Body – As the fourth episode of Echoes begins, a panicked Leni (Michelle Monaghan) screams for Mattie (Gable Swanlund). The young girl comes running up to her mother as she is asked what happened and where she went. Leni asks what Gina did. The girl says she asked to go up the road so she could say goodbye. Leni wants to know exactly what she said. Mattie reveals she told her she loves her and always will. She wanted her to tell Leni the same thing before she was picked up in a taxicab. Charlie interrupts to ask if she is gone. Leni says yes because she had enough of the party. Once Charlie (Daniel Sunjata) learns she is at the Riverside, he tells Leni he’ll see her tomorrow. Leni admits she is worried about it, but Charlie promises that he’ll handle it. After home, Leni questions if Geni is gone for good and if she thinks Charlie will just let her go.

Charlie looks at his phone to pinpoint the location of Gina. Leni asks if Geni thinks Jack is just going to clean up her mess. She says no because there is more trouble to come. The next day, Mattie looks through the window and sees smoke so she tells Leni about the fire. They hope it isn’t a brush fire since those are scary. Claudia (Ali Stroker) interrupts them to see if Mattie is ready to go to the Butterfly Farm. Leni thanks her for always being there for her and Mattie. When Claudia learns that Gina is gone again, she says good riddance. As Claudia and Mattie leave, Jack (Matt Bomer) enters and tells Leni he is going to check out the smoke. She’d like to go with him since they usually do these things together. Leni insists she is trying because she wants this to work. As they drive to investigate, Jack tells her that he bumped his head but it is nothing.

Once they arrive at the scene, they find the coroner’s van nearby. Sheriff Louise Floss (Karen Robinson) and Deputy Paula Martinez (Rosanny Zayas) are working nearby. They move out of the way allowing Leni and Jack to see a burned body inside a pickup truck. Louise comes over to tell them they think the victim is Dylan James. She suggests they should find a place to talk more privately. When they sit down, she says he wasn’t murdered there and someone moved him to that spot. Louise thinks it might be to send a message since this house has been the center of a lot of attention. She tells Leni she doesn’t know what to think because this thing doesn’t happen in Mount Echo. Leni suggests his truck could’ve caught fire because he was drunk or something. Louise doesn’t think so because he had a knife wound across his abdomen. He was killed before the fire. She asks Jack how he got that abrasion on his forehead because it wasn’t there last night.

He claims one of the horses in the barn had a spur. When he tried to take it out, she jumped and he was hit in the head. He goes on to say nobody was around. Louise reveals she heard some heated words about Dylan and Leni last night. Then, she asks where Leni was last night because she wasn’t there when she came to say goodbye. Leni says she went looking for Gina and couldn’t find her. She tucked Mattie into bed after that. Louise finds it off that she would leave her own party without saying goodbye to her guests. She claims it on being worried about her sister who was upset when she left. Leni hasn’t heard from her since. Louise thinks they should find her as quickly as they can because they had a thing back in the day. They’re told to be careful. Once the Sheriff leaves, Leni says poor Dylan while Jack is more concerned about being considered a suspect. They see her outside collecting evidence from Jack’s truck.

Leni thinks they need to protect one another to get through this. She goes on to say she needs to know what is coming. Jack confesses that he got into a shoving match last night with the two owners of the foal, Towers and Payne. He says they cornered him about the money. After he fought with her, he was already pretty worked up so he agreed to meet them to settle things. When he said he didn’t have the money, they threatened Leni and Mattie. He swung on Towers. Although it wasn’t much of a fight, he landed a shot on Jack. He jumped in his truck and came home just like he said.

However, he is convinced this isn’t the end of it because they’re coming for them. They want the full value of the foal or 75 grand and extra for the heat this is bringing. Leni wants to tell Floss that they’re thieves, but Jack says they can’t because they accepted a stolen horse before Leni and her boyfriend Dylan decided to fence it to pay for their new life together. Leni insists that isn’t what happened. Jack wants to know the whole truck now that Dylan is dead. He reminds her that none of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t tried to take the horse and run away. Leni claims she didn’t try to take a house and instead was trying to stop it. He believes he knows when she is lying. Jack questions if she is going to tell him the plan she had with Dylan. Leni tells him that she can’t because she never had a plan with Dylan. Jack tells her the truck is easier in the long run before leaving.

