"Haunted, episode 1x06: Nocturne" Staring: Matthew Fox, Russell Hornsby, John Mann, Michael Irby, Lynn Collins Guest staring: Rose Abdoo, Shawn Christian, Doc Duhame, Stephanie Wing, Michael Miranda. Previously on Haunted: Simon tried to kill Frank. Simon died. Simon tried to kill Frank again. Marcus thinks Frank might have some supernatural ability but still somehow hasn’t figured out what it is. Dante tells Frank that his ability to see dead people makes him “glow in the dark”. Due to technical difficulties I didn’t see this episode when it originally aired. This does not, however, keep me from feeling a strong sense of déjà vu when the episode opens with Frank waking up in some strange bed covered in blood. Mark Snow plucks a few creepy strings of “hey, I think I’ve scored this exact scene before”. Mulder...sorry, Frank looks around the room, which looks like a small tornado blew through it recently, and checks some sort of ugly bruise on his side. “Oh, this is not good,” mutters Captain Obvious. You think? He stumbles into the bathroom to wash the blood off and a creepy ghost appears in the mirror. Except it’s not really a reflection. More like he’s actually *in* the mirror. Frank stares for a minute, then finds a woman lying next to the bed. Before we can wonder if he got really drunk and followed some girl back to her place he tries to lift her head and gets blood all over his hands. She wakes up, tries to scream and scramble away from him and passes out again. He grabs the nearby phone and calls for an ambulance. The 911 operator asks where he is. He looks around, dazed, and says “I don’t know.” Of course not. As I said in the last episode: what an original plot device! Sorry. My sarcasm meter is running a bit low. Opening credits. Hmm...I wonder if the Se7en style credits on this show explain why I had a dream recently that featured Matthew Fox as a serial killer. I was the bait law enforcement used to trap him because I fit the victim profile. I’m not sure what the psychological implications of all of this are and I’m not sure I want to know. Jess and Marcus watch the cops question Frank. Frank says he’s never seen that woman before and he has no memory of how he got in the room with her or really anything that happened last night. Needless to say, the cops find this pretty suspicious. Officer Cocky says they have a word for stories like that. No, not bullshit. “Convenient”. And a really bad alibi. Officer Cocky starts talking about all the shit that has happened to Frank recently (i.e. dead kid, lost job, failed marriage, near death experience) and basically makes it clear that he thinks maybe Frank has finally snapped and started committing random acts of violence. In a soothing voice one would use on the terminally insane he says Frank can talk to him. Frank, visibly ticked off, snarls that he doesn’t *remember*, damnit. Cocky decides to try a different approach and reveals that the woman was a cop and everybody knows how strongly law enforcement feels about cop killers. Frank asks what motive he could possibly have had. Cocky’s partner slaps a pill bottle on the table. I’m confused. The victim was a drug dealer? Frank notes that they’ve been to his apartment and says the pills help him sleep. Cocky wonders if they’re more to help him forget. He says come on, Frank was a cop once, what would he think if a suspect told him a story like this? My guess is it wouldn’t matter because people don’t usually kill other people they don’t know for no apparent reason no matter what sort of drugs they’re on. “Conspicuous. Which is really just a fancy way of saying you are so full of...” Jess bursts in to announce that the interrogation is over. Cocky sneers that he’s not done. He and Jess have a little spat about right to council and defense attorneys and Cocky starts to make some sort of impotent threat before Frank buts in to say that if he finishes that sentence they’ll have to charge Frank with assault. This doesn’t really come off as threatening as he probably thinks it does. He asks if he’s under arrest. Cocky says nope, you can go. Yeah, in what world would the fact that he was found with the body and covered in her blood not be enough to hold him for a day or two? “What a jerk,” Jess spits as she stomps out onto the street, Frank trailing after her. Frank rightly points out that he’s just doing his job and, honestly, he has every reason to think Frank is guilty. Pause. “You know that I would never...” “I know,” Jess says somewhat unconvincingly. He thanks her for coming to his rescue. She says yeah, well, here’s the bad news: Cocky is with Internal Affairs and they’re building a case against Frank. Also? Apparently the woman isn’t dead yet but she’s in a coma and the doctors aren’t holding out