By: CJ Stevens
We begin with the exciting image of a man setting his watch. When he moves his arms, we see there’s a television that has the TV news on with “COUNTDOWN TO CRUZ EXECUTION” as the bottom banner. As we pull back farther, we can see the watch setter is in a hotel room. He walks over to a mirror, where he puts on a toupee that should fool NOBODY and tries on some dark sunglasses for a moment before removing them. I’m thinking someone is going for a disguise…
He pulls out a leather briefcase in which he puts what looks like a folded-up blanket. Then he picks up some kind of electronic device that he turns on for a moment. It has glowing digital numbers on it, and that’s never a good sign, is it?
Now with a cabbie’s cap on his head and his sunglasses on, he goes to a bus stop, where he rudely pushes a man and a woman aside so he can sit between them. Then he sets his bag on the ground, opens it, and hits a button on his little electronic device. It starts at 1:30 and begins to count down. Rut roh.
Now we can see the bomber’s briefcase and the man’s briefcase are identical. Oh my gosh, here comes a lady with a baby in a carriage. She drops a bottle, and the man sitting next to the bomber picks it up. At first I thought the bomber was going to have an attack of conscience, but…oh no…while the man is distracted handing the bottle back to the mom, the bomber picks up his identical briefcase and leaves the one with the device sitting there! Once on the bus, the bomber sits next to the driver, takes off his sunglasses, and hangs his head as he cries. Frankly, I’m not feeling sorry for him as….BOOM! The bus stop blows up.
Wow. At least it seems the lady with the baby got clear.
The bus comes to a stop as people turn to look at the scene, except our bomber, who just holds his leather case tight to his chest.
Okay, I’m glad THAT’S over with.
He’s, of course, waiting for Lisbon, because we all know how much better he works when they’re together. When she does arrive, he chastises her for being late to the crime scene, saying it’s “very cosmopolitan.” She doesn’t look him in the eye as she tells him her car wouldn’t start, so immediately I’m thinking she’s lying. Then he asks her how her date with Pike went, because of course that would be the first thing he’d ask her. He’s jealous and madly in love with her, and he won’t do anything about it. “Itwasokay” she says in one breath as she tries to make a quick getaway. “Hm,” Jane says, because his BS meter is always finely tuned. Not being satisfied, he continues to quiz her, and all Lisbon will give is that it “went well.”
Fischer fills them in. There was only one death, because he was right next to the bomb when it went off. Lucky that lady sitting on the other side of the bomber got on the bus with him. Apparently four were injured, but only one seriously. A homeless man. Nobody can describe the bomber. I guess the cap hid the bad toupee. Lisbon surmises he got on the bus. They tried to get the names of the passengers, but it was “chaos.” No kidding! They’re going to look at security footage. Abbott comes walking up and says to notify the Joint Terrorist Task Force if they find anything. They’re looking to see if they have anything similar to this bombing.
Jane says unequivocally it’s not a terrorist bombing. He says the guy wanted to kill only one person. The one who died. Huh. Jane says the bomber could have put the bomb anywhere around there, and it would have done a lot more damage. Abbott says they’re going to treat it like a terrorist attack until they get real evidence it isn’t, and tells Fischer to call the NSA. Oh, Abbott, you should really learn to trust Jane by now. We all know he’s going to be proven right.
And that’s about to happen in 3, 2, 1…the tech comes over to say they found pieces of the case the charge was in when it exploded. There was “blanketing” above and below the charge, which indicates to her the guy only wanted one person to die, the one sitting directly next to it, since bombers usually go for “the bigger boom.” Jane doesn’t even try to hide his gloating face.
“Dead guy. Boom.”
Back at the FBI offices, Fischer goes walking by Wylie’s desk, when a voice says, “It’s nine o’clock.” Fischer thinks it’s Wylie, but it turns out it’s his computer that he’s set to announce the time every quarter hour to make him more efficient. Oh, Wylie. Don’t ever change. Fischer looks at him like she’d rather not hear the time announced every quarter hour, and he promises to turn the volume down, just as the fire alarm blares. Wylie swears it isn’t him, they’re just testing the alarm, and as Fischer yells, “GREAT” the alarm dies down.
