Multiple storylines come to a head, and one to a resolution, in last week’s episode of “Walker.” With three more to go, there’s a sense of urgency and foreboding about the Jackal case that is really adding to the tension – and I am here for it!
Cassie and David and… Ed?
We get some more shirtless Luna with Cassie, and some nice banter. He wants her to meet his best friend Ed, saying she’ll like him, they both love to talk.
Spoiler alert: She does not like him.
Extra spoiler alert: Neither does anyone else. Except Luna, for some reason I can’t fathom yet at all.
The three meet up at the SideStep, Ed taking issue with how much Austin has changed and with the trendy drink Cassie orders (a Boulevardier, which many “Supernatural” fans immediately associated with Steve Carlson, a musician friend of Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles – that’s a line in a song of his.) Anyway, Ed and Cassie don’t exactly hit it off. He criticizes the SideStep too. Cassie defends it, saying they’re about to open another, in fact.
Ed: Where, at the airport?
He is NOT happy to hear that Luna is moving to Austin. Like not at all. Luna blurts out he’s moving “because I love her” and Cassie overhears.
He tells Cassie that Ed had a pretty rough relationship with his mom and can get defensive; that they were there for each other and he’s afraid to lose that.
He also admits that what she overheard is true.
Luna: I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but there’s no denying it. I love you.
Twisted Family History
We pick up Stella’s story with her taking off to find the necklace, while Liam confronts Augie about where she’s gone, pissed as hell that she kept lying to him about being okay and desperate to know where she might have gone. August, unfortunately, doesn’t really know. Bonham and Mawline hear all the yelling and August comes clean about the necklace and Joanna Rawlins’ threats.
Anybody who saw Mawline’s face when Joanna’s name was mentioned knew something interesting was about to happen.
Geri calls Cordell to tell him about his daughter being in danger, Liam warning he’s “not in the best headspace”. Geri wants him to come home and help, but he says he’ll go check out a gazebo where she’s hid out before instead.
Liam waves a huge kitchen knife around saying how angry he is about how many times he asked Stella if she was okay and she lied to him.
Geri: Let’s just put the cutlery down, shall we? Liam, just because she’s a grown up doesn’t mean she’s not gonna make mistakes.
Liam: Is this a Walker thing, this blatant arrogance in my family?
Geri: Yes, but surviving against all odds is too. She’s gonna need a lot of forgiveness, so start now.
Liam is so hurt that she didn’t trust him though. Geri sends him out to chop some wood. I kinda love everything about that scene, and about the sibling-esque relationship that Liam and Geri have.
Stella goes to the house, determined to find the necklace. Joanna meets her there – with a kidnapped Sadie!
Me: Wait, does she know that’s her own granddaughter!?
Alas, she does. Stella offers the letter from Hoyt with info about the necklace in exchange for Sadie, but she says no deal, only if the necklace is put in her hand. Instead, a rather frighteningly smug Stella gets out a lighter and burns the map and the clues, which are now only in Stella’s head.
Her henchman punches Sadie and Joanna says not to kill her – that prompts Stella to tell Sadie just who Joanna is, so now they both know. Have to say, I was entirely with Sadie being incredulous about her terrible luck with family because, wow. Your own granddaughter?? That’s messed up.
Sadie: I have heard some messed up family drama, but granddaughter hostage has to take the cake!
Joanna: Family don’t mean Jack to me. We’re strangers.
You can see that she’s not as unfeeling as she claims at times though, thanks to some stellar acting from Sharon Lawrence. When they pull up to the old falling-apart house that was where Joanna lived with her son Hoyt when he was a child, there’s a moment of wistfulness, perhaps sadness at what might have been but never was. I can’t help but feel for her a little.
They search the old house for the necklace, which leaves Stella and Sadie on their own to talk, which seems like a dumb thing for Joanna and her henchman to do, honestly. (But it gives Stella time to tell Sadie to follow her lead when she gives the signal). When the henchman finds them, Sadie says she was just asking Stella for a tampon, which accomplishes her purpose of throwing him off. Pretty smart, Sadie!
Sadie finds an old photo of little boy Hoyt in what was his old room, and Joanna finds her there, and I foolishly think that Joanna is going to soften because come on, that’s her son! And her granddaughter! But the point of this episode, I think, is that people get warped by the unfairness of life, the cruel and undeserved and awful traumas that happen to them. Sometimes they can’t get past that, and all they can do is try to make other people suffer the way they did.
Joanna: You’re the reason all this is happening. I’ve been looking for this necklace for years, but it wasn’t until you took that DNA test and I got the alert I had a granddaughter, I thought maybe he left it for you. The cops stole the necklace from me – I spent years living paycheck to paycheck and it’s worth $800,000. That’s not fair!
Sadie: Neither is having a homicidal grandmom.
Joanna, in her own weird way, conveys some words of advice to her granddaughter.
Joanna: Nobody in the world is looking out for you. The best thing I did for my boy was leaving.
She seems to really believe that, and it’s pretty heartbreaking.
Sadie: Abby told me that he never really got over you leaving him. You really didn’t know him.
She caresses Sadie’s cheek, but once again, it’s not the tenderness you’d expect.
Joanna: Neither did you, honey.
This is a tragic tragic story arc, honestly. All the props to Saylor Bell for her acting in this episode too. As with Joanna, she puts on a brave face all the time and doesn’t show much emotion unless it’s anger, but there’s a moment there when she thinks she’s getting some affection from her grandmother and longs for it; you can see it in her expression, just for an unguarded second.