much hope. She says if this goes from assault to murder Frank is definitely going to need a lawyer. “What’s her name,” Frank asks. Jess splutters that he’s not LISTENING to her, damnit. Frank insists that if he’s going to be accused of murder he would at least like to know the victim’s name. Common courtesy and all. Jess says Angela Adams, but he needs to stay away from this. Yeah, you were married to him for how many years and you don’t see the futility of this argument? Frank enters his apartment some time later with a grocery bag and kicks aside a pile of mail behind the door. Gus barks in greeting. So either he gets massive amounts of mail delivered on a daily basis or Gus has figured out a way to feed himself. I mean...what? Are we even trying to be consistent anymore? Frank dryly notes that he brought dinner – the least Gus could do is clean up a little. Hee. Gus follows him to the kitchen as he adds “what’s it gonna be, Kibbles or Bits?” Gus barks at him like “just feed me you stupid human. Also? I’m not Gus. The real Gus ran off after episode 2. Not that you would notice as you only seem to have me around so I can warn you when a ghost tries to sneak up on you and I would probably have starved weeks ago if I hadn’t figured out how to open the refrigerator. You’re out of bacon, by the way.” Later, Frank calls the credit card company to find out if anything was charged to his card in the last week. Apparently the answer is yes, and they give him the address of the place the number was run at. It’s some sort of storage facility or office building or something. The security guard has his nose in a skin mag and practically jumps out of his skin when Frank appears. Frank asks if the guy’s boss is in because “apparently I’m renting an office from him.” The guard looks blank for a moment, then smiles and says “that’s funny. I didn’t think you did funny.” Frank blinks stupidly and the guard asks if he’s okay. Frank actually manages to roll with this new development and says he’s just tired. Guard says yeah, that’s what happens when you work the night shift...how long has it been so far, a week? Frank asks if the guard remembers what time he left yesterday. Guard says nope and buries his nose back in his magazine. Frank starts to go down one hall before the Guard points out that his office is actually in the exact opposite direction. Frank’s all ‘oh, yeah, I knew that’ and goes the other way while the guard tries to calculate just how long this guy is going to last. The office, like everything else on this show, is too dark to make out many details but we can see what looks like some photo developing equipment and a bulletin board full of pictures of the woman Frank may or may not have tried to kill. There’s a post-it stuck to one of them with a little swirly drawing on it. Frank looks at all of this like ‘maybe I should stop taking those pills with alcohol.’ He hears something and darts around with his gun drawn for a while – something he hasn’t had a chance to do these last couple episodes. He gives up when he ends up pointing the gun at his reflection in a mirror and mutters “great, now I’m chasing my own tail”. He walks away and the ghost he saw before at the crime scene appears in the mirror behind where Frank was just standing. You’re slipping, Frank. Sometime later Frank sits at Marcus’ desk staring at a box of donuts like he just resolved to eat better last week and this temptation is not helping any. He finally grabs a half of one and is just sticking it in his mouth when Marcus comes through the door and says “hey, I was saving that.” There’s a moment where Frank just blinks at him, cheeks puffed out, a quarter of a donut in his hand (by the way, wrong hand Matthew), looking like a kid caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar and I half expect him to say “ih wafn’t me.” Heh. Instead, Marcus asks if Frank has looked in a mirror lately because he’s starting to look like a couple miles of bad road. I thought that’s how he normally looked. He asks if Frank is having trouble sleeping. No, he’s auditioning for a role in a movie that he will ultimately lose to Johnny Depp. (For those of you playing the home game, yes, that is a reference to “Secret Window”. Good movie. Gotta love Johnny.). Marcus has apparently been researching Angela for Frank. He says she was a records clerk for the LAPD and a shy girl who mostly kept to herself. Those last two are kind of redundant, don’t you think? Frank says he spoke to her landlord (when?), who said she just rented the place a week ago. Her former residence was uptown and there’s only two reasons anyone would move from uptown LA to downtown LA: you’re broke or you’re on the run. Frank would like Marcus to get IA off his back while he does some