Lisbon walks in. Fischer tells her they got an ID on the guy killed by the bomb. David Ronaldo, 47, from Hillsboro. Lisbon wants to know if Jane’s right (of COURSE he is!) and if Ronaldo was the intended victim. Turns out, he’s connected with a fourteen-year-old murder done by…Luis Cruz. Yes, the same one marked for execution. Ronaldo thought Cruz was innocent and was trying to get him exonerated. Abbott is hightailing it down to death row to talk to Cruz, since he’s due to be executed in three days.
Abbott. State Penitentiary, Livingston, Texas. Cruz, not looking much like a murderer, is crying over the death of Ronaldo. He explains they grew up together. His folks were his foster parents since he was eight. Yowza. Ronaldo was a good kid, but Luis was a mess. Got his first narcotics arrest at the age of sixteen. Ronaldo would try to bail him out, get him into programs, etc., but it wouldn’t take. He’d been working with Cruz’s attorney, trying to find something that would get him an appeal.
Ronaldo had contacted Cruz a few days ago to say he had some good news, but he didn’t want to say anything until he knew for sure. Oh, buddy, you should know if you’ve ever watched any TV show ever, that this is the kiss of death. Always tell someone! And let others know you told a whole bunch of people!
As Abbott thanks Cruz for his time and goes to hang up the special jail phone that lets you talk to the person through the glass, Cruz taps on the window with the phone. He tells Abbott in a shaky voice that he didn’t kill the woman. He says he doesn’t expect Abbott to do anything, he just wants someone to believe him and asks Abbott to try. Abbott looks contemplative.
Jane walks into the conference room, where Wylie has his audio/visual presentation all set up. Cho is there as well. There was an ATM camera across the street (there’s always an ATM camera saving the day, isn’t there?) that doesn’t take video but did take a picture every second.
Facial recognition can’t get a read on the guy. Of course, Jane notices the rug immediately, because of that whole “powers of observation” thing. Then he notices Mr. Bomber has the same briefcase as Ronaldo, and that can’t be a coincidence. He and Cho also figure out Mr. Bomber took Ronaldo’s briefcase, so he not only wanted Ronaldo to die, but he wanted what was in the briefcase. OH! Jane thinks the woman with the baby was there to purposely distract Ronaldo! And he says if they find her, they find the bomber. Wow! Cho tells Wylie to do facial rec on the woman.
Turns out her name’s Gina Petrocelli, if I’m to go by the name Fischer is screaming through the apartment door. Gina needs a minute, but Fischer tells her she has thirty seconds. We go inside to see Gina grabbing her stuff as she tries to stall. She says she’s, “putting on her pants,” but as she climbs out the window, Lisbon tells her the pants she has on are fine.
Lisbon finds the “baby” in Gina’s room, which turns out to be a doll that cries. Gina’s been arrested in the past for fraud. She says she didn’t know about the bomb and immediately identifies the bomber as Peter Koch, a private investigator. As Fischer goes to call Wylie to check Peter out, Lisbon continues the questioning. Gina “helps” Peter when they have to get “creative” (aka illegal) with their methods. She doesn’t know why Peter wanted to kill Ronaldo. She was just hired to distract him, so he could switch the briefcases. Since she was injured in the blast as well, she doesn’t think it’s logical she would have signed up if she’d known. Peter told her it was a “big job” and he was going to make a lot of money. Fischer comes walking back in to announce Koch is dead.
Back at the FBI, Fischer is filling in Abbott. Koch was found in an alley with a bullet to the head. Since his watch and wallet were missing, it’s assumed it was a robbery gone bad. No sign of his briefcase at the scene or in his apartment, and Abbott surmises from this info that it wasn’t a robbery. Okay. He asks about Gina. Fischer says she couldn’t have known about the bomb, but he tells Fischer to charge her with conspiracy and anything else she can think of.