Stella finds the place where the necklace was hidden in the fireplace, but the bag is empty. Joanna breaks down sobbing in disappointment, having pinned all her hopes and dreams on finding what she feels is rightfully hers and getting some payback for all the bad stuff that’s happened to her.
Her henchman is just an asshole. Now that it seems clear they won’t find the necklace, he pulls a gun and points it at her, saying she owes him 50 grand. Chaos ensues, and Stella turns to Sadie.
Stella: Signal! Signal!
The girls take down the bad man – I guess those self-defense lessons that Stella took with Bonham have really REALLY paid off!
Joanna runs for the door – and opens it to find Mawline standing there with a shotgun.
Pretty priceless moment, tbh. Of course, she went after Joanna on her own to make sure nothing happened to her granddaughter. We find out that Abeline reached out to Joanna after Hoyt died to tell her, but never heard back. She’s furious that she spent all those years being the mother to Hoyt that Joanna refused to be, only for her to turn around and threaten Abeline’s grandbabies.
The contrast drawn between “Mama Bear” Mawline and Joanna, who wasn’t able to let herself love her child or her grandchild, is stark. And tragic.
Joanna in handcuffs, Abby confronts her, saying that she resented her a lot every time Hoyt cried for his mama.
Abeline: But it was also one of the blessings of my life watching Hoyt grow up. I feel pity for you because you couldn’t see the treasure that you had in that boy, and you didn’t have the guts to fight that legacy like he did.
Joanna: All the years I spent in the system, they tell us we’re not good enough to be mothers. It started to feel true.
Me: Okay, have I mentioned this storyline is really tragic??
Liam and Geri show up, and he forgives Stella immediately, hugging her. She apologizes for lying to him though, and for saying she was okay when she wasn’t. She swears she won’t make that mistake again.
Sadie teases Stella about the signal being her yelling ‘Signal Signal”
Geri: That is the most Cordell thing I’ve ever heard!
Stella apologizes for reading her letter from Hoyt and setting it on fire. And to Sadie for blaming her about not going to the cops.
It turns out that Stella actually has the necklace – she got it from the fireplace before they drove over with Joanna. Which means she was really playing it cool with a couple of unhinged people determined to get it!
She couldn’t hand it over though, she says, because there was a letter in the bag with the necklace that she thinks is for Geri. Geri opens it, then gives it to Sadie, who reads the note.
“Lore says it was given to one of our ancestors by a dear friend, and that Rawlins further gifted it to his daughter, Ophelia. It’s been passed down ever since. I hope to give it to a rugrat of my own one day. I want it to stay in my family. It now belongs to you.”
“Supernatural” fans all loved the “lore says” since that’s what Padalecki’s beloved character Sam Winchester always said. My heart.
Sadie cries. Geri too. Stella hands her the necklace.
Sadie: In the spirt of my Walker-Broussard family, I think it should go back to the museum. Right one last karmic wrong for my old man.
But Where Is Walker?
Cassie, Luna, Trey and James show up at the house too, and they realize that nobody has heard from Walker and everyone thought he was with the others. No one ever heard anything back.
James: Guys, where the hell’s Walker?
Cut to Walker lying on the bed, a ceiling fan spinning slowly overhead.
He wakes up gradually, groggy. He’s in socks, in sweats.
He hears noises in the kitchen and fights to wake up fully, looking sleep rumpled and confused.
He struggles to get out of bed, Padalecki adding the little nonverbal cues to tell us that something is very wrong – gripping the side of the bed to haul himself up.
Slowly he wanders into the kitchen, finding August making breakfast.
Cordell: I feel like I’m supposed to be looking for Stella….
Stella: I’m right here…
Cordell is confused, as the kids banter.
Stella: Do not drag Mom into this…
Someone starts the blender.
The noise startles Cordell, and we see that he’s actually tied up in a chair, the blender being used to make a mush of rotten fruit mash.
The Jackal, telltale black rubber gloves on, grabs Cordell’s jaw and spoons the disgusting mush down his throat roughly. He chokes, tries to wake, but can’t.
The Jackal injects him in the neck with the digoxin, and Cordell hallucinates again, back in the kitchen.
Supernatural fans: It’s just like the djinn episode omg!!
It is, and it’s heartbreaking. It’s what Cordell would want, his kids at home and happy and all kinds of breakfast foods on the table, not just bowls of cereal.
In the kitchen, he rubs his neck, confused.
Augie: Hey mom, Stella’s questioning the integrity of game night, can you come downstairs?
Mom??
Cordell looks up at the stairs, confused and shocked.
Cordell: Emily?
Okay, that was an amazing ending! And next week we get to see Gen Padalecki return as Emily one more time, which is awesome. And heartbreaking, because just like in Dean Winchester’s djinn-induced world, his mom was alive – in Cordell’s fantasy, Emily is still alive too.
It’s interesting (or one might say ‘sus’) that they introduced a new character in Luna’s bff Ed this late in the season. We don’t know who the Jackal is, but we know they had some kind of really messed up childhood and felt helpless. Hmmmm.
As much as the fandom enjoys seeing Cordell a bit bruised and bloodied from time to time, it was hard to see him tied up and helpless and being force fed. Jared Padalecki is SO damn good at making you feel what his character is feeling – so much so that everyone felt a little sick to their stomach witnessing that scene.
But I love love love how dark this show is getting, so I’m not complaining!
Brand new “Walker” 4.11 episode Wednesday on the CW!