investigating. Marcus says sure, and I’d like a million dollars and a half a dozen strippers. Frank assures him he just needs 48 hours. I would say he would need less since he’s not sleeping but this is *Frank* were talking about. The killer could probably Fed Ex a sample of his DNA to Frank’s door and Frank wouldn’t know what to do with it. Marcus asks why Frank was running surveillance on Angela. Hell if Frank knows. “You know this trust thing,” Marcus says as Frank goes to leave, giving him a very pointed look. “It works both ways.” These two really need to see a couples therapist. Frank’s apartment. Frank is sitting in his office chair trying to read but his eyes keep drooping shut. Then he lets out this funny little snore and the book falls right out of his hands and smacks the floor loudly. This doesn’t wake him up at all. But his left hand starts twitching, takes the pen from his right hand and starts drawing that little swirly symbol all over the newspaper on the desk. The camera focuses on his face to confirm that he is still fast asleep. Gus II realizes he’s not doing his job and barks. Frank jolts awake and frowns at all the little squiggles. Frank meets up with Dante in the park. “So yesterday morning I wake up. I’m in a strange apartment. I don’t know where I am, where I’ve been. And there’s a woman...” Frank, I want you to rewind that back through your head and try to figure out why this is probably not the best way to present your “I’m a murder suspect” story. Predictably, Dante makes the obvious assumption that Frank got drunk and then got laid by some desperate woman who hangs around bars to pick up guys for random flings. Not that I’m passing judgment here. “She was beaten,” Frank elaborates. Dante looks at him like ‘uh...I really don’t need to know what gets you off.’ Blah blah internal affairs blah they think I did it just because I was passed out on the bed covered in her blood. “I think they may be right,” he admits. He shows Dante the newspaper and spews a textbook description of automatic writing. Basically, a spirit tries to communicate in writing through the most convenient person. Also? The newspaper appears to have some sort of magical qualities as it has transformed itself from the full page article Frank was doodling on to a weather map and a small article about how men pay the price for beauty, which I probably am finding more amusing than it was intended to be. And what is up with the temperatures on that map? It looks like the entire Midwest is experiencing 74 degree weather with random patches in the mid 40s. What the hell? “Are we talking possession,” Dante asks. Frank - and every viewer with a working brain - thinks it’s a distinct possibility. He tells Dante about the warehouse and the stalker pictures. “I could have hurt that woman. Maybe even tried to kill her and I wouldn’t even know it.” Hope you have a really good lawyer on speed dial Jess because his defense is looking really shaky. Dante argues that people don’t go against their nature, so even possessed by a malevolent spirit Frank wouldn’t be capable of beating a defenseless woman to within an inch of her life. That and he’s the show’s main protagonist. It’s kind of hard to keep the audience caring about a protagonist who kills people randomly. Frank’s apartment. Something drifts through rooms, looking at Frank’s open books on supernatural crap and pictures of the half-dead woman. Gus II barks at it and then whimpers and totally lets it past him. So he’s either all bark and no bite or he *really* doesn’t care what happens to Frank. Can’t say I blame him, really, given the apparent level of neglect. The ghost of the week morphs through the bedroom wall and stares for a minute at Frank, fully dressed, passed out on the bed. It’s sad and mildly creepy at the same time. Then the ghost just climbs on the bed, lays down on top of Frank and morphs right into his body. I’ll let y’all sort out the Freudian analogies yourselves on this one. Frank jolts awake and sits up, looking right into the camera so we can see that his eyes have turned a murky blue. Marcus is on stakeout outside the building and totally misses it when Frank walks by across the street. He does not miss Frank’s car starting and driving away, however. He follows and takes some pictures of Frank chatting up some girls outside a night club. Little montage of him following Frank all through the seedier parts of downtown LA, talking to people seemingly at random. Frank suddenly disappears down an alley and Marcus follows. Marcus has clearly never seen a movie in his life, period, because even though Frank seems to have vanished into thin air he just wanders on down the deserted alley in the worst part of town calling “Frank?” at the top of his