The seventh episode of season four of Walker, “Hold Me Now,” explored how choices have consequences, sometimes unforeseeable ones. At times, the choices are easy to discern between good and bad, other times, it’s more difficult. As both a father and a Ranger, the one to make more choices than most is …
Cordell
In an excellent example of show versus tell, Cordell is increasingly affected by the quiet and the fact that he’s alone. When he chooses cereal over bacon and eggs for breakfast, while diving into Capt. James’ journal, he becomes hyper-focused on the case. When their best lead falls through, he seems defeated and even more determined to find The Jackal. He doesn’t join his family for dinner. He even brushes off Abeline’s concern.
The next day, he chooses to do a quick sweep of a defunct zoo as part of a brilliant but desperate attempt for a lead instead of heading to Auggie’s boot camp graduation. He’s proven correct, but in his haste to catch the killer, he doesn’t wait for back up and gets knocked out. This causes him to both miss catching the person and his son’s special moment.
When he focuses on his failures instead of his victories, he heads down an even darker path. Jared so often plays kind, good hearted characters so well with such vulnerability, that it’s easy to forget how brilliantly he plays darker ones.
The scene with Liam and the ending scene are frightening and thrilling. Just incredible work.
With all that darkness, compelling though it was, it’s nice there was the lighter storyline of…
Cassie and Luna
These two bring lightness to an otherwise incredibly dark story. Watching them fall in love had been delightful. This episode, Cassie has to choose if she wants her and Luna’s relationship to be public. She worries that with the double standards against women, it may hurt her chances to become lieutenant. David is very understanding. Later, with Cap’s covert approval, Cassie decides to go for it where she, in a sweet scene, grabs his hand.
For his part, Luna has to decide if he trusts Cassie enough to be vulnerable… by showing off his favorite karaoke place when she asks for advice on how to get her mind off the serial killer case.
Watching both Ashley and Justin sing was great, even if the songs get stuck in one’s head. David’s ability to be vulnerable leads to them getting closer, physically, in a very hot scene.
They back up Walker when he decided to check out a lead on the Jackal. Together, they discover the Jackal’s lair, while Walker has a run in the perpetrator.
Their partnership is working well on more than a personal level. Conversely, the two people who have been working together split up for this episode, ending up making vastly different choices are…
Stella and August
After the campus security turned out to be both slow and useless, August finally got Stella to go talk to their dad. Unfortunately, since he is elsewhere, she is met by her grandfather.
Losing her courage, she lies to him, saying after the break in at Geri’s she wants to learn self defense from her dad. Bonham offers his help instead. This has the unintended consequence of causing a rift between Bonham and Abeline. On one hand, August is making wonderful choices. He convinced Stella to finally go to their dad, even though that didn’t work out. He also apologized for missing the dinner last week. Even more proof of his incredible character is when, about to beat the Boot Camp course record on his last day, he chose instead to help a person who was having trouble.
Just by the faces of his family and Drill Sergeant Barnett, it was clear he made the right and impressive choice. But, now he has more choices with what he wants to do with his life. Does he want to enlist? Or does he want to do something else? As Trey says, he has time to make one of the biggest choices of his life.
“Hold Me Now” was a phenomenal episode – one that makes it hard to do more than just marvel at how amazing this show is. The way Walker can have such vastly different scenes yet be cohesive is impressive. The editors are amazing for their intercutting of The Jackal hunt and the Boot Camp course. Cordell’s spiral is so well done, next Wednesday can’t come soon enough.
4.95 out of 5 stars
Photos Courtesy of The CW. Screencaps by Raloria on LJ.
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