Graceland - Episode 10 - Recap - King's Castle

Graceland - Episode 10 - Recap - King's Castle

This new episode of USA Network's Graceland opens a year and a half in the past. The old Graceland crew (back before they were joined by Aaron Tveit's Mike Warren) is out of the eponymous undercover house and is partying/drinking at a bar before we smash cut to Paul Briggs (Daniel Sunjata), now, facing the dead body of someone he assumes is the Mexican drug cartel hitman known only as Jangles (but who is actually Juan Badillo, an FBI agent who is terrible at making good choices). The action picks up from there, somehow!

Outside an FBI questioning room, Charlie watches as Bello is negotiated with. Bello doesn't want to take a plea bargain without immunity. She interrupts the proceedings to make some idle threats, with Bello for some reason still bleeding. Shouldn't he have been taken to the hospital first?? I mean he got stabbed and/or cut up a lot. His shirt is still all bloody. Charlies decides that the last chance the team has to nail Odin is to send Mike undercover in prison, hoping that Bello will cut a deal to lessen Mike's sentence. Mike's eleven stitches leave Briggs a bit hesitant, but it's not really up to him; Mike agrees and so begins a miniature, basic cable version of Orange is the New Black. Very miniature. Briggs calls the prison to schedule a visit (as Odin) with Bello for the same time Charlie is visiting Mike. Mike then proceeds to get his ass handed to him by Bello day 2 when Bello sees Mike and Charlie visiting. Oops! Later, Charlie is studying case materials during the party. Briggs continually prods her to start enjoying the party, so she pops the bouncy castle and leaves.

Early in the day, Mike finds his gut-stabbed body up and out of bed. Downstairs at Graceland, Johnny is trying to plan a party for DJ, so he tries to enlist Paige's help. When she sees Mike, she makes an excuse and bounces. See, last week she learned that Mike is at the house to investigate Briggs, so now she doesn't trust him. Paige confronts Mike privately during DJ's party, so Mike comes clean about Briggs being a junkie. Oh wow, I promise than was not an on-purpose pun just then! Johnny's party planning goes a bit south when DJ finds a bounce house brochure on Johnny's desk. Johnny fixes the, uh, fixing tho. He gets a bounce house for the living room and some strippers to fill the bounce house. Meanwhile, DJ is at the bar alone with some whiskey. He's soon joined by his son's new dad, who is in the doghouse with DJ's ex-wife. Their talk inspires DJ to go to his "surprise" birthday party... but not actually! He heads, drunk as Hell and in the middle of the night, to see his ex-wife and have a talk about them. She finds out DJ has been talking to her new man, which infuriates her. She slams the door in his face. When DJ gets back to Graceland, the bounce house is popped and the strippers have mostly left. DJ punches Johnny in the face, and the two gets in a tussle. Johnny is furious at DJ for not appreciating his housemates more. This whole DJ/party plot was incredibly stupid and out of place! The emotions at the end of it make some sense, but who cares! There's only two more episodes in the season after this! Get back to the crime plots!

Mike gets back to the house from jail all beat up, and is immediately called into FBI headquarters. While Mike thinks he's getting a commendation for the Bello arrest, he obviously isn't because come on. The FBI man tells him Badillo is missing and interrogates Mike about the possibility that Briggs was involved in the disappearance. Mike gets a call from Bello in prison, and so arranges a visit, cover blown and all. Bello just ominously reminds Mike that his evils done undercover are still his. Mike tells Briggs he's been investigating him for the past three months. Briggs asks what he's turned up, and Mike says it's just the addiction. Mike then lets Briggs know about the agency's suspicion that he's involved with the disappearance of Juan Badillo. Briggs doesn't break, since he's actually never heard of Badillo, but later a search in the FBI database confirms Briggs's worst nightmare: He's guilty of murdering Juan Badillo, and didn't even realize it.

This week was a mixed bag for me. On one hand, the Warren and Briggs plot has some major movement. On the other, half the episode is the dumb DJ party filler plot, which would be fine on a network sitcom, but which is unacceptable on a cable crime drama. This seems to often be the case with this show, but this week's episode was an especially poor example. I'm hoping the last two episodes of the season are actually focused on the crime-solving! In two weeks, check back here for another recap! We'll find out together.