Jane’s in the hallway sipping his tea, so Abbott calls him in for a little conference. He’s been reading Cruz’s transcripts and doesn’t think he did it. Cruz said he was home and using when the murder occurred. Since there was nobody to back it up, and they found a piece of his clothing with the victim’s blood on it, he was convicted. Abbott asks Jane what he thinks (I love that the big boss respects his opinion) and Jane thinks blood is “childishly easy” to plant, and since Ronaldo was killed while trying to exonerate Cruz, he must have been onto something. Abbott points out the obvious. That in three days, an innocent man is going to die, and Jane says that after he’s dead, there’s very little incentive to reopen the case. Abbott says, “So, what are we going to do about all this?” (We! I love him!) And Jane, with his smile that could melt an iceberg, says, “Oh, I think I can come up with something.”
Abbott has called his own audio/visual meeting to discuss the murder of Sarah Feinberg, the woman Cruz was accused of killing. Her husband, Edward, a psychiatrist at The University Teaching Hospital, found her body. Cruz’s connection to them was that Edward had run a drug treatment program at a halfway house that Cruz was a part of, and when Cruz had shown up high to one of the sessions, Feinberg kicked him out. This was three days before the murder. They found Cruz’s sweatshirt that had snagged on a bush outside the house. It had Sarah’s blood on it, along with gunpowder. They never found the gun.
Despite Wylie saying he’d turn down the volume, his computer says, “It’s ten o’clock.” He promises to turn it off. I think this is going with the whole “countdown” thing they’ve got going. Anyway, Abbott tells them they have fifty hours to figure out what Ronaldo had found to exonerate Cruz. Fischer asks if there’s anything to show the police or prosecution made a mistake. When Abbott doesn’t have anything solid, she basically says they should let Cruz die, and the system did what it was supposed to. Oh, Fischer, please stop making me hate you. Anyway, Jane says the system did not work, since Cruz is innocent. He’s confident enough to help Abbott prove it. This is, of course, all Lisbon and Cho need to hear, so Fischer decides to come on board before anyone can start an “I Hate Fischer” club. Abbott splits them up. Cho and Fischer are going to Ronaldo’s apartment, Abbott’s calling the governor to let him know what they’re up to, and Jane and Lisbon have Feinberg.
Jane and Lisbon. Feinberg residence, Austin, Texas. As they get out of the car, Lisbon is on the phone with Pike. He wants to get together that night, but she’s on the case, so they go with Thursday. Lisbon sounds matter-of-fact and in a rush to get him off the phone. Jane looks uncomfortable, and Lisbon catches it.
Edward Feinberg opens the door and welcomes them into his gorgeous home and introduces them to his much younger blonde wife, Mae.
They both claim they don’t know who Ronaldo is. That’s when Jane gets up and wanders. He walks into the next room and asks if that’s where his wife was killed. Edward confirms it, and Jane asks if he has an office and sees patients in his home. When Edward also confirms this, Jane says it’s “kind of weird.” Edward the psychiatrist says, “You like to provoke, don’t you?” Like it’s his job, big guy. Edward agrees it was “weird” but insists he wasn’t going to let Cruz chase him out of his house. Jane assures him he’s not judging and says he loves the remodeling. When Mae says they did it together, he says he can detect her “touch.” Lisbon asks how long they’ve been married. Eleven years. My goodness, that woman must have been a baby when they married, since she looks in her thirties now. Lisbon asks if they knew each other at the time of the murder, but his wife says she was just a new graduate student then (I was right!) and he was “far too important” to notice her. She puts her hand on his leg when she says this. Lisbon notices. Edward talks about his “deep grieving period” of several years, until he got over it and he and his current wife “found each other.”