lungs. Seriously, man, do you have a death wish? Frank suddenly appears behind him and snarls “you looking for me?” Okay, seriously? You have to be some special kind of oblivious for FRANK to get the drop on you. You’re slipping, Marcus. “Why are you following me,” Frank asks. Marcus blinks stupidly like “uh, because you asked me to?” Frank punches him, slams him against the wall, sticks a gun in his face and repeats the question. “Frank, just calm down and tell me what’s goin’ on,” Marcus splutters, totally clueless. Frank knocks him out with the butt of the gun and growls “wrong answer. And for the record? My name’s not Frank.” For the audience members who are still not quite up to speed, he steps into a small shaft of light that just illuminates his eyes so we can see that they are still blue. Y’know, in case that clunky dialogue didn’t get the whole “possession” thing across fully. Apparently the demographic for this show consisted mostly of the irretrievably stupid. Morning. Frank is sitting at a booth in the bar downstairs, rubbing his eyes exhaustedly. He gets up when Marcus arrives, gets a look at the giant bruise on his cheek and cluelessly asks “what the hell happened to you?” Marcus just decks him and he hits the floor like a sack of bricks. Frank just chuckles and says “okay, I’m assuming I deserved that. You wanna tell me why?” I pause the episode and go off into my happy place for a while in an effort to forestall the S&M joke this little scenario is clearly headed toward. Marcus tosses him the pictures he took last night. None of them are at all incriminating, they just give Frank an explanation for his perpetual exhaustion. “What do you think,” Marcus asks. Frank says the composition is a little weak but... “I swear, Frank, if you don’t give me a straight answer instead of your lip, we’re gonna finish this discussion with my foot up...” Happy place. Happy place. Much as Frank would obviously enjoy that, he declines and says he can explain. He then spins a really flimsy story about working under cover on a special FBI missing persons task force and Marcus nearly blowing his cover and tipping off his contact. Marcus blows out a breath and says “wow...I guess that just leaves me with one question.” “What,” Frank asks, clueless as ever. “How stupid do you think I am?” Marcus? I love you. Marry me? He adds “is that the best you could come up with?” Sadly? Yes. Marcus gets the last giggle out of that mental picture and says “now, you’re a good cop...a good partner. And this private eye thing, you’re good at that too. And you’re really good at that thing you do with your tongue...” Oh, just shut up and let me have my fun here. “But this...” he points between them. “It needs work. Now if you need to play me for now, fine. I can deal. But ask yourself this: how far is too far. Now don’t make me choose between you and the job, Frank.” How did I not notice all the slash subtext in this show before? Christ, they’re practically eyefucking and discussing safewords in this scene! Happy place. Going to my happy place now. Lalalalala... Frank’s apartment. Frank is staring at the random pile of pictures and post-its on the case when a neon club sign in what looks like one of Marcus’ pictures catches his attention. It looks kind of like the random swirly pattern acting as a tail on a stylized number 5. “Damnit,” he thinks. “I’m never going to get away from that stupid number, am I? Maybe I should just have it tattooed on my arm or something.” He goes to the club and is immediately confronted by a flamboyant gay Asian sterotype who basically says ‘oh, hell no, not this again.’ “I already told you, I don’t know no Martinez.” Frank has no idea what he’s talking about but would like him to act a little less like a cliché. No, wait, that’s me. Gay Asian Sterotype – or, appropriately, GAS(BAG) – reminds Frank that he already said Martinez doesn’t come here so there’s no reason for Frank to go busting the place up again. He yanks off his light-tint sunglasses to reveal a bruise similar to the one Marcus was sporting. It should be noted that this bruise is on the right side in both cases, which not only suggests the ghost is left handed but kind of sort of pokes holes in Dante’s “can’t do anything you can’t” theory because Frank is right handed. Presumably the muscles in his left hand are not as developed as the ones in his right, which I would think would make it difficult for him to throw a decent punch and leave no side effects that Frank would feel in the morning. Frank just asks GAS(BAG) to save them all some time and tell him what happened last night. GAS(BAG) purses his lips, breathes deeply and says Frank came in looking for some smack dealer named Martinez. GAS(BAG) told him they don’t deal in anything more than