Major spoilers

Jess sacrifices everything to confront her dad’s killer to find the last piece of the map.

A solid but very much ‘moving all the pieces into place’ episode this week sees lots of forward motion in the plot.

Deducing the Alamo was not the Alamo, Jess and company decide to travel to Mexico in search of the third and final puzzle box. Their plan: find Salazar and convince him he should tell them what he knows before Bobbie can force it out of him. But before they can leave, they must deal with a worse crisis.

Even more furious at Jess outsmarting her and getting away, Bobbie remains hot on their heels. Her learning about the other location from one of the fellow reenactors also under arrest stretches credulity even for this series. The bigger problem for Jess, though: Bobbie frames her for Sadusky’s murder by giving Agent Ross a recording of Jess ‘confessing’ to killing.

Ross clearly harbors doubts, but investigates anyway. Hendricks again claims to support her but skates perilously close to telling her to ignore her hunches. After his earlier mea culpa that he was completely wrong before (in the movie) one can’t help but wonder if he learned nothing from that previous mistake.

Tasha and Oren share a great scene where he reveals he’s hoarded money and burner phones, figuring they will need them. Next we go to Ethan explaining to Jess, to her huge relief, what really happened with Liam. Liam, meanwhile, teams up with his grandfather’s former nurse Myles who had a crisis of conscience and wants to make things right for looking the other way regarding the murder. Myles was the one who saved Liam from Bobbie by pulling him out of the river. Despite plenty of mistrust remaining, Liam cautiously and reluctantly joins forces with him.

Determined to win over Salazar, Jess goes to visit him in the Mexican jail. In a nice bit that emphasizes the show’s theme of the truth being best, Jess tries to talk her way in by claiming to be a reporter. That fails – no press allowed – so she admits she wants to find out about who killed her father. The sympathetic guard allows her inside. In a non-surprise, Jess finds herself face to face with her father himself.

After the requisite recriminations and excuses, he tells her clues to the location of the final box. They end up in the chapel of a centuries-old university/monastery. Playing the lullaby her parents sung her as a baby, they use the chapel’s organ to unlock the location of the third box. The nuns catch them but again the truth serves Jess well. She tells them why they’re there and the nun reveals she too is a Daughter of the Plumed Serpent and is happy to finally relinquish the responsibility for the box to Jess.

Which leaves them with the map, courtesy of all three boxes, and no way to interpret it.

Naturally Jess decides the only thing to do is break her dad out of jail.

This week’s episode kind of just stops. A cliffhanger as usual, yes, but not an overwhelmingly gripping one. Not bad by any means, just not fantastic either. 7/10

Rigel Ailur

http://www.BluetrixBooks.com