This week, Britten gets a lead on a case he was working prior to the accident which split his worlds. His investigation, however, causes problems for the detective.
Hannah: Britten and Hannah are talking with the real estate agent they hired to sell the house for their move to Portland. She gives them a laundry list of repairs to do on the house prior to selling it, and after the woman leaves Hannah and Britten discuss. Britten comments if they do all these repairs they’re not going to want to move, which scares Hannah a bit. But then he confirms he’s going to talk to the captain today.
Britten swings by a Ricky’s Tacos and orders a burrito and iced tea. While he fishes the food cost out of the center console, someone who sounds like the cashier tells him he can’t go to Portland. If he does, then he’ll never find out the truth. He’ll never figure out the Westfield case. And, of course, when Britten pulls up and asks the cashier the guy says he didn’t say anything. Spooky eh?
Britten parks outside the now-empty distribution center. He meets with the building owner, who says the Westfield Distribution company didn’t leave any forwarding information or anything to get in touch with them. And then he opens a cabinet – one of the only things left in the room – and finds a Ricky’s Tacos wrapper. Aroo?
Rex: Dr. Evans is discussing the speaker at Ricky’s Tacos with Britten. She’s surprised the fast-food speaker made commands since it’s usually designed to take them. She says then his subconscious is figuring out a way to stop the move to Portland.
Britten asks Bird about the Westfield Distribution case, since he was out because of his accident. Bird says there was nothing to do, so the case was dropped… and then Britten decides to go look at records. But then they get handed a case.
The case is Sabrina Ferris, a teenage jumper, who landed on a car beneath her apartment balcony. Bird and Britten interview the neighbor kid who saw her jump. The kid tells the story that he went over there to study, and then she was kissing him. They slept together, then she headed up to the roof and jumped. At the risk of being insensitive… that ain’t how I’d want things to end with a girl.
Mr. Ferris then tells the detectives that Tim – the lab partner – is a foster kid who lives at their church. Sabrina was nice to him because she felt sorry for the guy. Britten and Bird head back to the station, where another cop tells them about the vaginal tearing they found. Difficult to spot with a 10-story drop, but it’s pretty darn definitive. Whoops.
Britten interviews Tim, who talks about how he cared about Sabrina because she treated him like a human being. The detective does tell Tim about the injuries and how it looks like she was raped. Tim’s going to get arraigned on the rape charge in the morning – a record at 5 hours.
Hannah: Britten talks to Captain Harper about Westfield Distribution. She tells him to ignore the case because it never went anywhere back 4 months ago. Then Vega comes in and tells Britten they’re up.
The case in this world is a body found in concrete while a company was excavating to clear out a bankrupt hotel. The M.E. is ecstatic because he melted a body out of concrete who turns out to be a missing person from 3 years ago.
Britten and Vega inform the victim’s brother, and find out Pablo – the vic – was in the country only about a month before he went missing. The brother, Jose, agrees to identify the body and when he walks past them Britten notices a tiger tattooed on his shoulder. It’s the same tiger he saw on the car Sabrina fell onto in the Rex world.
Rex: Britten investigates the car Sabrina fell onto. Inside he finds the Tioga College San Diego parking pass. Two days ago, she drove 300 miles to San Diego and didn’t tell anyone. Turns out Sabrina has an ex who’s a freshman down at that college.
He heads to the college and interviews Chris, the ex, about Sabrina. Turns out the same thing happened here that did with Tim – Sabrina showed up at Chris’s door and tried to sleep with him. The difference here is that Chris said no. He tells Britten that Sabrina was religious about her diaries… there’s probably something in there about whatever was happening.
Britten calls Bird and tells him to get the DA to hold off on sending Tim to trial for the rape. He explains the new theory that the reason Sabrina wanted to have sex was to hide the fact she was raped and then gotten pregnant. Suitable father and all that.
Hannah: Britten goes back to Westfield Distribution but finds the door locked. He glances at the door and sees Diamond Ferris real estate advertised there; as he walks out, someone watches him go to the car. That person calls a number and the man from a few episodes ago who talked to Harper picks up. The watcher tells the man they might have a problem… Britten came back.
The man, Carl, calls Harper as a “courtesy” to tell her about Britten sniffing around. Despite her assurances, Carl tells her that plans are already in the works. Uh-oh.
Britten and Vega head back to the worksite and meet with the supervisor about Pablo. The man doesn’t remember him, and goes off a bit about illegal immigrants. Vega starts getting upset, so Britten sends him away to talk to the rest of the workers. Britten meanwhile follows the guy into the office, where he threatens the man with calling OSHA in to go over the code violations. And then the dude tells him about a man named El Diablo who caused some trouble before he was fired. So Britten decides to visit a bunch of worksites to see if El Diablo caused any impression.
Rex: Britten wakes up in the middle of a voiceover about following faint trails from the other world. He thinks back to the voice coming from the Ricky’s Tacos speaker, and then inspects the Westfield Distribution building again. While he’s there, Bird calls in to tell him he was right about Sabrina Ferris – she was almost 4 weeks pregnant. Which of course means that Tim is perfectly innocent of the rape he’s charged with.
Bird and Britten go over to Sabrina’s house, where they meet with Sabrina’s father. They ask to read Sabrina’s journals, but the father isn’t convinced she kept anything about being pregnant in there. Britten and Bird search for the journals, but then Britten sends him out of the room. And that’s when he points out the gashes in the floor to Bird. Looks like Sabrina dragged the dresser in front of her door… a lot.
They bring Mr. Ferris into the station, where his lawyer berates them into letting Ferris go. Since they don’t have the journals or any other proof before the DNA test in 12 days, they really don’t have anything.
Britten is not interested in sending Ally, the younger daughter, home with her dad… so they bring her into a interview room where Captain Harper talks to her woman to woman. Ally breaks after Harper tells her about being strong, and informs them the assaults didn’t start until after their mom died. Which releases Tim, and puts Mr. Ferris behind bars. Victory!
Hannah: Dr. Lee discusses the nature of Britten’s subconscious preventing him from leaving by bringing up this old case he has to reopen. He mentions the concept of pentimento, where art historians find an older work under a newer one. Britten then relates this to the tiger tattoo on Jose’s back… realizing this means Jose is the one called El Diablo.
Britten heads to Jose’s house, and the man immediately takes off running. Britten and Vega chase him down to a neighbor’s backyard.
Vega and Britten keep Jose in the interview room, where they tell him about how all the workers at the construction sites recognized him as El Diablo. Turns out “Jose” killed his brother and took his green card. It was an accident though, and Pablo – Jose’s real name – tearfully confesses that he carried the shame of accidentally murdering his brother all these years.
Rex: Dr. Evans suggests that Britten needs an excuse to stay in Los Angeles, which is why he created the distraction of Westfield Distribution.
Hannah: Dr. Lee says Britten created a mystery he can never solve so he doesn’t have to move to Portland. He believes if Britten takes a step back, he’ll recognize the situation for what it is.
Britten sits in front of the Ricky’s Tacos speaker and orders a large iced tea. Nothing else comes out.
Britten stops into Harper’s office, where he talks about the move to Portland at last. She’ll be sorry to see him go, but she does think it’s the best thing. And she even hugs him goodbye, despite him saying she could save it. I think that makes it clear she knows something he doesn’t.
Britten pulls up to the house, where the For Sale sign is up… listed as FerrisDiamond Realty.
And then Harper calls Carl and tells him to call off the dogs because Britten just resigned.
Miss an episode? Check out our recap of last week’s episode ‘That’s Not My Penguin’.
