- Title: Graceland – Magic Numbers
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While Charlie (Vanessa Ferlito) and Briggs (Daniel Sunjata) attempt to ease their guilt by providing for Pantillo’s widow Kelly (Brianna Brown) by taking on a dangerous, an not-all-together legal, endeavor involving a would-be heroin supplier, Mike (Aaron Tveit) begins to have second thoughts on keeping Jakes (Brandon Jay McLaren) in the house when the agent’s drunken depression nearly costs them their last attempt to connect the Solano Cartel to the buses uses to smuggle drugs into the United States.
The pressure from Washington begins to bear down as Mike and his team continue to come up empty with any proof that the cartel is moving drug shipments through the passenger buses. Installing Jakes as a mechanic in the shop where the buses are kept gives the team one opportunity to discover the truth. Although they fail, Jakes stays sober and on-point long enough to make a discovery that just may save the investigation and Mike’s ass.
Although the bus storyline and the Briggs/Charlie undercover operation take up most of the episode, “Magic Number” also continues Johnny‘s (Manny Montana) attempts to ingratiate himself with the not-quite-sane Carlito Solano (Erik Valdez) and Paige (Serinda Swan) continuing to search for the missing young girl she promised to protect and trying to connect the cartel with the human trafficking of young Eastern European women first used as drug mules and later sold as sex slaves.
The tensions in both Graceland and Washington grow as Mike continue to come up empty even causing his D.C. girlfriend (Emily Rose) to put her own career in jeopardy to buy him more time (unaware of whose room her boyfriend has been spending his nights in lately). Jakes’ discovery in the final scene ends the downbeat episode on a postitive note although Briggs’ storyline involves only more heartbreak (but at least he’s able to keep the new damage from Charlie and carry the baggage all himself this time around).