A Bullet In The Head
Briarpatch returns this week with a few more scattered puzzle pieces but this time with more clarity around what the full picture is. With multiple opportunistic individuals working around the town, it seems clear now that whatever Felicity was involved in, it goes all the way up the chain of command to the very top. There’s a distinct class war going on here and as Allegra continues to investigate, she finds herself caught right in the middle of this. Episode 7 of Briarpatch begins with Cyrus dismissing Allegra and instead focusing his attention on Eve and her upcoming candidacy for Mayor. As Cyrus and her come to a disagreement, she promises him she’ll get rid of shady business deals if she’s elected. When Allegra questions Eve over her allegiance to Felicity, she tells her they’re on the same team and would never hurt her sister. Whether she’s really being honest or not, remains to be seen. While Gene patches things up with Lucretia back home, Allegra shows A.D. the recording of her sister, which brings them back to Harold whom she asks for help in gaining intel on Eve, suspecting she’s hiding something and wanting to get to the bottom of what this may be. Gene meanwhile prepares his sniper, intending to kill Eve and seemingly fulfill Brattle’s dirty work. While Allegra sleeps with the returning Senator in order to gain a favour, A.D. and Harold bug Kim’s house and plant a “pineapple” outside. This device helps tap into all the Wifi signals in the house and subsequently gain access to every electronic device inside. As they hide it in the flower pots outside, Harold parts ways with A.D. but not before some surprisingly touching words about how people don’t really want the truth. Eve pitches her ideas to the town’s councilmen but they snub her suggestion to empower the “new money” men in town, desperate to cling to the same old figures holding all the power at the top. Harold phones Allegra and fills her in on the details he’s managed to extract from Eve. It turns out she’s been researching Allegra Dill a lot online and another name that’s not familiar to him – Clyde Brattle. With this new development, Allegra heads over to Lucretia’s house where she learns she’s been spying on Felicity. As Gene returns home and finds the trio talking, Allegra and A.D. make their exit as Lucretia confronts Gene over killing her cat. Meanwhile, Allegra heads back to Harold and Cindy’s house and after paying up, sneaks into their bedroom and finds more intel on Gene and Felicity together. She’s distracted before she can dig deeper however, as Harold answers the door and is shot in the head by Lucretia. As police pick her up and take her to the station, a shocked Gene makes coffee for Allegra. As he leaves the room Cyrus arrives and threatens Allegra, promising to put her back into prison permanently. At the same time, Gene discards the USB sticks from Harold holding evidence of him making deals before Allegra visits an increasingly paranoid Jake and discusses the meeting with the Senator. “I need you to win, Jake”, Allegra pleads, as she mentions the meeting he needs to attend. It all comes down to this and with Allegra’s fate now resting in Jake’s hands, everything pivots on a knife edge. There’s plenty left unresolved in Briarpatch this week and slowly but surely we’re starting to understand who’s pulling the strings and who’s responsible for what’s happening. Logic would point to Brattle being the one behind the car-bombings but as we’ve seen throughout the show, nothing is black and white. Could Felicity have been engaged in an affair with Gene and Lucretia decided to kill her as revenge? With Harold now dead it seems obvious he’s not the one to blame for what’s going on and as the episodes tick by, Eve also seems to be a less likely suspect too, especially if she’s teaming up with Jake on the low. With plenty of smartly written visual nods of satire (the World’s Greatest Husband cup as an example), the tone and dark humour of the show continues to shine through the mystery elements. So far so good but the second half of this show, after building up an intricate web of questions early on, is just starting to pay off that patience to deliver a deliciously dark mystery that’s slowly unraveling before our eyes.