a little ecstasy and Frank decked him. Frank asks what this Martinez guy’s first name is. “How many times I gotta tell you, Malone,” GAS(BAG) snips, exasperated. “I don’t know no Martinez!” Frank blinks and asks what the hell GAS(BAG) just called him. “That’s your name, right? Detective Malone.” “Who told you that,” Frank asks. GAS(BAG) gapes at him. “Are you high or something?” Hee. Frank grabs him by the shirt front and snaps “just answer the question! Who told you my name was Malone?” GAS(BAG), who probably figures he’s not paid nearly enough for his, cringes like he fully expects the crazy man to blacken his other eye and yelps “you did!” Cut to Frank’s apartment. The camera operator is clearly in love with Matthew Fox as he lingers lovingly on his face for a full minute while *slowly* panning around to show the computer screen he’s frowning at. We finally see a picture of the ghost of the week accompanying an article about Detective Thomas Malone, who was killed in a drug raid some time ago. Frank taps a key and the printer instantly spits out a perfect color copy of the page. Must be one of those magic Hollywood printers. He brings the copy to Jess and exposits that the guy was IA and found in a crackhouse “last week” with two bullets in the back of his head. The cops thought it was drug related but Frank wonders what an IA officer was doing alone in a crackhouse. Buying illicit drugs? Jess thinks he was working on a case involving cops selling confiscated drugs back to dealers. This is what happens when you’re overworked, underpaid and surrounded by criminals. Frank thinks this explains Angela’s involvement since she had access to inventory. To summarize, Frank says they have one dead and one possibly dying cop linked to a corruption scandal in the LAPD. And the chief suspect is...uh, Frank. “I’m workin’ on it,” he mutters sheepishly. Jess tells him to work faster because IA is snooping around her office and asking her nosy questions about whether or not Frank had temper problems when they were married. Frank just sighs and asks her to do him a favor and look up some drug dealer named Martinez. She asks if he has a first name. He says if he did, he wouldn’t need the favor. Touchy little bitch, isn’t he? So apparently Frank goes to talk to the IA guy leading the Investigation, formerly known as “Cocky”. His name is actually Sykes, by the way. The guy snits that even if he was willing to discuss an open investigation he certainly wouldn’t do it with the NUMBER ONE SUSPECT. Jesus, Frank. Frank says he just needs to know the connection between Malone and Angela. Sykes snaps that Malone was his *friend*, damnit, and he’s not going to help Frank dig up dirt on him to save his own ass. Frank says then help me find his killer, damnit. Sykes snottily suggests that maybe he already has. Yes, because it’s completely likely that Frank wandered into some random crackhouse to shoot a cop he’d never met before. Frank is just as baffled by this sudden finger pointing. “Well, you said yourself you think they were both connected,” Sykes says, ramming his head a little further up his own ass. Frank says look, Renfield, either Angela was in on it or she discovered something she wasn’t supposed to know and when Malone found it and got too close... Sykes sneers that he sees through this little “song and dance” – Frank’s just trying to distract him from the fact that he has no alibi. Yeah, that’s it. Asshat. Frank says his alibi is in a coma. Sykes says yeah, so’s his witness. So one of them is “going to be very unhappy when she wakes up”. Frank just glares at him. Sykes tells him to scram before he has him charged with obstruction of justice. So Frank does what any innocent man would do: he goes back to the crime scene. Excuse me while I bang my head on the desk repeatedly and mutter “stupid stupid STUPID!” As usual, he opts to use his flashlight instead of turning on a lamp or something so we only see a vague shadow moving around behind him. Frank wanders into the bathroom and turns *that* light on. Then he stares at himself in the mirror and tries to summon the ghost. Uh, that’s not how it works, dear. Oh wait, it’s actually working. Huh. The lights flicker, go dark for a couple seconds to reveal Malone’s face, then come back on as Fran Drescher’s long lost twin Chatty Brooklyn comes in the room to see what the hell is going on. “Are you a cop or do I need to call one,” she honks. He says he’s a detective. She recognizes him from the morning that woman was carried out on a stretcher. Of course, she didn’t really know her on account of she’d only been there a couple days. Oh, but she did have a visitor. Came around looking for her when she wasn’t home. Frank asks if Chatty remembers the guy’s name. Was it