- Title: Mind Games – Apophenia
- IMDB: link
A disgraced researcher and failed whistleblower (Marcus Giamatti) hires Ross (Christian Slater) and Clark (Steve Zahn) to convince his former colleague to use his access to come public about his former employer’s dangerous product. However the man’s wife has a different story to tell including her husband’s history of alcoholism and crazy behavior which got him dismissed from his job and makes everyone but Ross to doubt their newest client who (despite the burgeoning success suggested at the end of last week’s episode) is also their only client.
With Clark going crazy after seeing a coffee pot reminding him of his father, resulting in the out of control scientist abandoning a plan with a high degree of success before it every begins and going wacky in the middle of a department store, it falls on Miles (Gregory Marcel) to come up with a back-up plan involving linking Micheal Jordan to the man’s professional ethics as Beth (Katherine Cunningham), seeing this side of the man she loves for the first time, agrees to stay with Clark and help with his drug therapy. For the first time Clark’s wackiness gets very serious rather than just off-putting or amusing. It’s not a route I think the show should take very often, but it works well to ground the character.
Seeing more than a little of himself in his client, Ross decides to swap out Clark’s pills to get his input on the strategy and save the case. The consequences of his actions put an unstable Clark behind the wheel of the car with Beth with tragic results. Along with fleshing out a little of Miles’ past by introducing his disapproving parents (William R. Moses, Carolyn McCormick), and showing us just how much Megan (Megalyn Echikunwoke) has Latrell (Cedric Sanders) wrapped around her little finger, “Cauliflower Man” shows both the audience and Ross that Beth isn’t going to abandon Clark at the first sign of trouble. However, the episode’s final scene will cause the need for some serious explanations from Ross which could threaten not only the pair’s partnership but Clark’s love-life as well.