- Title: Battle Creek – Man’s Best Friend
- IMDb: link
While the episode’s B-story continues poking into how Milton Chamberlain (Tad Hamilton) found himself transferred to Battle Creek by sending Erin (Liza Lapira) to an FBI seminar in Detroit, the main plot of “Man’s Best Friend” concerns an elementary school student found with a kilo of heroin in her backpack. Despite multiple attempts to get the truth out of the girl and her parents Russ (Dean Winters) and Milt are unable to learn the truth forcing them to track down multiple leads including the recent incursion of Dominican drug dealers into the area and the possibility that the girl’s uncle, a local cop, stole the drugs from the evidence room.
Like the previous two episodes “Man’s Best Friend” continues the competitive themes between Milt and Russ along with highlighting their different views of the job and life in general. Despite Milt’s more optimistic view of the world, which allows them to make several important discoveries in the case, once again it’s Russ’ suspicion that actually proves correct. (I’m not sure what that says about the message of the show.) As for the “truth” about Milt, the episode’s reveal isn’t at all revealing as Milt’s big secret turns out to a not-so-sordid affair concerning his boss’ wife. Although the episode keeps the thread open as to who actually approved Milt’s transfer, I’m hoping the show puts this subplot to rest for the foreseeable future (if the show manages to stay on the air that long).