Just like we’re learning more about Pick’s past, we finally learn more about Jake’s background. Freddie visits Jake’s mansion under the guise of doing a profile on the house, but the minute he has Jake feeling comfortable, he starts asking questions about Brattle, but more interesting than that, he brings up Jake’s father. We learn that Jake’s father died working at the meatpacking plant, a tragic personal note that certainly colors the character a bit differently. Jake is eventually saved from answering the tough questions when the Staghorne’s show up, but watching Jake and Freddie go toe to toe is a lot of fun and proves that there’s a lot of fun character combinations left to play with on Briarpatch.
Speaking of Freddie, Chuckles may have had his final laugh. Singe and Allegra find that the paper has written a hit piece suggesting that Felicity, Strucker, and Floyd Furness were all involved in corruption. Singe confronts Freddie about the article and threatens to sue him for libel, but Freddie quickly turns the blame to Raytek, saying that she planted the story. Before he can elaborate further, he begins choking and winds up on the floor. Freddie looks like he’s probably dead, and it’s unclear whether or not he was poisoned, or if it was just bad timing.
Though Felicity’s murder investigation finally crosses over with the Clyde Brattle case, this is still a pretty lean episode. Sure, there are some fun scenes, like Allegra and Singe hooking up (!) but a lot of time is spent just trying to get Allegra to the brewery where she can discover Lalo and whatever it is that he’s hiding there. While the bread crumb trail leads us to some fun interactions, it still doesn’t advance the plot that much. I appreciate the character work that is being done and I feel like the show has done a great job of getting us more invested in Allegra, that said, we could use a better balance between story and character. With Briarpatch hitting its midway point, I’m starting to worry that there might not be enough story for all of these big personalities to fill.