Ioan
We begin with Ioan attractively bleeding out all over Poor Twin, which, let's face it, if you foresee exsanguinating in an unfurnished and dusty loft, doing so attractively is the way to go. FBI Agent Richard Alpert takes Save The Last Cruel Intentions' story at face value and runs off after the masked figure they say was the shooter. If anyone can find a man dressed in dark clothes in the middle of the night, it's him. I think his lower eyelashes might have magic powers.
FBI ARA and Thug
I love this photo. The accidents always turn out to be the best. You can see Thug staggering away and FBI ARA's eyebrows of rage honing in on him. But here's the thing, Thug: If you're going to shoot someone, you need a change of clothes handy. You need to be able to rip off whatever you were wearing and stroll nonchalantly through the streets. Because when the gimlet-eyed and dreamy FBI agent runs out into the street, he's going to zero in IMMEDIATELY on the dude hotfooting it away in a dark jacket and a ski mask. LESSONS.
Thug
Also, here is his face. So anyone who was hoping it was Rich Twin, or Andrea Roth, or ANYONE, is going to be a sad potato today.
Thug
Right when FBI ARA has him in his gun sights, though, a club lets patrons out into the street and Thug is able to get away over a fence. And God knows you can't shoot a gun through a chain-link fence. So instead FBI ARA picks up this Tarot card that dropped from his pocket. It looks kind of like what's going to happen at Ioan's company once the SEC lays down the smack, and a WHOLE lot like what's probably happening at NBC all the time.
Rich Twin
While Ioan is in surgery -- apparently there is a bullet fragment near his spine -- Juliet calls Henry Sad-Sack ask him if he has any room amid all those feelings to pack any snacks in his testicular carryall. He agrees to bring them some supplies, while his Lone Wolf Nipple prickles in consternation, and Rich Twin inexplicably covers herself up with a sheet even though she's clothed. Maybe her chest is also having a feeling.
FBI ARA
FBI ARA is sporting some sexy butterfly bandages and some artful blood on his collar. He helpfully lays out some expository information for his underling. It all goes like this -- well, between this and another scene, anyway: Two employees of Andrew's company are missing or dead (Jamie Martin and Malcolm), but the SEC isn't investigating them anymore, for convoluted reasons I don't remember, but which I think is due to missing evidence because that flash drive got ganked by Olivia somehow. They are going to pursue the Tarot card's origins and FBI ARA is going to seek JUSTICE. Once he's caffeinated. Understandably. There can be no justice when there are withdrawal headaches. When does he sleep?
Poor Twin
At the hospital, Poor Twin tells Henry Sad-Sack all about how Ioan jumped in front of a bullet to save her life. Full marks to SMG for letting them make her mascara look as f'ed up as a normal person's would, because generally, people don't think to put on waterproof mascara on the offchance that someone will jump in front of a bullet for them. I wonder if it's giving Poor Twin a jones for the sweet yam-yam, which is probably the other time her eye makeup looked this jacked. Side note: SMG is so good on this show. They actually all are. They sell the hell out of it.
Poor Twin and Juliet
When the doctor arrives, Juliet -- who was napping with her head in Poor Twin's lap -- pops up and they all celebrate that Ioan is going to be fine, and we are going to be denied any scenes in which he gruffuddly gruffudds about learning to use a wheelchair. This seems like a mistake. He would gruff the UDD out of that.
HSS
Henry Lightbulb-Sack sees all this familial togetherness and finally seems to click that everyone is happier without Rich Twin, if not always better-dressed.
HSS and Rich Twin
So he goes home and tells Rich Twin exactly that. He hates the scheming, he thinks she's a loon, he's tired of all this, he can't even be sure the babies are HIS at this point (this will take away his sack's only real achievement, but... he's right), and he wants her to leave, which appears to make sense since her maternity smock indicates she's either about to join a convent or ordain herself the minister of a church in which the elders all wear great coats and kidnap their best friends, and nobody wants to be associated with that. Rich Twin recognizes HSS's song and dance from, oh, most other episodes, but this time, he appears to be singing it the way I sing Adele in the car: sincerely, and with oomph.
