear and demand something. He never wanted money, only gigantic services.
The services requested are a mixture of oddities. One food scientist gave up a patent on a special type of yeast he had been working on for many years. Years, dude? Just take L with the kinky video. Seriously. After he gave the recipe to Dennis, another company, Northeastern Food Group, released the yeast, and now his company is failing. Others asked for mineral rights, rallying a union to support an election candidate and getting permission to build a plant on wetlands. These are all nefarious business deals, but what company needs all this? It’s like the purple row in Connections; all this is interconnected, but only if you have very highly specialized knowledge.
It’s interesting that all these people are so willing to talk to Paula, especially since she appears and shows them their most intimate and sometimes shameful moments in the face. (Trevor orders one dude to, “Eat that banana, you chubby monkey.”) Perhaps it’s because she believes Trevor did her the same harm, and they’re all just itching to share their story with someone who understands, but she’s getting a ton of information from four people in what seems like a very short period of time. Meanwhile, the clock starts ticking when Paula’s lawyer, Doug, informs her that Mallory and Carl have asked to reschedule the custody hearing, and the judge agrees because “there will always be mitigating circumstances.” A rap about murderjudge?! It’s not work schedule or illness; This murder charge. Mallory slipped the judge a rare case? Magic: Gathering is the card also used as a bribe? I wouldn’t ignore her.
Speaking of Mallory, my least favorite evil stepmother, how did everyone at school know about Paula’s arrest just days after it happened? The only people who might have direct knowledge of the arrest were Mallory and Carl, and I’m not sure elementary school parents read police blotters regularly. The only answer to this question is that Mallory leaked the information to all those OTA bitches, and there will be a special place in hell for her when she inevitably ends up there.
As Paula nervously heads to Hazel’s art exhibit to support her little girl with gourmet cupcakes in hand, Carl and Mallory stop her, saying that all the parents know, but Hazel doesn’t. If Paula goes there, Hazel will find out what’s going on with her mom. This is a weak argument. If I were Paula, I’d avoid the art exhibit for fear of being tarred and feathered by other bougie parents, but she’s brave to show up and even braver to stop and sob in her car while she binge eats the cupcakes she brought. Sweet Steve jumps into her car and AirDrops her all the photos from the art show, including Hazel’s portrait of Mallory.
Paula is sad, but she continues to fight, and as a reward for her fortitude, the universe gives her Rudy and Geri. The two friends soon made up once Rudy told Geri that he had been attacked with a bong. On the way to see Paula, Jeri mentions her article and Rudy kindly stops her from writing it, saying that she thinks she is capable of much more. Then they hug for a very long time! Guys, I’m officially sending them out. Because of the double name, I like Ruri more than Gedi, but I’m fine with both. Honestly, I wouldn’t hesitate to watch an entire show about these two. Apple, are you listening?
Somehow, Rudy becomes the hero of this episode as he plays a major role in solving the Joyce Tercek case due to his growing issues with his masculinity. His motivation is quite problematic and the way he threatens Joyce is quite problematic, but let’s leave that aside because he ends up getting a lot of very important information. Joyce, faced with a pool where she is noticeably alone and swimming in circles, initially blocks Paula, Geri and Rudy until Rudy gets enough of her crap – and the world’s crap – and jumps into the pool, shoes and all. He screams, “I’m six foot five and I’m so fucking antsy! Tell us or I’ll do something bad. I’ll end you!” Horrified, Joyce reveals what she knows: Dennis was visiting her to get a boy named Blake Vanderwalle (again, I have to point out what a wonderfully stupid name that is) accepted into Yale.
Now, after a little research on Paula’s part, it looks like Dennis’s latest job with a shady white-collar organization was to get his boss’s boss’s kid – or maybe even the boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s kid? — got into an Ivy League college without any merit. This coincidence is a real blessing for Paula. Dennis might have been blackmailing someone to get another yeast recipe or some land rights issue, but he was just running a personal errand for a big shot named Cecilia Vanderwalle. Never poop where you eat, Cecilia; that’s how fact-checking moms come after you on the golf course.
Instead of going to the police with this information, Paula decides to look into the situation on her own. One. Without even notifying Paula and Rudy where she was going or what she was doing. Does Paula have a death wish? Or is she just hyper-independent? In any case, she learns that there will be a golf tournament for Souther’s group at Bedford Hills Golf Club that same day at 3:00 p.m. Coincidentally, Baxter also has a line in the car that Jennifer stole, heading across the Throgs Neck Bridge, which is in the direction of Bedford Hills. So Baxter pulls into the golf course parking lot just seconds after Paula sneaks into the woods and Jennifer follows him with her giant gun.
The atmosphere and tension in this scene are A+. The score’s strings tremble and intensify as the three lone rangers enter the forest one by one. Jennifer, the huntress, turns her sights on Paula, her prey, as she climbs over the fence, oblivious. But Baxter isn’t far behind. He points the gun at Jennifer and shouts, “Drop the weapon! Now, or I’ll shoot you!” The camera zooms up to the trees, a shot is heard, and a flock of birds takes off sharply. With one episode left until the season finale, it’s unlikely that Paula Sanders is dead, but both Baxter and Jennifer are expendable at this point. It could be argued that both of these characters have gotten Paula dirty throughout the season, so I’m not sure I really care if either of them got shot. This may sound cold, but all I really care about is the survival of Rudy, Hazel, Paula and Geri, in that order. All others are consumables.
• Did the shot sound like it was fired from a pistol with a silencer? I’m no gun expert, but I’ve watched a ton of TV and feel like the shot was quieter than usual. Jennifer’s giant gun had a silencer. But television plays by its own rules, so I could definitely be wrong.
• I like Steve and Paula. When she says, “See you soon. Maybe ten to twenty, but wait for me?” and he smiles, I knew that he was the only one for her. They share the same dark sense of humor, and humor is very important in a relationship.
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