Warning: spoilers ahead for Episode 5 of The Irrational Season 1, called "Lucky Charms."
The Irrational took the show on the road with "Lucky Charms," as Alec, Kylie, and his team made the trip to Las Vegas. They had to help Camille, who was previously one of Alec's students, catch a poker cheater in the act before she lost everything to loan sharks. While they were busy in Sin City, however, Marisa was hard at work on the not-so-cold case of the church bombing that left Alec scarred. With some help, she made a huge breakthrough in the case, and I'm more than a little suspicious about how it happened. I'm not convinced we should be trusting Jace at this point.
Marisa prioritized Alec's case in "Lucky Charms," to the point that she wasn't working on more recent crimes. She managed to get some answers from a shady individual about the logo that her ex had remembered, and got a huge clue as a result: the man she was looking for had a tattoo of an eight on his knuckles. When Jace dropped by to make amends for getting snippy with her earlier, he suggested that maybe they weren't looking for a man with a tattoo of the numeral eight, but ink of the infinity symbol. That was the emblem used by a fundamentalist group known as the New Apostles, he said, and Marisa realized that he was onto something.
And in fact, Jace's realization about the infinity symbol led the FBI to tracking down the man who might have been behind the bombing, the deaths, and Alec's burns. Now, The Irrational of course wasn't going to solve its central mystery early in the fall portion of the 2023 TV schedule after just five episodes (available streaming via Peacock Premium subscription), so it wasn't a huge surprise that the man was found dead before he could be questioned. But it did lead me to start looking at Jace a little differently.
Up until the final moments of "Lucky Charms," I was actually thinking that Jace was pretty great at navigating his relationship with Marisa while she was immersed in her ex-husband's tragic backstory, which involves spending a lot of time with Alec. He wasn't perfect, but perfect characters aren't much fun on TV, right? He made amends for how he reacted in their first scene together in this episode, and she might never have realized that the tattoo was an infinity symbol rather than an eight without his insight.
But it's surely no coincidence that the man they were looking for died right after that breakthrough, and right before the feds arrived to take him into custody. They were only "a few hours too late," according to Marisa. Whether it was because the man got a heads up that he was about to face consequences and decided to end his own life or somebody murdered him and staged a suicide, it really seems that a person within the FBI tipped off the bad guy(s). I'm confident that Marisa wouldn't do that, and Jace is the only othe FBI character at this point who could fit as a mole.
And maybe I watch too many crime dramas, but I would say that Jace is the only character with the motive, means, and opportunity to tip off the bomber(s). His position as an FBI agent would provide the means and opportunity; the motive could come from him being a lot less okay about Marisa and Alec than he seems. Plus, providing the insight about the tattoo would make him appear less likely to leak the information about the breakthrough. He may have made himself look like a standout agent while also tipping off the bad guys.
Admittedly, there are holes in the theory, but I think there are enough factors to warrant some suspicion. If The Irrational isn't building up to a reveal about Jace as a mole, then the show is still doing a great job with the dynamic between him, Marisa, and Alec. He's being supportive of Marisa and Alec, despite his discomfort with them spending so much time together dwelling on the past, and he's clearly a competent agent.
Whether or not there's more to Jace than just a competent agent and love interest for Marisa remains to be seen; The Irrational hasn't dismissed Rose as a potential love interest for Alec and his rock star vibes, which I was happy to see after the previous episode introduced Karen David in the role.
Keep tuning in to NBC on Mondays at 10 p.m. ET to see what's next for Jesse L. Martin's character... and whether the life-or-death sequences are only just beginning for him on The Irrational. One episode director shared how Martin is "nothing even remotely" like other TV leads, and that seems to be the case for his character as well.