Jane, in his most unimpressed voice: “So, it was fate, huh? Wonderful.” Then he says he has a couple of more questions. To Edward: Have you ever considered suicide? Answer: No. To Mae: Did your father go to your high school graduation? Answer: No. She asks what that has to do with anything, and Jane says she’d be surprised then asks if he can use the bathroom, which is code for, “I want to snoop through your house.” Lisbon totally knows. He grabs a grape as he goes through the kitchen, fakes right for a second, where the bathroom is, then goes left to where Edward’s office is. He opens a drawer and finds a prescription pad and leafs through it. When he comes back in, he says he has just one last question. He wants to know how long before the first Mrs. Feinberg died that they started having their affair. Edward and Mae look at each other for a moment before Edward comments on Jane’s “method” and tells him they did not have an affair.
Jane talks about Edward’s “deep grieving period,” essentially letting him know he doesn’t buy it, then comments on how the house does not reflect someone who’s sentimental. In fact, just the opposite. Edward calls Jane “observant” and admits he might protest a bit too much, but he has grown “weary and defensive” on the subject. Jane straight up tells him Cruz didn’t kill his wife, Edward did, and they’re going to prove it, unless he wants to confess and save them some time. Rather than pitching a fit, Edward says he knew that’s what Jane was getting at, and he’s been accused of it before, since he’s the husband, but it’s not true. Mae tells them to leave her husband alone and to please leave. They do.
Fischer and Cho. Ronaldo’s apartment, Austin, Texas. Fischer comments that Ronaldo didn’t have much of a life outside of researching the Cruz case. To prove it, he has a bunch of stuff related to the case taped to the wall, and Cho notices all of it is old except for a map.
As they go through Renaldo’s stuff, Fischer decides to grill Cho about Lisbon hooking up with Pike then asks him if he wonders what Jane thinks about it. He says he doesn’t wonder, because if he did, his head would explode. Heh. Love Cho. Fischer opens up his closet and finds a diving suit.
Back at the FBI, Jane has figured out the diving suit mystery. Renaldo was looking for the gun that was never found. The map shows the bodies of water within a fifty-mile radius of the crime scene. The killer wanted Ronaldo’s briefcase to find out how far he’d gotten with his plan. They now have twenty hours, which is plenty of time for Jane to hatch one of his plans. He’s going to talk to Wylie, and he needs a security station set up in the lobby. Jane asks Abbott if they arrest Feinberg, if he can’t leave. Abbott confirms he’d be confined there but just overnight, until his arraignment. Jane says it’s perfect. When Fischer asks what he’s going to be arrested for, Cho smiles. Next thing you know, they’re arresting Edward for prescription fraud by selling his prescription pads. Cho holds up the pad Jane had clearly nabbed from his office, as evidence. Edward is at a loss, since the charge is all made up. Edward tells Mae to call “Rich Summers” who I’m assuming is his lawyer. She says she’ll follow him to the FBI offices.
Back at the FBI, Jane says, “Let the games begin,” and so they do. The couple go through the security checkpoint/metal detector, where the wife is asked to give up her phone and purse. She balks at first but relents.
When they get inside, there’s a huge digital clock that reads “17:00” and the same news station showing the countdown to Cruz’s execution, only this time there’s picketers in the background. Edward stares at the screens until Wylie’s computer says, “It’s five o’clock.” Wylie chooses not to explain it again. Then he tells Edward to cover his ears. The fire alarm goes off and Wylie says this happens at 9a.m. and 5p.m. Fischer comes in to tell another officer to take Edward into interrogation. His wife wants to come with him but is denied. Fischer shows her the waiting room, but Mae isn’t impressed with the surroundings. However, when Fischer offers Mae her own private interrogation room, she decides she’s just fine where she is.
