We open up in Dale’s store. Jake and his quasi-mullet are there, having a conversation about booze when Goetz walks up—and he is pissed. Apparently the whole “not getting to put a bullet in Jake’s head” thing from last week is still twisting his knickers. He slaps a sign on Dale’s front door that says, “do not patronize.” Apparently, all businesses need to register with Jennings and Rall to prove that they’re not dealing with “criminals” on the black market—and so J&R can sell them supplies.
Hawkins gets another call from “John Smith,” aka the “I know who you are, I know what you’re trying to do, and I want to help” guy. He knows all about Hawkins, Sarah Mason and Valente. He says he wants to help, but Hawkins hangs up on him. The phone immediately rings again, and Hawkins answers it with a menacing speech about how he makes the terms and he doesn’t like being lied to and blah, blah, threats of violence blah. I really expected Darcy to be on the other end of the line all, “okay, Captain Hardcore. I was going to ask if you wanted me to pick up dinner, but whatever.” Unfortunately, that was not the case. It was John Smith saying he agrees to Hawkins’ terms—and that Hawkins is a day away from being caught.
There’s an angry town hall meeting at the pub about J&R gauging them on supplies. Stanley is on J&R’s side, on account of them giving him back his farm and leaves the meeting. Dale is worried about finding another way to smuggle supplies in besides Stanley’s farm.
So we find out why Hawkins is a day away from being caught—apparently there’s a binder that’s going to be delivered to Beck containing an aerial radiation scan of the entire area. Basically, this means that the nuclear bomb Hawkins is sitting on is about to be discovered. Jake’s job is to go steal the page from Beck’s office, while Hawkins’ job is to burn down a house…
So Jake goes down to the sheriff’s office to figure out how he’s going to steal the binder. It turns out that they’re putting in thumbprint scanners to get into the sheriff’s office. Jake, of course, doesn’t have access—but Heather does. Jake tells Hawkins that if they tell Heather they’ll be able to use her to get in, but Hawkins poo-poos the idea. Jake points out that since there are 8 people with access to that room and 7 of them are military, Heather is pretty much their only hope.
Hawkins begrudgingly agrees with Jake, so they go pay Heather a visit. Hawkins starts off with a speech about how only five people outside of the Cheyenne government know what he’s about to tell her, but that there are plenty more who would kill to hear it, so she is risking her life if she listens to him. A very confused Heather awesomely asks, “why on Earth would I agree to that?” Hey, it’s a valid question. They explain a little more and she agrees to put her life on the line once again.
So the crazy old coot at the pub who was yammering on about cows and how evil J&R is shows up in Goetz’ office. Unsurprisingly, he’s not there selling Girl Scout cookies. He’s there to save his business by giving up “the boy.” He tells Goetz that Dale is the key to the whole smuggling operation.
In Mimi’s role as J&R accountant, she finds a $10,000 discrepancy in the books after the new currency is delivered. She brings it to Trish, who in turn brings it to Goetz, who immediately tries to discredit Mimi. Then he blows her off. He is so guilty. Goetz then goes and busts poor Dale as he’s getting ready to smuggle some more supplies in.
Hawkins goes into the Sheriff’s office and feeds him a load of crap about an informant spotting Sarah Mason in a farmhouse in Nebraska. Beck immediately rounds up the cavalry and heads to Nebraska—which turns out to be where Hawkins needed to burn down a house. In the rubble, they find a dead male body and a hard drive planted by Hawkins.
With Beck out of the way, Heather heads into his office and tries to find the page in the binder that Hawkins needs. She rips it out and returns the binder to the shelf just as a suspicious-looking soldier comes in and demands to know what she’s doing there. He holds her until Beck returns, but Beck believes her, so case closed.
At J&R headquarters, Eric, Stanley and Jake march in and demand that Dale is released, seeing as how J&R isn’t a jail or anything. Goetz, unsurprisingly, doesn’t follow this line of logic saying, “the kid is guilty. The authority is mine. I’m sending a message.” He apparently handed Dale over to the Military Police ten minutes ago, who are transporting him to prison.
Jake, Stanley and the deputy stop the truck, saying that Dale should be in the Sheriff’s custody. The soldier is about to shoot them all, when they get a call from Beck. Apparently, the plan is to say Dale is an informant, which supersedes Goetz’s authority. Beck agrees to go along with it, and Dale is released into Jake’s custody.
Back at the sheriff’s office, Beck is examining the contents of the hard drive found at the scene. The surveillance video included clearly shows Valente’s involvement in the nuclear bomb scheme. Beck calls Hawkins in to go over the intel, but Beck has already figured out that there was no informant and that Hawkins planted all of the evidence himself. Hawkins is going down with the ship though and sticking to his story. Beck seems to believe him and shows Hawkins the Valente footage.
Goetz, not content with the amount of havoc wreaked upon Jericho’s citizenry thus far, pays Mimi a visit. He asks to see her books, but she says she keeps them at home. He says he can’t take her word for it, but she counters that if she’s supposed to provide independent oversight, she needs to remain independent. Goetz throws his title around and demands to see her books. Mimi, lamely, appears to give in, saying she’ll bring the books in tomorrow.
Apparently that’s not good enough for Goetz, who jumps in a scary Ravenwood Hum Vee and follows her home. Bonnie goes outside and tells Goetz that Mimi isn’t home. He and his Ravenwood goons decide to have a look inside anyway—with their guns drawn. And this is the point in the episode where everything went insane. They come in shooting, but Bonnie shoots back, killing several of Goetz’ men. Unfortunately, not before they hit Mimi. Mimi has been shot in the chest, but she still tries to drag herself out of the pantry to go check on Bonnie, but she collapses before she can see what happened. But the loud thump we hear in the living room probably doesn’t mean anything good.
John Smith calls again and Hawkins thanks him. He asks why Smith is helping him and Smith replies that it’s because he wants the truth about J&R to get out. For some reason, Hawkins has trouble believing that J&R was involved in the September attacks, but John Smith tells him about “Project Boxcar,” which is being implemented by the Cheyenne government to erase all evidence regarding the attacks. Smith sends him a DOD document from 1993 that J&R put together, which was supposed to protect the country from an attack. Instead, somebody got a hold of it and used it to plan the attacks. John Smith knows this because he helped write the document.
Jake gets to the farm and finds that while Mimi seems to have survived, ass-kicking Bonnie wasn’t so lucky. The episode ends with Stanley cradling her body in his arms.
Next Week: The final three episodes involve a lot more guns. It looks like everybody’s armed to the teeth and ready for a fight.