While driving, Leni records a message in the diary letting Gina know that Dylan was murdered. She is afraid because Charlie says she never came back to the hotel last night. Leni lets her know that she is going to the only other place she might be. She visits Georgia (Celia Weston) who complains they won’t let her see him. She says he was doing so well starting over. She tried to keep him out of trouble after his parents were killed, but she thinks she failed. Leni tells her it wasn’t her fault because Dylan was a grown man who was making his own decision. Georgia talks about the feeling of realizing that your best just wasn’t good enough. They agree that grandmothers weren’t meant to arrange funerals. When asked about the last time she had seen Dylan, Georgia admits she hasn’t seen him much since he wasn’t around lately. He was busy with his horses. Leni learns the horses were a new thing for Dylan. As Leni steps outside, she gets a call from her dad Victor (Michael O’Neill) who asks her to come home quickly because something bad has happened.

When she arrives, she finds a handcuffed Jack being taken from the house by the Sheriff. Floss tells her that Dylan was murdered at his grandmother’s cottage and the tire tracks match the work truck. They also found some vials of ketamine that came from Jack’s office. Leni doesn’t think Jack could’ve done this so she mentions Dylan had gotten involved in horses. Jack tells her to stop. Floss doesn’t want to hear it and would prefer to focus on the evidence, but she will want to speak to Leni and her sister. The cops leave with Jack. Leni goes inside with her father to say they need a good lawyer from DC. Victor doesn’t know what to think anymore since Leni is the one who had the ketamine. He saw her in the office and knows she has access to all the trucks. Leni gets upset and asks her father if he thinks she is capable of killing another human being. Victor apologizes because he is just confused before he receives a call from the hospital.

They ask if he is the father of Leni McCleary. Once he says yes, they say she is okay and she came in as a Jane Doe. She isn’t really talking at the moment, but they recognized her from the stories on television. Once Leni finds out what is going on, she says they should go get Charlie. After they pick him up, Charlie admits he has heard about Dylan James because they were lovers in high school. He knows because Gina doesn’t hide her past from him. Victor wonders if whoever did that to Dylan also did something to Gina. At the hospital, they’re surprised to learn that Gina is gone. She was disoriented and bleeding when a truck driver found her on the side of the road before bringing her to the hospital. Now, she has pulled her IV out and fled the hospital. Charlie follows Leni outside to ask why she ran, but Leni insists she doesn’t know. He wonders what she would be so desperate to run from to pull out her IV.

When asked about Lake Tahoe, Leni asks if he is talking about their birthday trip. He explains that she marked up some maps. Charlie is adamant she needs to start being honest with him right now. He reminds her that they’re family and they’re falling apart right now. Leni says Jack needs her before walking away from Charlie. At the Easton County Sheriff’s Office, she finds Jack sitting alone so she sits next to him before confirming they spoke to a lawyer. Although she knows he didn’t do this, Jack knows it looks bad because of the tire tracks and drugs. Leni thinks she has a plan, but she is going to need to know everything about last night for it to work. Jack wants to know why she took that horse of all horses and why she was with him. Leni believes he’ll think she doesn’t love him, but nothing could be further from the truth. She explains it had nothing to do with Jack or Mattie because she just wanted to be free. Now, she knows there is no such thing.

She is sorry for causing all of this. Jack insists this isn’t all her fault before revealing they’re going broke. He knew the horse was stolen, but Tower is a big man in town so he told himself he was doing a favor for a friend. He was taking care of his family which is the most important thing to him. Leni calls him the most honest, honorable man she has met. She says she is going to fix this. Once he is asked what he is going to tell Floss, Jack says he is going to tell her the truth. He accepted a horse that might’ve been stolen, but he didn’t kill Dylan. Leni insists she doesn’t know who might’ve done it before they’re interrupted by Sheriff Floss. She takes Jack to the interview room. Leni immediately gets a call from Dylan’s phone. Once Leni goes outside and answers the phone, Gina tells her that Towers and Payne are after her and she has proof. Leni asks where she is. Gina is on the move because it is not safe for her. She wants Leni to come get her.