When Jane gets around to interrogating Edward, it’s 8:17 pm., and Edward has had it. He says he knows he was kept waiting on purpose, so Jane could prove his pet theory, and talks about how it must be hard for the people around Jane, since he can never admit he’s wrong. Jane ignores that, because if there’s one thing he’s used to, it’s people yelling at him about how he can’t admit he’s wrong. He cuts to the chase and says Cruz is about to be executed for a crime he didn’t commit. Edward tells him he’s wrong. That in this case it’s not the husband. Jane says Edward killed his wife then drove to his office, but on the way he dumped the gun in the lake. He says Ronaldo got Edward’s goat, because even though he wasn’t as clever as Edward, he was persistent. He claims Edward hired Koch to follow Ronaldo, then had him killed when he found out he took diving lessons. Then once Koch had gone through Ronaldo’s briefcase, Edward killed him.
Edward says even if they find the gun, it won’t prove he’s guilty. Jane says that even though there’s no fingerprints, the serial number could prove it, and it would also prove Cruz couldn’t have done the murder, because he wouldn’t have had time to dump the gun before he was arrested. Then Richard Summers, the attorney, shuts it all down. His client won’t speak. Jane leaves and tells Cho he’s up. Cho goes into the room and says he’s going to ask some questions. Summers says he can ask all he wants, but Edward won’t answer. Time lapse as they watch Cho question him. Then it’s Lisbon’s turn. Time lapse. Then Fischer goes in, and she’s not even questioning him but clearly just stalling for time, asking what he thinks of “U.T. next year.”
Last up is Abbott. He asks where Edward was on the night of February 11, 2000, from 6pm-9pm. Lawyer reiterates the thing about Edward not talking. Abbott says that in seven hours, Cruz is going to die. Then Fischer comes in with a bankie and a pillow and begs Abbott to let Edward rest, since he’s not going to say anything. And she tells Abbott to rest as well. Fischer tells the attorney there’s only one pillow and suggests the floor that must have been cleaned once or twice in the past year. The lawyer is not fazed, but Edward tells him to go and swears he won’t say another word until Summers gets back. Summers leaves.
Jane brings a pillow and blanket to Mae, who is not too pleased and says it’s terrible they’re making her husband relive a painful chapter in his life. Jane thinks it was more painful for the former Mrs. Feinberg and reminds her it will all be over in six and a half hours. She asks him to leave so she can rest.
The next morning, the fire alarm goes off, waking up Edward. Abbott immediately walks in and tells Edward it’s 9a.m. That his “murderous ass” got to sleep, while the good guys had to stay up. Edward surmises they didn’t find the gun. Abbott says they didn’t, and that means he has forty minutes to get Edward to talk. Edward will only say he wants his lawyer.
Mae goes to Fischer and asks how much longer they have to stay. Fischer tells her she’s free to go, but her husband is there until the arraignment. Fischer offers her coffee, and while earlier Mae had yelled at Jane for the good cop/bad cop thing, she accepts graciously. When they pass by Lisbon, she’s yelling into the phone, “I’m checking in with the dive unit.” Pause. “DAMMIT, tell them they have thirty minutes!” I’m sure this is totally on the level and not at all done for the benefit of the wife.
Back in the interrogation room, Abbott slams his hand on the table and demands Edward talk to him. Edward begs for his attorney. Abbott tells him that in “minutes” a man is going to die for his crime. Edward scoffs that Abbott is trying to appeal to his sympathy but agrees that if Cruz was innocent, it would be a tragedy, but he’s not, and Cruz deserves to die for killing his “beautiful, sweet Sarah.”
Abbott finds Fischer and Mae in the break room, drinking coffee. He tells Fischer that it’s all over. Edward isn’t talking, and without a weapon, the governor has no choice but to let the execution happen. The governor also said that after Cruz is dead, he doesn’t want to hear a thing about it. They go off to watch the execution.
The same news is on with the same reporter, but the sound is muted. The banner now reads “Time is running out for Luis Cruz.” Picketers are still in the background. Abbott turns to his staff and says he wished things had turned out a different way. When Cho tells him to look at the TV, the banner now reads, “Cruz Executed.”
Everyone looks devastated. Jane whispers to Lisbon that they did what they could.
