Scheduling quirks meant that I had to catch a later airing of this episode than usual. Combined that with mandatory Daily Show and The Colbert Report viewing and the recap is a little rushed this week. I apologize in advance for the shorter than normal analysis.
This week’s episode ends as the last one began, with Larkin flipping her SUV. The vehicle is on its side in shallow water. Larkin is pinned in the her seat by her seatbelt and the radio is just out of reach. She tries a number of ways to free herself, but all she manages to do is cut her hand up on a piece of glass she tried to cut the belt with and then cut her foot kicking out the windshield.
As Russ, Dave and Jesse arrive home from their swamp adventure, Russ is radioed by Scott. Scott was supposed to meet Larkin for a story and she never showed up. Russ radios her and begins to worry when he gets no response. Russ radios the sheriff for assistance and Tom is quite willing to help out. They then set off in search of Larkin.
Back at Russ’ house Jesse is less than thrilled when Mariel, Kira and Rose stay up and announce they are staying for breakfast. He gets into one of his pouty modes for a while, acting quite coldly towards everyone until Kira pulls him outside to go turn on the generator.
Once they are alone, Kira confronts Jesse about his attitude towards his mother and we find out that Jesse is rather bitter about his parents’ divorce. He blames Tom for the breakup but when Kira asks him why he doesn’t provide any reasoning.
In the swamp Russ and Dave find Larkin’s SUV but she is not in it. The sheriff gets there as well and offers to send divers in the water just to be sure. Russ agrees and then decides he is going to try to find Larkin. He and Dave quickly pick up on her tracks and begin to follow her.
Larkin, trying to find her way back to town, comes across a Volkswagen with a rather dead body in it. Presumably the man was driving in the hurricane and ended up with the rather large branch impaled through the windshield and himself. She pulls his body out of the car and tries to start it up but apparently it didn’t hold up so well after the crash and it won’t start. She does get some snazzy new boots from the dead guy though (her shoes were lost somehow during the vehicular escape).
Aided by the power of dead guy boots, Larkin makes it to a road where a truck is driving by. She flags the driver down and tells her that she is pregnant, she’s worried about her baby and she needs to get to the hospital. The man refuses but she gets in the truck anyway and says that she needs to go to the hospital.
Meanwhile Dave and Russ find the Volkswagen with the dead body beside it. They notice the boots are missing and they rush off after the tracks. They quickly get to the road and Russ deduces that Larkin probably got a ride from someone. He radios Tom who agrees to have a car waiting at the end of the road to meet whoever may be driving out.
Larkin is driving to the town with the man who picked her up. She tells him that he is a fisherman and the two talk a bit about their pasts. The man tells her that he will take her as far as the main road but that he cannot take her to the hospital.
A short while later Larkin is feeling a lot of pain and the fisherman insists that they stop at an abandoned fruit stand to see if they have a bathroom for her. Larkin goes into the bathroom while the man stays outside with his truck.
A short while later we see a car, quite similar in appearance to the one that was following Larkin, drive by. And a little while after that Russ and Dave stop at the fruit stand where the man is now working on his truck. They ask him if he has seen anyone drive by and give a description of Larkin and her situation. He tells Russ and Dave about the car he saw drive by and suggests that Larkin may have been in it.
Russ and Dave radio Tom with what they heard from the mystery fisherman. As soon as Tom is done speaking with them, he radios someone but the scene cuts away before we can find out who that someone may be.
After Russ and Dave drive off, Larkin asks the fisherman if anyone was there as she thought she heard something. He tells her that there was not. Oh and that the truck is conveniently not starting. The two talk for a while and he tells her about how his wife’s pregnancy saved his whole family. Larkin picks up on an inconsistency in the fisherman’s story with his earlier claim of his son’s age. He says that he just forgot but Larkin is suspicious and tired of waiting for the truck to be fixed.
