Episode 9: Compromised
It isn’t the fish that are biting as we start this week’s episode of FBI. Three friends seem to be on their way for a weekend fishing trip when a car pulls up, a man guns them and all witnesses down before leaving the scene. The wife of the one man runs out and one of the surviving men tells her to call the FBI as he is a Federal US Marshall.
Agents Bell and Zidan arrive on the scene of three dead and two in surgery. They meet with the Supervisory US Marshal, Paul Ackermann, who updates them on the case. Our agents learn that Damon Cruz was in witness protection because he testified against a strong cartel. They were to testify a second time when the car pulled up; the wife has no idea he was in protection.
At the bull pen, Valentine, Mosier and Chazal discuss motives: how did the shooter find them?
Can I get a Witness?
Soon, Cruz dies from his wounds. The only lead is the surviving Marshall (Marshall Ruhde) who insists Cruz did not mess up. There is no way he would jeopardize himself or his family. Ruhde is close to him and says he knows his character.
Ballistics is able to pull a receipt out of the crime scene, discovering it is a generic restaurant ticket. From that information, Chazal narrows down the menu selection to three restaurants, OA entering the third on the list, posing as a “buddy” of the person who placed the order. They learn that the person is Ernesto and OA asks for them to deliver the order again to his address. Maggie and OA tail the delivery guy. It is Maggie who approaches our potential shooter and he runs, only stopping to pull a gun on her. OA arrives behind her just in time, stopping him right before he had the chance to shoot.
In interrogation, OA tells Ernesto he is done, and he should tell them who hired him. He refuses saying the person will kill him. Maggie tries a different route and can get him to admit who gave him Ernesto’s location. That would be Vincent Marino, an old cellmate of his.
We have a LEAK!
However, when they raid Marino’s place, they find he’s dead and has been dead for a while from a gunshot to the head. Looking into his phone records, he has made the most calls to an Amber Turner. They aren’t sure who she is. Is she a girlfriend? A possible AA sponsor (Valentine believes he may be in AA)? From Marino’s files, we know he also stalked her. We confirm she is his sponsor but doesn’t know any more information.
Meanwhile, Bell and Zidan head to Manhasset where there has been another shooting. Two more witnesses are killed and are not linked to the others, meaning this was not a cartel kill. The conclusion is made that someone has leaked the list. At first, suspicions lie on Marshall Ruhde as these are all his witnesses. He is cleared when OA discovers a GPS tracking device on his car. He is horrified but it means they don’t have a lead, so they go talk to the witness’s reason for being placed in the program. Wow, he was the one who got her killed, but only because he received the leak. The guy mentions a white dude “with a sexy redhead”. We’re back to Amber! She is also in witness protection. She admits she is involved, but her partner was involved “only to protect her”. Ackermann is the leak!
Blame the “Sexy Redhead”…
Once they arrest her, Mosier calls Valentine then Bell into her office. They want to use AA against Amber and Mosier wants Jubal to do it… because he is in it, too. But he refuses, says he cannot do that to something that saved him. So, he asks Maggie to head the interrogation instead. She is hesitant but agrees.
Eventually, they get Amber to talk. Marino realized she was in protection and then realized that Ackermann and Amber were dating. He blackmailed them into revealing one name on the list but then got greedy and wanted more. Ackermann took him out, but then realized he could make a lot of money doing this. They decide to speak to Ackermann’s wife who doesn’t believe he could do this, just like he couldn’t of the last time. Amber is not his first!
Switch Up
Maggie gets a call from Ackermann, who is on the run, and says that they must release Amber or he’ll release another name in a half hour. They use the dead bodies of other witnesses to convince Amber into giving up his location and then set up a sting with her when she agrees to help. Then, they follow his directions given to her, with Amber and Maggie switching places last second just before she meets up with Ackermann. They arrest him, and he says they deserved it because they were all former criminals.
The case is closed, there is some funny banter between our agents in the bull pen and a final scene between Maggie and Jubal where she tells him he hopes he doesn’t mind that she used AA in her interrogation to get Amber to crack. He tells her that he couldn’t, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t. The two of them share a smile and the episode is over.
Thoughts:
- Not my favorite episode, I will admit. I would’ve thought I would enjoy this episode more because I’ve always found witness protection intriguing (anyone remember the show In Plain Sight?). That said, it was one of the slower episodes and more mystery than action. I love mystery, but I also think a show such as this needs action to keep it going strong.
Jubal:
- So, Jubal is recovering from an addiction to alcohol. I didn’t see that coming, but it is an interesting idea to toy with. We know so little about our “bull pen” heavy characters (only recently getting information on him and Mosier) so any information is good to me. It does beg the question: how long has this team been together? It seems as if it is a relatively new set up and that we as the audience are learning as our characters do, too. This reminds me of SVU in that respect. We saw the same concept back then. Can you imagine that FBI is still on the air in 20 years like SVU?
Other thoughts:
- First time the show has truly used Zeeko Zaki’s obvious sex appeal with the tank top scene. Is this something we might see again? OA doesn’t seem like the bragging type, but we all know that attractive people, male or female, sells so we’ll see more of it in the future I’m sure.
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