Jane walks into the interrogation room with a laptop and tells Edward that Cruz is dead. Edward has an emotional reaction, and Jane guesses it didn’t feel like he thought it would. Jane would know. Edward agrees and says he thought he’d feel avenged or at least relieved, but instead it’s just sad. Then he remembers he shouldn’t be talking to Jane, who thinks he’s a murderer. Jane’s like, yeah, about that…not really. And Edward’s reaction to Cruz’s death proved it. It’s not the way a guilty man would react. Edward is, understandably, flabbergasted.
Then Jane says, “Your wife, Mae, however…” Edward gets defensive, so Jane shows him Mae’s reaction to the execution, which is relief and a smile. Then Jane tells him she worked at Edward’s clinic, so it was easy for her to get a piece of his clothing. She went to his house, shot his wife, and left Cruz’s sweatshirt at the scene. They even show her doing it.
Jane says she knew he was never going to leave his wife, so she took care of it for him. Edward tries to remain in denial, but Jane points out that she was his student and lover. She was obsessed with him, but he loved her devotion. It fed his ego. So he didn’t allow himself to look too closely, and now an innocent man was dead. Edward also admits she was the one who told him to lie about the affair. Then Jane says Mae stayed there all night not to support Edward, but because she was scared and wanted to know what evidence they had.
Abbott walks in with Edward’s wife. He says Edward is free to go. They’re dropping the charges. As Edward glances once more at the laptop where his wife still has that happy/relieved look on her face, she comes rushing in to hug him.
As they walk out, Edward looks pissed. He’s running ahead of her while Mae tries to keep up. Once in the car, he asks her if she killed Sarah. She denies it and says she would die rather than hurt him. He says he doesn’t believe her and continues to accuse her. She denies it some more. Then he pulls over to the curb and screams that she’s insane. He demands she explain it to him, and she finally blurts, “I DID IT FOR US!” She talks about how they’re safe now. How they weathered the storm and should be celebrating, but Edward doesn’t want her to touch him. That’s when the FBI surrounds them.
For those of you who’ve never seen a Jane caper and thought Cruz was really executed, I suggest you start with season one and work your way through the series. Turns out, of course, it’s only 8:30a.m. Wylie took earlier footage and just put different banners underneath it. When they took the couple’s phones and watches, they changed the times and even managed to change the time on their car clock, so good going for covering all their bases, because I’d just been wondering about that. Jane planted a bug in Edward’s pocket. The bad guy (girl) goes to prison. Cruz is alive. All is well.
Abbott goes into the prison to tell Cruz about Mae giving up where she’d thrown the gun, which was in a pond off the I-35. And there sits the rusted gun in an evidence bag. Cruz will be let out shortly. As you’d expect, Cruz gets a little emotional.
Jane’s on his couch back at the FBI offices. Abbott comes in to tell him how Ronaldo knew the gun was in the pond. He went to a psychic who told him it would be near a body of water! HA! Jane reiterates that there’s no such thing as psychics, the law of averages of something being near a body of water, and broken clocks are right twice a day. Abbott leaves while shaking his head. Jane closes his eyes as…oh gosh…Lisbon tries to sneak in to get her purse and phone. Jane awakens and sees her in her pretty black dress, all made up and says, “Look at you.” She tells him not to start, but he tells her she looks beautiful. She does.
He asks if Pike is taking her someplace nice, and she says with cloth napkins and everything. He says he hopes she has a good time, and as she walks away, he watches her until she’s gone. Then he closes his eyes again and this is the second week in a row my heart is breaking as I watch Jane watch Lisbon go off to be with another man and JUST TELL HER YOU LOVE HER, ALREADY! 
CJ Stevens falls asleep every night to the comforting flicker of her TV. Nothing makes her happier than the little red dot on her dv-r, notifying her one of her shows is taping. She edits books for a living and was even known among her editing comrades as “the grammar police.” Ending apostrophe abuse is her calling.