Russ and Dave get to the main road and meet up with Tom. He has stopped the previous car and confirmed that Larkin was not in it. He tells Russ and Dave that they said they were insurance adjusters and they had just gotten lost. They decide to double-back and check for Larkin again.
Back to Russ’ place again as Mariel insists on talking to Jesse. She tells him that she loves him and wants to know what is bothering him. He decides to tell her what has been bugging him for a very long time. Apparently back when Russ and Mariel were stilled married and Jesse was a small boy he saw Mariel and Tom kissing. Hence the blaming Tom for the divorce. Mariel assures her son that Tom had nothing to do with the divorce and that Russ and Mariel had grown very far apart. Jesse is still not too happy with her answer.
Larkin is still waiting for the truck to get fixed and she decides she can’t wait any longer. The fisherman assures her that the truck will be fixed soon but she elects to walk to the hospital. She does not get very far however before she collapses. The fisherman catches her and notices that she is shivering. He tries to give Larkin his coat and a bloody knife falls to the ground. When he sees that Larkin is staring at it, he claims it was from fishing but she runs off and locks herself in the bathroom.
It’s time for Mariel to get back to work so she starts to leave. As she is getting into her car, Jesse approaches her and says he just does not want to lose her. The two hug as Mariel assures Jesse that he will never lose her.
Back at the fruit stand, the fisherman tries to convince Larkin to come with him to the hospital as the truck is working now. Larkin is huddled in the bathroom, obviously not doing very well, but she no longer trusts the fisherman. She demands to know who he really is. He responds by grabbing a fire extinguisher and smashes the door down. The fisherman tells Larkin to come with him but she refuses. He then tells her if she does not trust him that her baby will die. She still seems hesitant but is willing to come to the truck with him.
Once they get to the truck, the fisherman confides in Larkin that he really is a fisherman but that he is here working for the military. He shows her a deep-sea squid in the back of his truck and says that it ended up in the swamp because of the hurricane. He hints that the air force thought it may have been more than a squid because of the glowing but that these squid can glow in the dark. He says that he was supposed to deliver the squid to the air force an hour ago and he was worried they wouldn’t pay him if he was late and that is why he didn’t want to take Larkin to the hospital. Larkin is upset about all the trouble she went through for a squid but is willing to go with the man.
The fisherman then sees Dave and Russ approaching in a truck and tells Larkin that he has to go. He assures her that someone is coming and they will take care of her and then he drives off.
Dave and Russ find Larkin and rush her to the hospital. Once there Mariel checks on the baby. After a few tense moments we find that the baby is okay. Well actually we only find out that the baby is alive but everyone, including Mariel, assumes that means everything is okay.
After Mariel leaves, Larkin tells Russ how scared she was during her ordeal. Not sure if it was everywhere, but on the channel I was watching the picture went out for a bit here but the sound was still normal. Larkin then tells Russ that she knows what is in the water. We don’t get to hear what she has to say but presumably she tells him about the squid.
At the end of the episode, Tom shows up at the fruit stand. He meets up with the fisherman and we find out that the sheriff arranged for the fisherman to deliver the squid to the air force to fool them about what is in the swamp. Tom had the fisherman look for Larkin but then had him stall at the fruit stand so that Tom could find out who was following Larkin. He says that it was a couple of people from the air force and that they won’t be a problem anymore. The fisherman asks Tom what is really in the swamp and Tom unhelpfully says that there are fish.
I was actually a bit disappointed with tonight’s episode until the end. The reveal that Tom was working with the fisherman made a lot of sense and tied things up nicely. And as an added bonus, maybe now that Jesse had a heart to heart with his mom, he’ll be spending less time moping around.
It seemed a little convenient that Russ and Dave seemed to always be just one step behind Larkin (and only barely missed seeing her at the fruit stand the first time they went by). You’d think they could make quite a bit better time given their lack of injuries. Still it was forgivable given that the story played out rather nicely.
