Watching Jericho

Watch the full episode here.

From CBS.com:
While traveling outside the city limits in search of wild game, a truck pushes the truck that Jake, Stanley and Mimi are driving off the road, leaving Stanley unconscious and Jake pinned underneath the vehicle. Mimi realizes that she is their only chance of survival and heads back to Jericho on foot. Meanwhile, Hawkins discovers that he has put his family in grave danger, and Emily and Roger continue trying to rebuild their relationship.

Originally aired: Wednesday March 7, 2007 on CBS
Writer: Nancy Won
Director: Steve Gomer

Recap below the fold…

Jericho, Heart of Winter,recap, TV, television, CBS

Johnston and Eric have been off in search of any game that they could find, but have come back empty-handed. No, get your mind out of the gutter, game as in hunting Bambi. They find Jake and Stanley hanging out at Bailey’s Tavern where they decide that they need to go out further than Johnston and Eric went, and Stanley adds that Mimi is coming along with them, you know, just in case she needs to go out and kill something later on. Johnston gives Jake his sleeping bag and his windproof lighter and sends them off to go and find the town some venison.

Sara and Hawkins are packing some bags to go out and confront the “Old Man” and Sara asks about how long Hawkins thinks it will take to get there. He responds with the comment that the Old Man is only a few hours away from Jericho, which Sara finds convenient. Hawkins says that the Old Man chose the rally point, and that he wanted it in his back yard. I’m still holding out hope that Hawkins is just playing along with Sara to find out what she really knows, but I think he’s fallen and just can’t see the forest for the trees.

Jake, Mimi and Stanley are in Stanley’s beat-up Jeep Comanche on some back road and Mimi’s complaining that her grandmother goes faster than they are, and she didn’t even have a car. Jake comes back with the fact that they’ve got to conserve their gas while Stanley hopes that they make it to the Flint River because it’s “prime white-tail terrain”. (Again, your mind needs to get out of the gutter) They all start talking at once for a moment, and Mimi wins the talk-out by saying that she’s not sure why she’s even out there, since the closest that she’s ever come to the outdoors was the Ralph Lauren section in Neiman Marcus. Stanley teis to equate bargain hunting to hunting, and Mimi laughs at him saying only, “Bargains? At Neiman’s?”. There’s a reason why we call it Needless Markups in my house, and she just proved my point.

They come across a group of now-stray dogs hanging out around an abandoned campsite and Jake finds a bag from a store from South Dakota. Mimi questions why all these people would have come all the way from South Dakota, and Jake points out they wouldn’t have heat, and South Dakota in the winter isn’t anything nice to live through and Stanley concurs with the idea that it’s got to be even worse in North Dakota and Montana.

Mimi wanders around and comes to find the body of a woman, covered with a tarp with a child’s shoe close by her. Jake comes over and takes a look, saying that he had heard over at Black Jack about a mass migration of people trying to out-run winter by heading South. Mimi asks shouldn’t they be doing that too, and we get the opening Morse Code.

Back from commercial, we come upon the threesome counting out paces to work out how many people were in the field. Working out the distance and everything, Mimi speculates that there were about a 100 people there, and Jake responds with the way that the ground is trampled all around them, there had to be five to ten times that who have come through that way. Mimi asks where the thousands that they’re talking about could be going, and Jake says Texas or Mexico, anywhere that’s warmer. Stanley mentions that it would take weeks to get there from where they are, and with that kind of number of people all with the same idea, Mexico could close their borders. Mimi, ever the pragmatist, says that they don’t even know if there still is a Mexico. Stanley wants to try and catch up with them, but Jake vetoes that with the fact that they can barely support the people that are already in Jericho, let alone hundreds more. They decide to keep going out, in search of game to hunt.

Emily finds Roger at the shelter that’s been put together underneath the church for all the refugees that came into Jericho with him, and finds him talking with some of the people there. Emily asks when he left that morning, and he says that it was early, and he didn’t want to wake her because she looked so peaceful while sleeping. He goes on to say that he pulled some boxes from the attic to bring here, since no one there had much of anything left, pointing out that one of the women wearing some of Emily’s old clothes was in Kansas City on a layover when the bombs dropped, while her husband and kids were in Denver. Roger steps up saying that these people depended on him to get them to Jericho and that this was their home now, where he felt responsible for them all. Emily asks what it is that she can do to help, and Roger just asks her to listen to them, and play it by ear, as he’s pretty new to this himself.

