Previously: The army ended the war, Stanley and Mimi got engaged, Jake and Emily’s extensions made out and the president is on his way.
Mimi is actually going to work for J&R. Stanley makes her breakfast out on the porch and listens patiently as she waxes ecstatic over bar codes. Aw, love. Hey, remember when they said last week that the president was coming to town? Well apparently he’s going to address what’s left of the nation from Stanley’s porch.
Speaking of new jobs; today is Jake’s first day as Jericho’s sheriff. Not under his watch are Hawkins and Chavez (aka Parker) who are planning a mission for the president’s visit. It looks like they’re going to try to blow the whole nuclear bomb conspiracy wide open. Unfortunately for the plan, Chavez gets sent out on patrol before getting a much-needed password.
Ooh, so more creepiness from the J&R front. Eric and Emily pay a visit to Grey with J&R’s new US History textbooks in hand. So apparently, everything after WWII is called “The Decline of the First Republic,” in which they discuss the reasons why America failed: namely because we didn’t attack Russia during the Cold War and we pulled out of Vietnam too early. Grey doesn’t really care and just tells Emily not to teach from it if she doesn’t like it. Eric is all, “hey, is anybody else worried about this shady new government with its vertical stripes and hawkish rhetoric?” while Grey’s reply is basically, “blah, blah, blah. Patriotism. Blah, blah, love your government no matter what they do.” Ah, it’s like 2002 all over again.
The president arrives just as Jake spies Lady Hawkins taking off with one of the walkie talkies. The president oozes faux-sincerity all over Grey and Eric and invites Grey to represent the area at the Constitutional Convention. Before Eric can say, “Constitutional what now?” a panicked secret service lady runs inside yelling out “Condor Crash.” This apparently means that the president may be in danger. In this case, it’s because they’ve discovered the missing walkie. Meanwhile, Hawkins is in the mobile command unit putting agents in sleeper holds.
So, there’s a creepy reporter from The Modesto Bee working the president’s visit, and he spins some more tales of the new government. Namely that they control what he reports and what he doesn’t report. Most recently, they had him squash a story on a deadly virus in the interest of “not starting a panic.”
They find the walkie-talkie just as Hawkins is finishing downloading the file he needs in the mobile command unit. The secret service agents come back and Chavez fights them off and allows Hawkins to escape, although Chavez is ultimately captured—but not before he tells Jake to find Hawkins and secretly plants a note on him with the password.
Hawkins is able to open the files and finds out that the bombs were not from Korea as the government claimed, but were in fact ex-Soviet nukes. Now that they have the paper trail to go with the hard evidence (the bomb in Hawkin’s possession), the name of the game is to get it to Texas so they can expose the conspiracy before the Lone Star state joins Cheyenne, making the new government too strong to topple. The problem is, Chavez had the contacts, so now Hawkins isn’t sure how to get the information out. Jake goes back to the skeevy reporter and convinces him to break the news Woodward and Bernstein-style.
--Ooh, except right after this conversation, skeevy reporter just happens to have a mysterious “heart attack” and drops dead. Is it an example of government in action?
At his stump speech, the president does nothing to make his new government seem less creepy, talking about the new flag, the new constitution and a clean slate. Even Grey is starting to look a little uncomfortable. The crowd seems to be going for it though. Isn’t that always the way?
Oh hey, remember Chavez/Parker? Turns out that he killed the soldiers trying to transport him and escaped. Sounds like somebody is going to be in trouble—and that person is probably Beck, who turns out to be working for Valente, who admonishes him for losing Chavez and not being able to locate the other “terrorist,” Sarah Mason (who unbeknownst to them was killed last season). Valente is disappointed, so he’s bringing in a contractor to take over day-to-day administration of the town while Beck tracks these folks down.
So Stanley gives Mimi an early wedding present by confirming that her entire family is, in fact dead. Awkward. They had J&R try to track them down, but they came up with nothing. She tries to be a good sport about it, but come on.
Hawkins meets up with a newly-free Chavez, who is on his way to Texas to meet up with his contacts. Hawkins asks him about a “Project Boxcar.” Apparently it was on the disk, but the password wouldn’t open it. Chavez says he has no idea what it is, but it sounds like it’ll be coming up again soon.
The episode ends with the new Contractor pulling up in a Hum-Vee with a creepy “Raven Wood” crest on the side. This can’t be good.
This is all well and good and while I like the parallels being drawn between post-September 2001 America and post-September 2006 America, I need to echo my wish for last week: more explosions. The trailers for this season made me believe that there would be some major ass-kicking involved, and they need to step up and deliver.
Next Week: That previously mentioned deadly virus? It’s making its way to Jericho.