Leni asks why she should. Gina says she loves her and needs her. After Gina promises to tell her everything, Leni asks where she can find her. Leni is told to come to Grandma Georgia’s place. Leni goes to Georgia’s place and begins calling their names. When she finds Georgia, she is told two men came for her sister and tried to force their way in. Georgia thinks she held them off for long enough so Gina could escape before they came into the house and searched everything. When they were struggling, Georgia slipped and hit her head. Leni contemplates calling the police, but Georgia doesn’t want that because she isn’t eager to get caught up in whatever this is. When Leni leaves, she gets a call from Gina saying it is definitely the horse thieves. Gina can’t meet her at the Riverside because they want to get paid and she has to make good on the colt. Leni remembers they have the cashier’s check so they have 60 grand.

Leni believes she can get it to them. If they want to get paid, she will pay them. When she tries to meet with John Towers (Justin Matthew Smith) and August Payne (Ethan McDowell), they trap her in a garage. She hopes they can be more civilized before pulling out the check to give them what they want. They don’t like having a trail of any kind. Leni says that explains cutting microchips out of stolen foals. Once Towers takes the check, he reminds her it is short and she won’t be able to get more money because her farm is on the way out. Leni is convinced she can get the rest of the money. She also warns them that the check will likely be traced if they don’t let her go. They contemplate tying her up and using her to get ransom, but Leni explains she is the only one capable of getting the money. She tells them about Jack being at the police station with a lawyer and having trouble remembering who brought that horse. If she doesn’t talk to him in the next five minutes or so, he just might remember and squeal on them.

As she leaves, Tower tells her to say hello to her sister for him. She tries to call Jack but he won’t answer his phone. She is going to keep driving until she hears from him. We see flashbacks of the sisters when they were younger as Leni is told she has to fix this because she is the one who always fixes it. After she sees a police car’s blue lights on behind her, she realizes she is doing 90. She is surprised to see Floss next to the car. Floss asks her to step out of the vehicle. She gets out before being told that Paula is going to escort her back to the cruiser. She goes with Paula and sits in the back of the squad car.

Leni tries to get Paula to tell her what is going on while Floss searches the vehicle. Paul gets out, talks to Floss, and puts gloves on. She returns to get a bag before joining Floss to collect some evidence. We see the sisters in a flashback as Leni says she didn’t do it. One of them cuts her face with a scalpel in a flashback. She continues saying she didn’t do it until Floss tells her to step out of the car. They begin handcuffing her. Floss eventually tells her that she is under arrest for the murder of Dylan games. Leni is transported to the station where she sees Jack leaving. She calls his name, but he just ignores her. After she gets her mug shot taken, she learns that Gina is there and she has been very helpful in helping locate her. Floss tells her that they have photos of her trying to influence witnesses. She shows pictures of her with Towers and Payne. They also show her a broken knife handle that might look familiar.

They also have the check she used and the knife’s blade. Floss believes the blood will match Dylan’s blood. She thinks Leni should start from the beginning.

 

Echoes Review

The fourth episode of Echoes was okay, but the series would be a lot better if the episode count was dropped by three or four episodes. The episode mostly featured Leni running around in circles with convenient writing moving the story from one location to another. Leni leaves a home and immediately gets a phone call telling her to come home. She leaves Georgia’s home and gets a call from Gina leading to another story arch.

It felt like a pinball machine with Leni running all over the place, talking to different people, and returning to some of the same places. The writing isn’t great and the acting really isn’t much better. Some of the actors are better portrayed than others, but the accents are hideous. If an actor or actress comes from Canada, they shouldn’t be forced to try to speak with an authentic southern accent because it rarely works.

If the show calls for a southern accent, hire a southern actor or actress for the role. In particular, the sheriff is so far out of her element that it really takes away from the experience. It might’ve worked without the inauthentic southern accent. Some of the others aren’t much better. The episode scores a 5 out of 10. Recaps of Echoes can be found on Reel Mockery here. Want to support our independent website? Find out how to do so here.