Hawkins and Sara prepare to leave, and Sara goes outside to let Hawkins say goodbye to Darcy. He tells her that they should be back before dark, and Darcy asks when it is that she should start to worry. Hawkins promises her that after today, he’s home for good, and she says that she will hold him to that. With nothing more to say, Hawkins shoulders his bag and walks out the front door to meet up with Sara.

At the Green’s, Johnston comes in from his failed hunting trip to Gail fixing the fire. He tells her that Jake and Stanley have gone out, hoping that they will have more luck at finding something than he and Eric did. He asks after April, who’s at the clinic, of course, but she did promise Gail that she would take a nap while there. Johnston says that he hopes that it’s warmer at the clinic than it is there, and Gail says that she thinks that it’s dropped ten degrees in the last hour. She thinks that there’s a storm coming in and they start discussing how to retain the heat in the house with covering the windows and using old sheets to use to cover the seams in the doors.

And this is why I like living in the South, though living in Atlanta means that I’d be radioactive particles by now in the storyline.

Gail pulls out a bottle of whiskey that she had found in Jake’s old closet to show to Johnston, which makes him laugh and say that at least Jake was drinking the good stuff. They both stop for a moment, and Gail brings up a “What do you think?” to him and she goes to get the glasses to drink it up.

Sara and Hawkins arrive at the Old Man’s headquarters, going in as a SWAT Team would (what do I know, I just watch a lot of television), finding the secret room trashed beyond belief, parts of all sorts of electronic equipment in varying states of destruction and a dead body to go along with the chaos of the room. Sara wonders why they didn’t just take the equipment instead of destroying it, since it would be worth millions after the EMP discharge. Hawkins says that maybe they didn’t have enough time or just didn’t care about the stuff. He sorts out that the body had been dead for a few days, and Sara says that they just heard from him the day before.

Does this mean that’s the Old Man? Because he’s not very Old, though he is very dead.

Hawkins replies with the fact that they heard from someone yesterday, but that doesn’t mean that it was him.

Jake, Mimi and Stanley start wagering on the first kill, with Stanley ante-ing up a dozen eggs and Jake giving up two hours of chopping wood. Mimi offers a tax return consultation, and Stanley counters with foot massages for a week, for him, not for Jake.

Jake tells Stanley to stop because there’s a black truck (Silverado?) blocking the road that they’re on. Jake gets Stanley to turn around, and the truck starts following him. Here’s where we get the Deadly Chase Sneak Peek from the previews on cbs.com, with the truck barrelling up behind them and starting to ram them until they run them off the road and cause the Comanche to flip, throwing everyone all around and Jake out the window where he was sitting.

Meanwhile Sara says that the dead guy couldn’t have known what had hit him (Umm, it was a slug between the eyes… I think he probably had an idea) and Hawkins says that he must have trusted whoever it was that killed him. Hawkins realizes that most of the hard drives are still viable, and he starts to test them to see if he can find any information on the other operatives out there. Sara and he start to banter about domestic bliss, with Hawkins saying that there isn’t much bliss there as he finds the information that he is looking for, which are folders with the operatives names on them. Showing Hawkins, Mason, Chavez and Miller as “Whereabouts Unknown” and Woodworth, Ritts and Pierce as “Terminated”, we hear the scary string music and we cut to…

Emily pouring a cup of tea for one of the refugees, who starts spitting out anecdotes about Emily that Roger told them all as they were walking to keep them up and moving, asking her not to be mad at Roger for telling them those things. She goes over and tells Roger that she’s going to go home, and Roger says that he wants to stay there for a little while.

Gail and Johnston are toasting to Jake, speculating that six months ago, they wouldn’t have thought that they would be toasting Jake now. Johnston replies that God Knows that Eric wouldn’t have been hiding a bottle, which Gail agrees with. She goes on to say that Johnston and Jake are more alike than either of them would admit to, and Johnston starts reminiscing about hunting with Jake when he was a child, and he says that he was always afraid that Jake wouldn’t remember the good times from his youth, only the bad things. Gail says that she’s sure that Jake remembers those good times and that’s why Johnston means so much to him. When Johnston notices how bad the wind sounds outside, Gail hopes that Jake and Stanley are alright out there. (Why did Johnston or Gail never say anything about Mimi? Writers, I’m calling you out for forgetting about her)