Malone, maybe? Thomas Malone? Objection, blatantly leading the witness. Chatty says er, maybe... Frank pulls out the article and asks if that’s him. She says oh yeah, definitely. “I never forget a smile.” Frank frowns and looks at the picture. Malone is decidedly not smiling. However IA Cocky Asshat Sykes, who happens to be standing right next to him, is. Frank smiles, thanks her and darts off. Frank’s apartment. Marcus asks if Frank is sure about this. “He’s the lead detective. It’s his case.” Frank says yeah, hence why he’s been able to hide from suspicion. The phone rings. Frank asks Marcus to get it. It’s Jess. She and Marcus have the following conversation. Marcus: Hello? Jess: (Sigh) I should have known. Is Frank still conscious? Marcus: Oh, hey. Yeah, he’s sitting right over here, you want me to... Jess: No, no, I assume his mouth his otherwise occupied. Just tell him the drug dealer he was looking for died last night. Marcus: Okay. Jess: Apparently he tried to actually read a script for this show and was crushed by a falling anvil. Marcus: Yeah, I’ll tell him. Okay, okay, so we only hear Marcus’ side of the conversation. Sue me. But the part about the drug dealer is true. He took two bullets to the back of the head (which is much less interesting). They matched a print found at the scene and issued a warrant. This one time Frank is actually a step ahead. “Should I even ask?” “It’s yours,” Marcus confirms. A second later, some police sirens start wailing in the distance. Nice timing. He looks at his watch and says he’ll stall them for as long as he can. “I’ll tell them when I got here you were already gone.” Before Frank can kiss him in gratitude, Marcus adds that sooner or later he’s going to have to stop running and they’re going to sit down and have a little talk about everything. “No more lies.” Frank says uh-huh and bolts as the police sirens get louder. He hides behind a van apparently *just* before the cop cars pull up and darts away as they enter the building. He corners Jess in a parking lot, scaring the crap out of her. She chastises him for taking her by surprise and he apologizes that he didn’t have any other way of getting to her now. “You couldn’t call me to meet you somewhere?” she gasps while her heartrate goes back to normal. Beat. Blank look. “Okay, there was another way,” he admits. Hee. She starts ranting that he’s in serious trouble now and he should have just hired a lawyer and stayed the hell away from all of this and WHY THE HELL ARE YOU SO STUBBORN? WHY?! (I would go with typecasting). He cuts in to say Angela is in trouble and he needs to know what hospital she’s at. Uh...yeah. So you can be right there when the person who tried to kill her finishes the job. You know California has a death penalty, right Frank? Jess is confused. Frank tells her about the IA mole, AKA Sykes. “Oh god,” Jess moans. “Angela came out of her coma this morning. Internal Affairs sent someone over to question her.” Frank says he needs to borrow her car and just snatches the keys from her hand before she can argue. “I guess I’ll be taking a cab,” she mutters to herself as he drives off. ‘Now I remember why I divorced him,’ she probably thinks. Hospital. Frank finds Angela in her room seemingly sleeping peacefully. He just notices the unconscious or possibly dead guy in the corner when Sykes runs in and tackles him right onto Angela’s bed. This, naturally, wakes her up. She screams and darts away while they fight. It’s really dark, as per normal for this show, so it’s kind of hard to see anything but it’s pretty obvious Frank is losing badly. He passes out on the floor and has some sort of dream or memory or something of finding Angela in the apartment and Sykes sneaking up on him and beating the crap out of him just like this. The scene is pretty short and he says absolutely nothing in it, and yet even if we hadn’t gotten a clear look at the blue eyes it’s obvious it’s really Malone in Frank’s body and not actually Frank. All I’m saying is: Matthew is a good enough actor to convey the total change in character with a couple facial expressions – the blue eyes are annoying and redundant and obviously only there to get the possession thing across to the dumbest audience members who still, after being beaten over the head with explanations, don’t understand why Frank is acting so weird in every other scene. Case in point: Frank snaps to on the hospital floor and we get a lingering shot of the blue eyes. Then he sits up, grabs his gun and calmly and efficiently pulls it apart to check the bullets. We don’t need to see the blue eyes to know that he looks more like a Terminator than Frank right now. Give your audience some credit, damnit. Angela is wandering around in some warehouse-like basement like what the