The A-Story (How Martin Saves Vikash’s Day, and Jake Makes a Very Talkative Friend):
It’s a domestic scene that starts this episode off. Lucy is making bagels, Jake is eating them with honey, and Martin doesn’t understand why his son isn’t throwing a fit over the offending breakfast meal not being quartered and toasted. It’s obvious he’s undecided on whether he likes this development, seeing as it is progress… but progress at the hands of someone who wasn’t him.
Lucy and Martin both talk about how they have a hard time sleeping, though Martin looks far worse because of it, and then Lucy flounces off with Jake in tow to put up posters about Amelia’s disappearance despite Martin’s reservations about how these posters may lead Aster Corps straight to him and Jake. But Lucy is not great at forward thinking, and I’m positive this is going to be problem in future episodes.
Martin goes to Breakwire without Jake after he finds out about Calvin’s breakdown in the last episode, and decides he must speak with him because he thinks shared enemies is a common enough bond to make them allies. He thinks the best way to do this is via Vikash Nair, who was the man I called Mostly-Beardless-Yusuf in the last episode recap because he was not named. In any case, Martin finds footage of Vikash talking with Calvin, and decides that Vikash is the only way to get to Calvin Norberg.
While this happens, Jake and Lucy put up posters around an amusement park. When they run out, Jake gets accosted by a very excitable young girl named Soliel who very much wants to ride The Scrambler, but can’t do it alone, and her mother gets sick on rides. Lucy let’s Jake go, and the two have fun, mostly because one likes to talk and the other one doesn’t talk at all. Meanwhile, Lucy can’t get a word in edgewise with Soleil’s also very talkative mother.
During this time, Martin continues to be the one to live dangerously, and he manages to find Vikash and hijack his cab by pretending they are both going to same place, and that he’s in a hurry. Needless to say, the ruse doesn’t last long, and Vikash quickly realizes that Martin is a reporter (though he’s not really, he still admits to it). But, Vikash has other things on his mind, like the kidnapping of his father, so he gets out of the car with a suitcase of money to pay off the “ransomers” and hopes the Martin will screw off. Martin, of course, does not.
The exchange ends in a firefight, the death of Vikash’s bodygaurd (who followed him against his express wishes), and the coming together of Martin and Vikash as partners in the endeavor to get back at Aster Corps. Sort of. Fortunately, while Vikash and Martin escape, their old cab is still there, despite the gun shots and dead bodies…. which I would normally comment on… but seriously… this show takes the fun out of a sarcastic “Gosh, what a coincidence” because it’s been established time and time again in the show that coincidences are never just coincidences.
Before Martin, Jake, and Lucy reunite at Breakwire, Martin talks to Vikash and figures out why Vikash’s estranged and probably crazy father had been kidnapped at all. It turns that Vikash, when he he heard Calvin’s speech, pulled his money from Aster Corps and invested it into Calvin directly. The kidnapping was about making a cover for killing Vikash as a ransoming gone wrong, and not about the money they were demanding. Vikash realizes all of this is true, and becomes sort of an ally to Martin.
But then Lucy comes and wants to ask Vikash questions, which distracts Martin from paying attention to Vikash. She and Martin get into a fight about her pushing things she doesn’t understand too hard, and she stalks out of the building which causes Jake to strategically freak out. I say strategically because the little scamp totally stole Martin’s cellphone during this exchange, and slipped into Vikash’s pocket when the entrepeneur rushes out to try and save his father while Martin tries to console Lucy.
Fortunately, Martin’s phone has a GPS, and they follow it a weirdly open spot that seems like an awful place for “ransomers” with guns to kill someone. Lucy’s phone has an incredibly good zoom fucntion, and from afar, the two take pictures of the exchange and email it to Martin’s phone and the police. The “ransomers”, who have Martin’s phone at this point, are understandably upset by this, and run away, leaving Vikash and his father safe.
There, Lucy’s part of this story closes when she sees shadows on the walls. Vikash thought his father made crazy sculptures, and was unaware that they were a means to an end, which is the beautiful shadow artwork of Lucy’s daughter Amelia. In any other television show would instantly mark him a creeper, but inTouch, it’s sort of… dare I say… touching?
On the way home, Jake gets out of the car while it’s stopped and finds Soliel’s school, where he starts to play with her and then meets her grandfather, who we find out is important in the C-story. However, Martin’s story ends with he and Lucy looking up to the stars after he gets a phonecall from Calvin, who is willing to talk to him about Aster Corps. It is also where he gives the line that ties into the episode title, “Closer”.
Lucy asks if they know where they are yet in regards to finding Amelia. Martin simply replies, “closer.”
The B-Story (How Guillermo Fell in Love and Murdered at the Same Time):
While I don’t recall hearing Beardless-Cesar’s name, the FOX website has him pegged as Guillermo Ortiz, a religious zealot. So, like Mostly-Beardless-Yusuf before him, I’m going to have to relinquish my monikers and go with convention.
Guillermo’s story starts with him tattooing numbers from “The Amelia Sequence” in to his bicep, with no clear indication as to why aside from the dude is crazy. Then you see his next target, a beautiful architect by the name of Rosemary Mathis.
From then on, his story follows his flirting with Rosemary at a gala by constantly insisting she’s a blasphemer, something she seems to think must be a positive because she keeps hanging out with him for the rest of the evening because he complemented her work by talking Jesus… sort of… It’s not an easy conversation to recount, but it gives more insight into Guillermo’s motives, which are completely religious in nature.
Last episode, we are led to think he kills people who can see the pattern of the universe. In this episode, it’s made specifically clear that it’s those who see the pattern but do nothing about it that he dispatches from this world.
We find this out after Guillermo and Rosemary flirt a little bit more, and after we learn another thing about Guillermo’s past, which is that his scar came from a woman he hurt very deeply.
The last scene has him taking Rosemary home, where she tells him she no longer wants to be an architect because there is no creativity in it for her; that she just sees the pattern and manifests them. Guillermo almost lets her walk away saying this, which I assume because he fell in love with her, but instead goes back to murder her while insinuating he will murder anyone if they do not fulfill their fate.
The C-Story (How Frances Left Her Job to Become a Babysitter):
Frances’ story starts with Amelia, only we don’t know that it does until the very end. The first scene in Frances storyline is Amelia freaking out, and wanting to go home. There, another unnamed individual makes a phone call and declares mysteriously that Amelia knows the difference between this and the lab, and that they need to go with their original plan. They don’t specify what that is exactly, but apparently it means that Frances has to quit her job as a librarian and leave her boyfriend Carl to go underground.
Carl, of course, is very grumpy and unhappy about this, and while she begs him to let her go because she’s afraid that the people who want her will use him to get to her, she relents in the end and gives him her phone number.
The last time we see her is when she finds Amelia, and comforts the girl with a book about tides and telling her that she is also all alone.
Her story ties in with Martin’s in the end, as Carl turns out to be the grandfather of Jake’s new friend, Soliel.
That’s it for episode two! Will catch you next Friday for episode three!