Mimi wakes up to the wreck surrounding her, and can’t seem to wake up Stanley at all. She crawls out of the wreckage to find Jake bleeding badly from a head wound and not able to get up, but at least he’s conscious. The black truck comes back, and before they can see her, Jake tells Mimi to run off and hide in the bushes, which she does as he tries everything to throw some water bottles into the brush and grab for the pistol that is just out of his reach before the guys from the truck can get to where they are. Thankfully he’s on the other side of the Comanche from the guys, though he’s pinned down by the truck on his leg so he’s completely stuck where he is. Jake plays unconscious if not dead for the guys as they take everything they can lay their hands on before taking off with most everything that the three of them had, including Stanley and Jake’s heavy winter coats. After they leave, Mimi comes out from the brush and tries to get Jake to help her move Stanley, which is when he lets her know that he’s completely trapped by the wreck of the truck.

Hawkins finds surveillance footage of one of the terminated operatives, which includes the guy’s daughter, whose body is lying next to his in the photo. Hawkins knows that they’re going after both the operative and their families, and that Darcy and the kids are not safe. He sees a shadow off to the side, and with the graphics program that he’s using to look, isolates the shadow and shows the man that’s currently hiding outside of the the house that they are in, listening to everything that they are saying to each other.

Mimi finally rouses Stanley, who’s ankle is completely messed up, but ok enough for him to hobble over to where Jake’s trapped and try to move the truck from his leg. Stanley and Mimi don’t have the strength to move it, and Stanley doesn’t realize that the guys in the black truck have taken everything from it that they could carry, including the shovels and jack that he wants to use to try and dig out Jake’s leg from under the truck.

A clean Emily sits in her robe looking over photos from Roger and her travels around as Roger comes in from the shelter. They talk about the things that they said to each other the last night before the bombs, knowing that both of them have changed so much since then, Roger especially. Emily says that in seeing how he interacts with the refugees that he seems to have finally found himself, and Roger tells her that the only constant since the bombs dropped is that he loves her, and nothing is going to change that.

The threesome on the side of the road are trying to sort out how to get Jake out from under the truck, since the ground is frozen solid and is leeching the heat from his body as they try and sort this out. They know they have to get back to town for help, but with Jake pinned under the truck and Stanley’s ankle sprained if not more, they’re not in any shape to leave. Mimi volunteers to go, since Jake’s said that they couldn’t be more than ten miles out of town and the town patrols come out five miles. Stanley tells her to stay to the shoulder of the road and to hide whenever she sees anything on the road with her. After giving her detailed directions, she takes off at a jog, a flashlight as her only companion.

Hawkins and Sara discuss what they need to do to get his family and them safe, and Hawkins is adamant about not taking off because he has the leverage of the package, which they will never find if they kill him. Sara points out that it’s not him that they will kill, but his family or her to get to him and it. Hawkins realizes while talking this out with Sara that the house itself is a setup and that the whole purpose in this was to get them out to the house. The Mystery Man comes in from the field around the house, and is just outside the door, gun in hand, as they start to leave. Sara asks Hawkins about the package after he tells her that all he needs to do is to get back to his family, and all he’ll say is that it will need to be moved. The Mystery Man, obviously wanting information on the package, disappears and lets them leave.

Stanley grabs a bunch of brush and hay from the surrounding area to pack around Jake, keeping him warm as much as he can. They talk about some of the other scrapes that they’ve gotten themselves into, keeping everything light until Stanley offers Jake some water, which he realizes has frozen through. Jake tries to convince Stanley to leave him and go to an abandoned cabin that he saw about a quarter mile up the road to save himself, but Stanley won’t leave without him, taking off his vest and laying it over Jake. Stanley has faith that Mimi will find help before they freeze to death.

Mimi second-guesses herself when she gets to a crossroads, unsure of which way to go from Stanley’s directions. She gets to the point where Stanley said there should be a large sign showing the way to Jericho, which she finds laying on the side of the road, with no idea of which way it was pointing to show her the way. She takes a guess and heads off in what’s hopefully the right direction.