Poor Twin and Ioan
These two crazy kids make up and are schmoopy, and Poor Twin confesses to him about what happened in the pilot, sort of: she was in the loft, some dude tried to kill her, she offed him in self-defense, the body vanished. She is also still wearing her same clothes, even though she was cradling his bleeding body and that shirt is white, so she must smell fairly gnarly right now.
Ioan
Even in repose, Ioan is uddly gruff. He mostly wishes Poor Twin had told him about all that, but of course she couldn't, etc., and now his tender heart is not even protected by a suit and a kerchief. There's not even a makeshift ascot. Just a cloth that's had the softness blasted out of it by a thousand disinfectants, which doesn't even look good with his coloring. WOE.
Silver Fox
Across town, the show pays Gregory Harrison to show up for about six lines' worth of dialogue. Henry Sad-Sack gives him a flash drive. Now, I am hella confused about which freaking flash drive this is, but a reader in the comments indicated to me that this one is the REAL flash drive that Olivia wanted, with lots of evidence on it, and that she unknowingly purloined a fake at some point. There are as many flash drives now as there are SMGs. That seems like a mistake. Especially as they are not as fun to watch and are less likely to haul off and BUFFY PUNCH someone.
FBI ARA
FBI ARA, who is forcing his brows into genuine-seeming arcs of concern, tells Ioan and Poor Twin that he thinks this is all connected to Ioan's company, and that Olivia is missing. Or she's a prime suspect. Or something. Frankly, as much as I love FBI ARA, sometimes I space out during his scenes because he's not full of secrets. He's just got the one secret, and by this show's standards, "I loved my dead pregnant stripper CI" isn't that juicy.
Ioan
Ioan disagrees with me. He is RIVETED. Olivia! Underhanded! Gruff the ffudd!
Poor Twin
Poor Twin hatches a plan. I am only showing you this so you can get a nice look at her coat, for reference later. Also, she seems to have cleaned up her mascara. I guess Henry found some room in his sad sack for some Clinique remover.
Poor Twin and Save The Last Cruel Intentions
Kathryn and Ronald -- oops, Poor Twin and STLCI -- decide he will break into Olivia's loft before FBI ARA can, and see what he finds. He does the ol' pencil-over-notepad trick, which only works in the approximately 1 percent of homes where people use actual pencils and notepads and press down angrily, and discovers the letters ZS and a string of numbers. Poor Twin is confused. Numbers and letters don't anagram. This is officially over her pay grade.
Juliet and Andrea
Back at the hospital, Andrea wants Juliet to leave with her because things are dangerous. Juliet, buoyed by her recently much cuter wardrobe, privately tells Andrea that she is a hideous she-beast from Planet Ruthless, and that she will go NOWHERE with her. Andrea essentially threatens her by saying that what they did will tie them together forever, so Juliet had better get used to it, and she can wipe her tears with all the Benjamins that got beaten out of Tessa. Okay, I might have added that last part.
Juliet
Somehow, though, Ioan and Poor Twin decide Juliet should go because she'd be safer. So Poor Twin catches her packing all these really useful things for Miami, like scarves and wool hats, and tries to make mommy with her. Juliet isn't having it, refusing to open up to a person whose torso looks like a coral reef. Although it's not even the ruffles that are the bad part; I don't mind a ruffle. It's the whole shirt. You can't tell as much here, but it's a very Hospital Issue shade of pink and it's a totally dumpy cut. Rose Nyland owns it, and just gave it to Goodwill.
Random Lady
FBI ARA takes the card to its origin: a dry cleaner that gives them out as coupons (?). There's some dumb story, but basically, after he leaves the girl calls a mysterious person and says, "The card came back," and gives FBI ARA's name. Meanwhile, he's out in his car calling for a full-scale investigation of the business. And it IS clearly suspicious, because any girl who does not immediately give over all information she knows, and her SSN, and her first born, and her grandmother's secret recipe for Bloody Marys, is obviously somebody who is Up To No Good.
