- Title: Graceland – Heat Run
- tv.com: link
After Mike (Aaron Tveit) and Briggs (Daniel Sunjata) survive a close run-in with the drug dealers they robbed in last week’s episode, the pair return to the beach house where Lauren (Scottie Thompson) needs the help of Mike, Briggs, and Tuturro (Manny Montana) to take down Kuzmanoff before her Russian assignment is shut down from good. Refusing to let the matter rest, even after she ignores orders and gets her cover blown without getting any results Lauren continues a downward spiral that will eventually put her friends in danger. Despite being ordered to stand down by both the DEA and Briggs, Lauren won’t let the matter rest. Although the team eventually makes the bust, Briggs is forced to take matters into his own hands when he realizes Lauren lied to him and put his entire team in danger.
The episode also give us a sequence between Mike, Tuturro, Paige (Serinda Swan), and Jakes (Brandon Jay McLaren) where his new undercover family give Mike a few pointers on living the lie and the art of creating false personas that won’t be questioned by the average person they meet on the street or a hook-up at a bar. The sequence is used to help set-up the introduction of Abby (Jenn Proske), a recent Georgetown Law student and Mike’s new romantic interest (which is sure to complicate Mike’s life even further).
In the episode’s B-story Charlie (Vanessa Ferlito) runs into trouble with one of her informants, a jumpy meth addict (Christopher Redman) who she is forced to cut loose after he almost blows a a $500,000 bust. Although she tries to set her former CI with a nice safety net she’s not surprised when he fails to follow through. The episode ties in his failure with that of Lauren who is kicked out of the house in part due to the danger she put her Graceland teammates in and in part to Briggs’ own actions to make sure the DEA permanently pulled her from the assignment.
Although Mike continues to come up empty on searching for dirt on Briggs, he does learn a hard truth about his boss in this episode and how far he’s willing to go (even burn another agent) in order to protect the mission and Graceland. I like the show continuing to develop the Paige/Mike relationship and the fact that her spontaneity is what leads to Mike and Abby’s first date. Although Charlie’s story doesn’t really fit in until the end where the show wraps its themes with the main story, it does give us a closer look at the character and the hard choices she has to consistently make to do her job.
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