hell kind of hospital is this that they allow patients to just wander off like this? Why haven’t they been sued yet? Sykes corners her and she shrieks “why are you doing this?” Yes, let’s take a moment for a long, rambling Bond villianesque exposition. That should give Malone-as-Frank enough time to find them. Sykes sneers that he knows what happens to cops in prison and he’s not about to let her send him there. She wails that she won’t tell anyone. He says yeah, sure, and whips out a syringe. “You killed him, didn’t you,” she hyperventilates. No, it was just a freak coincidence, lady. I know you just woke up from a coma, but do try to keep up, won’t you? Sykes says Malone found her – how long would it have taken before he found him? “Not long, Dick,” Frank says menacingly from somewhere offscreen. Really? His name is Dick? How subtle. Dick whips around and uses Angela as a human shield, pointing the syringe at her neck. “You know I’m good with this thing,” Frank says mechanically of the gun he has pointed at Dick’s head. Dick tells him to stay right there. Frank takes about five steps closer and taunts “or what? You’re gonna kill her?” Dick makes increasingly weak threats. Frank points out that even if he kills her he’ll get a bullet to the forehead before he can get two feet. He keeps moving closer until he has the gun practically up Dick’s nose. “Your problem is you think she’s leverage. She’s not. This is just you and me, Dick.” Dick finally wonders aloud why this virtual stranger keeps calling him Dick. “You don’t know me!” Aaaaaannnndddd...the camera closes in on Frank’s eyes so we can see that they are still blue because it’s not blaringly obvious by now that this isn’t Frank. I can probably excuse this one because it also lets us see the totally insane glint that suggests he’s trying out his Martin Riggs impersonation. Oh, and it also gives us a good look at the blood under his nose left over from the fight. “What’s the matter? You don’t recognize your old pal?” he chuckles. Yeah. I half expect a tiny bird to come flying out of his mouth any second and chirp “cuckoo!” Dick lets go of Angela, who runs, and then drops to his knees, hands in the air. “Are you gonna kill me now,” he whimpers. Frank grins and tells him not to worry because dying isn’t all that bad. Then he starts blinking and shaking his head as Frank’s consciousness returns, ejecting Malone. I assume his eyes change back too, but I’ve stopped paying attention to that annoying detail. He gasps, takes a couple steps back and switches the gun back to his right hand. He orders “Sykes” to stand up and spews a clichéd line about it “all” being over. Thank God. Oh, wait...he wasn’t referring to the episode? Damn. Sometime later there’s a little gratuitous moment of a battered Angela thanking an equally battered Frank for saving her life twice. Guess that takes care of the assault charges then. As she’s wheeled away Marcus notes that Frank is looking pretty “chipper”. Frank clunkily says he’s just feeling like his old self again. “You wanna fill in the blanks,” Marcus asks. The retort that leapt to my mind in response to this is so shockingly dirty that I won’t write it down. Suffice to say it involved Frank inviting Marcus to fill in something else. Ahem. Anyway, apparently Dick convinced Angela she was helping with an investigation instead of...what else was this supposed to be about? Drugs? Guns? Fuck it. I don’t care anymore. When she figured it out she went to Malone but Dick killed him before he could talk. Jess arrives, which Marcus takes as a cue to leave. Frank hands her her keys back and assures the car is still in one piece. The smell and the weird stain he couldn’t do anything about. Just kidding. Jess states the obvious: IA has backed off of Frank and Angela has agreed to testify against Dick. There’s a clumsy wrap up involving a lot of ego stroking, but I’ll just skip it. Frank’s apartment. Simon stands in the doorway of the bedroom watching Frank sleep and smoking a cigarette. Mark Snow plunks a creepy, dissonant melody on a piano. Simon saunters over and dumps his cigarette in the glass of water by the bed. Before he can try to pull a Malone or something Frank bolts upright and looks at the water glass. No cigarette. Huh. So that was supposed to be a dream, I guess. And it wasn’t the least bit cheesy. Nice. If they could have kept doing this maybe the show would have lasted a full season before being canceled. Frank stumbles into the bathroom and dumps all of his sleeping pills down the toilet and then just stares at himself in the mirror for a minute, hangs his head and...I assume this is where the episode ended but my copy cut out rather abruptly here. Whatever. I’ll just go back to my happy place until the next episode.