Rich Twin
Rich Twin, meanwhile, leaves Henry Sad-Sack a message that none of this is worth it if they can't be together (so apparently his sack can't be ENTIRELY made of sadness). She says she's telling Ioan the truth. And then she shows up in Ioan's hospital room just as Henry Sad-Sack gets the message, conveniently wearing her hair the exact same way Poor Twin was, and conveniently in exactly the same coat. This works to her advantage when Henry arrives in the nick of time, intercepts her, then spirits her away just as Poor Twin pops in to see Ioan. Wearing a different shirt but the same coat, so presumably she just draws comfort from the closeness of Ioan's AB-negative. And Ioan, of course, can't throw her off by asking her what Henry wanted to talk about, or why she looked crazy knocked-up five minutes ago and has suddenly deflated (seriously, when she sits down, Rich Twin's bump is ENORMOUS), because Juliet is apparently missing and so he's not really paying attention to basic social math.
Poor Twin
Juliet went missing at school. Poor Twin realizes that the code from Olivia's notepad is actually the address of Zachary Secor high, and they decide Olivia has kidnapped Juliet. Because it's so much EASIER and MORE RATIONAL to take a hostage than to slip quietly out of the country. They do not think Olivia is very intelligent, apparently.
Henry and Rich Twin
Henry goes home and macks on Rich Twin and her latest maternity shroud, then pulls away and tells her that his sack will not feel truly light until he unburdens it. Of a lie, mind you, not of anything else.
HSS
So Henry confesses that he was in Jamie Martin's hotel room, trying to recover the evidence Jamie stole from Rich Twin. But Jamie caught him, and Henry and his slow-thinking sack had no plan except to flap their arms around and then be all, "Duh, dude, she played you," and so of course a fight ensued. But not a very good one. There's a lot of man-grabbing and then Henry seems to pick up Jamie and throw him down, like he was trying out something he saw on WWE Raw.
Jamie Martin
And then BONK: dead. Rich Twin is like, "Oh well." This should be Henry's next clue that she's a sociopath. Also, this confirms that Olivia did NOT kill Jamie, and in fact, his death is a red herring. Poor FBI ARA had better like fish.
Juliet
Poor Twin, also, figures out -- finally -- that packing all that winter wear meant that Juliet escaped on her own. To the lake house. So she goes there, and Juliet's all bundled up in the cold because I guess they must have stopped heating the place, and she looks too cute in her little snood and it's things like this that make me glad I don't have time to run out and go shopping for things that ultimately would never work on me.
Anyhow: This is important because Juliet confesses to Poor Twin the ENTIRE harassment scheme. Methinks this show is a little worried it's not getting picked up.
FBI ARA
Elsewhere, FBI ARA's men have uncovered a body. FBI ARA thinks it might be Malcolm's. Why?
Malcolm
Because they found his sobriety chip and his driver's licence. I love that this looks more like the Wyoming gun carrying permit (thanks, Google!) than the driver's license, which was changed to this in August 2010, one week before this was issued. O SNAP DETECTIVE WORK. I also love where it claims Malcolm has dark hair even though he's totally smooth-shaven. I mean, I guess everyone has a hair color under there somewhere, but still. AND FINALLY: I appreciate that the props department had him pose for a DL photo that's as wonkus as most people's are. Well, Jessica's is really good, and mine is okay, but for the most part I feel like people's noses always look gigantic and their faces always look sickly and off and so it's kind of refreshing that even Dreamy Malcolm looks like the Lego replica of himself.
WHAT HO, THUG
BUT. The body belongs to Thug, who coincidentally is also one of The Very Bad Man's associates. So Malcolm is not really most sincerely dead.
FBI ARA
However, instead of wondering if Malcolm killed the guy in self-defense, FBI ARA decides that Thug must have killed Malcolm and then... somehow run afoul of a low-hanging pipe, and then wrapped himself up and buried himself. So while Ioan lolls around -- that's with an L, not a capital I, although he's probably Iolling as well -- in his arm sling and admires his child's taste in scarves, FBI ARA tells Poor Twin that Malcolm is probably dead, and then drops his deduction: the Very Bad Man has no idea that Poor Twin HAD a twin, so he thinks Rich Twin IS Poor Twin. Which of course we know she is, but nobody else does, and seriously, if this guy is an all-knowing mobster, do we really think HE doesn't have Google? How hard can it be to figure out somebody's family history, especially when you're combing the nation trying to find and then kill that person? If I can get a picture of a Wyoming gun permit to come up then surely Googling "Bridget Kelly family" will turn up, like, a track meet result from ninth grade. I'm disappointed in you, Very Bad Man. Your strip club must need better WiFi.