Nothing’s Wrong With It, I Just Don’t Need It Anymore – Episode 4 begins with Caitlin (Charlotte Lawrence) learning that her father, Christopher/Nick Stripling (Rob Delaney), is still alive. After the brief reunion, the story goes back in time to reveal how Nick and Eve Stripling’s (Meredith Hagner) worlds collided. It turns out that Eve was a struggling actress while Caitlin was a budding model. At just 17 and being a con man himself, Nick was cautious about Caitlin’s career path, which eventually leads to him escorting her to a modeling agency club party one evening. This is where he meets Eve, which doesn’t go his way at first but after he recognizes her from an auto insurance commercial she recently done, he has her eating out of his hand and vice versa. Although Nick and Eve will eventually go on to get married, she and Caitlin never really appear to bond.
Right around the time that Nick and Israel O’Peele (Zach Braff) made their joint venture into the Super Rollie Scam; Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn) was still a suit-wearing detective with his nose to the grindstone. Nick wants to bring Eve in on the scam and to do so they arrange a whole elaborate scenario where Eve pretends to uncover their scam on her own and threatens to turn them in. Right at the right of the moment, they reveal the truth to a much-relieved Izzy.
Johnny Mendez (Gonzalo Menendez) was still a beat cop at this time but it was his scam with the Crime Busters Tip Line that put Yancy on his trail. It is later revealed that Mendez had a whole network of associates who would report old crimes to the tip line and collect on the rewards. This discovery begins Yancy’s campaign to bring down Mendez. Not from lack of trying but Yancy’s campaign would only turn out to be half successful due to the department’s fear of embarrassment. Mendez would get passed up as detective for several years while Yancy surprisingly gets shipped off to the Keys.
Yancy would eventually adapt to the Keys lifestyle and his relocation gets him even closer to his father, Jim Yancy (Scott Glenn), who is constantly preaching at him about letting things go and opening up to nature. On one particular fish outing, Jim tells him how it was an encounter with a blue manatee that got him to adopt that sort of mantra. The blue manatee story is apparently one that Yancy has heard several times. During this time, Yancy would also meet and build relationships with Rogelio Burton/Ro (John Ortiz) and Bonnie Witt (Michelle Monaghan).
To celebrate the success of their scam, Nick and Izzy plan a joint family vacation to Andros. It was on this trip that Eve realized her dream of opening a resort on the beach. She would soon make this Nick’s dream as well, which is where their problems began. After dramatically increasing their scooter sales, the Department of Justice (Matthew Williams/Demian Castro) would come snooping around their business. It didn’t take them long to realize something wasn’t right.
Although Izzy and Nick had plenty of time and resources to go on the run, Eve wasn’t having any part of it. Nick certainly wasn’t willing to go down for his crime, so this eventually led to him faking his death. Yancy’s relationship problems are no better at the moment because this is right around the time that he discovers Bonnie’s husband, Doctor Clifford Witt (Jeffrey S. Herman) is a pill-pushing domestic abuser. Nick’s extremely brief and estranged call with Caitlin would reveal that she was just beginning to conquer her drug addiction thanks to Simon (Tyler Picchi). Izzy’s addiction was just taking off and his current situation certainly wasn’t helping matters.
While Izzy plots the staged discovery of Nick’s arm with Charles Phinney (Brett Cormier), Nick has an unpleasant encounter with YaYa (L. Scott Caldwell) and the Dragon Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith). Phinny would eventually leverage Nick for more money. If not for Eve, he would have likely paid and forgotten about it but she convinces him to handle the matter differently. Izzy will later suffer the same faith.
Immediately after killing Izzy, Nick will go into a bit of a depressed state. Upon returning to Eve in the parking garage, he will question their actions for the first time. This leads to a bit of an argument that Heather McNally (Lauren Buglioli) just happens to overhear. Eve’s killing of Heather puts the story back in the present.
Nick spends time with Caitlin while Ro receives a call from Detective Mendez confirming that he can now close the Phinney case. From the situation that Mendez describes, it doesn’t just appear that Nick killed Izzy but he’s also framed him. At the same time, Yancy and Rosa Campesino (Natalie Martinez) conspire about how they can keep Izzy’s case from getting written off as a suicide. Much to his surprise, this discussion quickly goes from an autopsy to a romantic encounter.
Nick and Eve’s afternoon on the beach with Caitlin doesn’t go nearly as well when they begin conspiring about how to deal with people who might get in their way. Despite Yancy being at the top of both their lists, things immediately become confrontational when Eve mentions Caitlin. There’s a bit of arguing but Eve eventually convinces him that she was just throwing around ideas.
As Rosas learns about Heather’s death and Mel Campesino (Gizel Jimenez) replacing her as the station’s weather girl, Mendez gets a visit from Izzy’s neighbor. Mendez has already written the case off as a suicide and maintains that assessment until the neighbor recognizes Yancy’s photo on the wall.
Although he’s just been named a prime suspect in a murder case, Yancy is in an even worse place when the episode ends. While leaving a message to Rosa that Christopher and Nick could be one and the same, he’s attacked from behind by Nick.
Bad Monkey Review
Despite the majority of the episode being complete filler, I enjoyed it. I’m not entirely sure how many others will feel this way because it was already fairly easy to surmise that this is how things had led to the present day. Despite that, it was good to have complete confirmation. It was nice to learn about Yancy and Mendez’s beef.
All that said, I do feel that the series missed a big opportunity by not giving Neville a more interesting backstory. Despite being a main character, he was mentioned in passing in this episode. A comical little story about how he met Driggs or something would have been neat. There might be more about his history in future episodes, I don’t know. Nonetheless, I’ll give the episode a 5.6 out of 10. Oh, there was also very little about Rosa’s past which I am not too dispirited about.
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