Night has fallen, and it has started to snow on Stanley and Jake, where Jake is fading fast. Stanley makes him sit up and stay awake, and Jake starts to apologize about taking off without a word five years ago. Stanley tells him that once the planes are up and running they’ll go to Costa Rica and surf and lay out on the beach, trying to keep Jake engaged. He then asks Jake to tell him all about what’s happened in the five years he was gone, asking about what San Diego was like, all to keep Jake from slipping off. He asks what Jake was doing there, and when he talks about flying planes, Stanley says that his grandfather would have liked that. When he quizzes Jake about any girls out there, Jake keeps repeating that she’s dead. Not knowing what he’s talking about, Stanley says that there’s always a chance that whoever the girl is, she could still be alive. Jake keeps asking Stanley to let him lay down, and Stanley realizes that Jake’s slipping away regardless, but he’ll do anything he can to keep him here with him.

The flashlight dies on Mimi as she’s still walking down the road, and she breaks down a little until she pulls herself together to keep moving. Just as she starts to go down the road again, headlights appear in front of her and she dives for the ditch to hide, but not quick enough. The truck pulls up to where she’s lying on the ground, and out comes Gail and Johnston, who came out in search of them when they didn’t come back before the storm came in.

Emily goes looking for Roger, who’s pulling together more supplies for the refugees from their closet. He comes upon Emily’s wedding dress and says that he probably shouldn’t be seeing it. She says that the day’s come and gone, and he replies with the thought that it could come again. She decides to come with him to drop off this new box of supplies.

Gail and Johnston, with Mimi’s directions, find Stanley and Jake on the side of the road. Gail covers Jake up with a sleeping bag and rouses him while Johnston pulls Stanley up to get him to the truck to warm up. Johnston realizes that they aren’t going to be able to move the truck off of Jake without a lot of help, and sends Gail off with Stanley and Mimi to get help while he stays with Jake.

Hawkins and Sara come into his house, guns drawn, as he shouts for Darcy and the kids, not knowing what to expect. Darcy, unaware of the danger they are most likely in from the Mystery Man, comes down the stairs and tells Hawkins that the kids are asleep, and they are all alright. Hawkins follows her up the stairs, leaving Sara in the front room.

Johnston tries to keep Jake from falling asleep in the cold, and Jake tells Johnston about a little girl in Iraq that he killed. Johnston doesn’t say anything, just pulls him closer to him to calm him down, and in a way, let him know that he’s there for him. Gail comes back with reinforcements, including a bunch of firefighters and Eric, who get the truck lifted enough to pull Jake’s leg from under it and get him on a stretcher to be moved.

Morning’s coming in, and Hawkins goes downstairs to check on Sara to tell her that she was right, and he’s got to get his family as far away from there as possible. He also tells her that when they do get his family safe somewhere, they need to get back into the field to find out the reason behind whoever it is killing off the operatives. Sara asks how he’s going to tell Darcy about him going back into the field, and he says that he’ll tell him after he’s moved them, because she’ll never agree to it if she doesn’t think that he’s going to stay with them.

April doctors up Jake when they’re back at the Green house, loading him up with blankets trying to get his body temperature back to normal. Gail goes to get some more blankets for Jake, and Johnston asks April to leave Jake and him alone for a few minutes.

Jake doesn’t want Johnston to remember what he told him about the little girl in Iraq, and Johnston says that he can’t do that, saying that he’s seen a lot of things in his life, especially in war. He says that men do a lot of terrible things in war, and that he did a lot of terrible things in the war. He wants Jake to know that he can talk to him about it when he’s ready.

Stanley and Mimi leave the clinic, Stanley on crutches for the sprained ankle, and Mimi holding his boot. Mimi admits that at one point she stopped to rest, thinking that she wasn’t going to make it, but Stanley says she did move, and that’s all that matters. They kiss, and Mimi mentions how his lips are still very cold. Stanley says that she can always warm them up, and I have to agree with Mimi that that is a horrible line. When he says that he has others, I wonder if he means that they’re all as bad as that one, or just that he has more than that one. They head back to the farm, and all is well with them.

Hawkins breaks it to Darcy that they are leaving in the morning, but he doesn’t know where to. Sara steps in for a moment on their conversation, saying that she’s going out for a walk. Hawkins then tells Darcy that he has something in his possession that is very dangerous, and that it’s putting them and the kids in danger. Darcy says that she trusts him, and that they’ll go and asks him if he trusts her. When he says yes, Darcy tells him that Sara is not on their side and not to be trusted.

Speaking of Sara, she walks down an alley and meets up with Mystery Man there, who is very familiar with her. He asks her why she’s stalling, because they’ve eliminated the other three targets, and she attacks him quickly and efficiently, snapping his neck while saying that “This one is different”.

How different, we’ll see next week, because that’s when the end credits roll.