McCall needs Dante’s help to catch a serial killer before they strike again.

Viewers up to now will be familiar with the precarious balancing act that McCall has been playing with her personal life, her professional life and walking a thin line with she considers necessary to succeed in her mission. Something has to give and the road to that comes through the welcome return of Dante.

The stress fracture starts as a case of a missing person escalates rapidly into the hunt for a serial killer, through a link McCall reaches which had previously been overlooked by the authorities. This touches smartly on to the social lifeblood of the show; the fact that the missing person is a Black woman and one of many ignored and not investigated not just here, but in general. Worse, the police are not willing to touch it at first, fearing public embarrassment over seeking justice, without significant persuasion from one of their own, a pinnacle of integrity in Dante. To her credit, McCall instantly recognises that she absolutely needs Dante’s help to get anywhere with finding the missing woman, especially on a time limit.

We see a considerably more pressured, less composed McCall in this episode, a combination of her warmness towards Dante and the case bleeding over to her personal life, in which for a moment she fears the abduction of Aunt Vi after a date. I am inclined to wonder if this is foreshadowing a later episode, however the reason for McCall’s more frayed nature is later revealed. One of Dante’s sources is a male prisoner doing time for a crime he not only didn’t commit, but was also a victim of, in that it was his own partner murdered, not only calling back to the unreported women but also an echo to her father’s own struggles with a false accusation.

McCall and Dante initially work together as well as they ever have. Yet McCall is gaining notoriety amongst those looking and has the attention of the district attorney, leaving her repeated attempts at anonymity severely undermined, apart from with her clients. Further, the longer the two collaborate, the more their methods and ideals increasingly clash. Dante’s moral compass and family values are sufficiently strong as to be endearing to McCall, yet significantly do not rub off on her, at least this week. She instead reciprocates by repeatedly crossing lines, threatening his professional integrity and placing him in danger, each time worse than the last. Between the two there are tender moments but she crosses lines Dante can not, and will not.

The conclusion of the episode sees McCall go too far, apparently alienating Dante as an ally, but pushing him into a position of antagonist as he willingly accepts the DA’s offer to bring her in. It leaves us beautifully poised for more of McCall’s mask to slip with those she cares about, though also the high chance she’s going to need to indebt herself even further with the Company.

If I have one issue it is that whilst chasing down the killer, she steals a swipe card from an office employee who calls for security and also traps herself as he escapes. We never see the resolution of that one, whether she rapidly escaped or had to talk her way out of being detained. I wanted to know how that one played out. 42 minutes though, I guess.

Verdict: Another excellent episode on the tails of the previous one, leaving plenty more questions than answers. 9/10

Russell Smith