Taking their time to wade through the marshland of New Orleans, eco-warrior turned health & safety officer Mina took her time to get to know “Liz” whilst Tandy kept asking probing questions that almost always led back to Mina's father. It wasn't as subtle as Tandy's been shown to be in similar circumstances and you'd be forgiven for thinking Mina should have clocked something was up much earlier. Thankfully Mina was proud of her father and all that he accomplished before his accident, though she was somewhat guarded of him due to the fact that said accident left him an invalid. You see I was wrong to think he was dead after last week's episode – though I asked about and other people were left with the same impression – Ivan Hess was very much alive, though not exactly kicking. Precisely what happened to him was left a mystery for now suffice to say that Mina in no way holds Tandy's father responsible for the accident. In fact when she eventually figured out who Tandy really was, she allowed her to sit with her father, perhaps out of sympathy as Ivan was one of the only living connections to the father Tandy lost. When Tandy touched Ivan and saw his hopes, something she earlier felt she couldn't do to Mina as it would be a gross breach of trust on this woman who had been so accepting of her, she found them sealed behind a metal door wrapped with vines. And if that symbolism was a little too cryptic for you, how about an extra layer of Tyrone's shadowy dark force energy added for good measure as well? Perhaps if Tandy can work out a way to open that door she can bring Mina's father back and figure out exactly what happened on that fateful days years ago. Ivan Hess being the way he is also solved the puzzle of Mina and Tandy's respective relationships with Roxxon. No need to discredit and disgrace a man who literally can't speak up for himself I guess eh? Thankfully Mina seemed to be an ally in all this, not only because of her inherent empathy but also that fact that she sees that Roxxon isn't all on the up and up despite collecting a paycheck from them. In one of the biggest progressions in the Roxxon angle, Mina revealed to Tandy that Roxxon was drilling for something under New Orleans that burns 10 times better than oil and twice as hot. Mina had designed a system of pressure relief valves across the city to handle the drilling – three guesses as to whether that might figure into the perils of a season finale – but we got to see first hand how Roxxon suits were cutting corners to save money at the risk of the whole thing blowing up in their face. Mina set about correcting this but crucially it showed that though she may be on the payroll, she's on the right side in this fight.
Detective O'Reilly went deeper into Connors's world, trying to narrow down the hub of his operation by pretending that she was simply trying to squeeze some dealers in a certain patch of the city without knowing who their supplier was, as if she didn't know it was Connors himself. It was a cool little cat and mouse game from both detectives as Connors tried to stay one step ahead of O'Reilly, leading her up the garden path into an ambush to get her off his back with O'Reilly deliberately giving Connors plenty of space to figuratively walk ahead as she needed to see just how deep the rabbit hole went. It may have gone better or indeed worse, had Tyrone not got caught up in it all.
You see in trying to get in with his brother's friend Duane, Ty had the oh so genius idea of following one of his bag men, trying figure out what went down when they sold their product on the streets of New Orleans. When Connors and O'Reilly shook said bag man down, Connors surreptitiously sending a message back to Duane before O'Reilly caught him in the act of roughing up a perp, Ty grabbed the dropped bag. In doing so he had an in after presenting it to Duane he was forced to come clean and get real with Tyrone over his complicity with working with Connors. Turns out he was there the night Connors shot Billy so he not only knew from day one who killed his friend, but that Ty was telling the truth about the cop who had shot him when the local P.D. covered it up. He never came forward though for fear of his own safety. Whilst Ty's parents moved and got their surviving son into a fancy school, Duane had to do whatever was necessary to survive their old neighbourhood, including going into business with the very man who killed his friend.
Ty wasn't given a real opportunity to work through his anger in any real way however, as Connors engineered a little incident that would solve his problems one way or another. Entering Duane's place of work first, Connors gave him gun and told him to kill O'Reilly when she entered behind him. Either Duane would die and the trail for whoever supplied the drugs in that area would go cold, or O'Reilly would be killed and the heat would be off his back. As it was, the trained police detective drew quicker and killed Duane, an act that left her visibly shaken. Ty cried out, leading Connors to chase him down an alley gun drawn. As Ty fled for his life, afraid that just like his brother he'd become another statistic with his history written once he'd been killed by a white cop, he triggered his powers and teleported away, in full view of Connors. Where to? Well right back to Tandy of course, back to his other half, in her church hide out. Torn apart by a mixture of grief and rage, Ty couldn't find comfort in his new found friend, as Tandy found herself unable to console the anguished boy, as their powers made it impossible to even give the poor guy a simple hug. The world pushing them together yet pulling them apart indeed.
Throughout the episode we were treated to little inserts with Evita and her Auntie Clarisse doing a sort of tarot reading. Whilst the story unfolded, we were reminding by these women with an attachment to some kind of voodoo power that the history of New Orleans is cyclical in nature, building towards a release, followed by some kind of calamity. At the heart of was always a “divine pair”, sometimes siblings, sometimes lovers but Auntie Clarisse was certain Tyrone, her niece's man, was definitely one half of this divine equation. A revelation of great foreboding as in the end, only one could ever survive.
Written by Nick Whitney, CLOAK & DAGGER Beat Writer
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