After the hospital space at the end of Episode 11 is thwarted by Officer Mahoney, Frank finds himself handcuffed to the inside of an ambulance on his way to jail. While driving, Mahoney reveals that is planning on arresting Madani next. In an awesome reveal shot, a police car that was believed to be backup turns out to be driven by none other than John Pilgrim, who fires at Brett and Frank and drives them off the side of an overpass. The ambulance crashes, with the front of the vehicle being crushed and both passengers miraculously surviving (seriously, Brett would have been crushed).

Luckily, Dinah shows up just in time to let Pilgrim bamboozle her and get away. Meanwhile, Frank saves Mahoney from the soon-to-be-on-fire vehicle. Mahoney insists Frank stay and face judgement, but we all know he can’t do that. Seeing a new side to Frank, Brett lets him go instead of firing to stop him.

Throughout the episode, we see Pilgrim’s injuries progress from each scuffle he’s been involved in. At this point, he already has a huge gash on his side as well as minor injuries that have gone without any real medical attention. He uses the navigation history from the car he stole from Madani to find out where Frank has been staying. Our other main villain, Billy, is having (what a surprise) relationship issues with Krista. After a short argument, Billy leaves to get their new documentation.

Madani smoothes things over, to some extent, with Brett, which is followed by a phone call with Krista. She continues to manipulate Madani, until she makes a major mistake by telling her “This Hell never ends”, a phrase Billy uttered over the phone last episode. Dinah begins to catch on to what is happening.

Frank uses his stolen police uniform to get around the city and makes his way to Senator David Schultz’s place. He believes David to be the villain here, but it has been clear to the audience from his weirdly deeply emotional introduction that that’s not true. On the opposite end, Pilgrim makes his way to the trailer, where he is met by Curt. It was interesting to see how these 2 men interact with each other. John wants Amy and Frank, but Curtis plays dumb and tries to wiggle his way out of the situation. Eventually Amy shows up alone and chaos breaks out. John and Curtis have a brawl, during which Amy grazes John’s leg with a shotgun blast and then escapes. Both Pilgrim and Curt came out of the fight pretty bloody. John came out on top, despite his wounds, thanks in part to some nifty brass knuckles.

Billy has a pretty passive arc this episode. We catch up with him disbanding his gang of Hel-bound criminals, handing them new identities and their share of the proceedings. They want to go after the punisher, but Billy wants to proceed with his new life and tells them to do the same. He then goes to buy make-up flowers for Krista.

Frank and Curt regroup and interrogate Schultz, only to realize that he doesn’t know a thing. In my opinion, the Senator seems far too innocent and I think it would be a great twist if he did end up being a villain and was just playing Frank. Elsewhere, we see John tending to his shotgun wound, and that Amy stowed away into his (Madani’s) trunk with the intent of killing him. However, she doesn’t go through with it.

Madani, clued in to Krista’s deception, decides to pay her a “friendly” visit. When both sides’ intentions are realized by the other, they break into an unrealistically balanced fight. I’m not too sure where Madani’s kick-assery went but she nearly gets bested by Krista before purposefully pushing her out of the window, killing her in the same way her father nearly did. Billy arrives just in time to see Krista take her last breath. This scene is very emotionally well-done, and might have made me shed a tear. Billy, seeing Dinah in the window, is now done with retirement and out for revenge.

VERDICT

3.5 Blue Flowers out of 5

While this episode had several great moments, particularly the emotional ending, there was something off about it. There are a few bad logical issues, particularly with Brett walking away from that accident fine and Madani getting into an equally-matched catfight with a likely untrained therapist. It felt like more of a filler episode, meant to move the plot from Episode 11 to Episode 13. That being said, I’m anticipating the finale quite a bit after Episode 12’s ending.

One-Shots

  • Yeah, I’m pretty sure that Billy is going to kill Madani and that will be the big death this season.
  • How was curt’s face not much more bloodied and puffy? He took several shots to the face with brass knuckles. Come on. Between that and Mahoney walking around after that accident, I think it would’ve made more sense for their injuries to have more of an effect to take them out of action for the finale.
  • I don’t know how it took me this long to realize this connection, but both Billy’s and Krista’s scars came from glass.
  • Not only has Frank lost his betrothed, but now both of our villains have as well. I wonder if this will get brought up in the finale.
  • The songs that played during the freeway shootout and the final scene were really good. Both were about Hell or Satan, which was a common theme in this episode. The song song playing as Krista died implies, to me, that she is indeed going to Hell for what she has done.