Emi hires R.J. to re-investigate the murder of a police officer in hopes of exonerating a possibly wrongly convicted man who took the fall. The sensitive investigation puts him at odds with Mel.
Will R.J. burn bridges with Mel and Trudy to help Emi? It certainly seems like it. He investigates the decade-old murder of police officer Bobby Werner. Emi hired him to do so. She believes in Gabriel Romero's innocence. He was convicted after he confessed to the crime. He only did so as he was going through withdrawal while being questioned by police for 32 hours. R.J. searches for more evidence. The confession can't be all there is. It was enough to sustain the conviction previously. Mel warns Bobby's ex, Jessica, that all of this is coming up again. Mel's furious. This is personal to her. She was on the phone with Bobby when he was killed. She heard the gunshot. They were making weekend plans. She feels a duty to keep the family involved. She wants to protect them. She couldn't do anything to save Bobby. She's determined to prove R.J. wrong. The police got things right the first time. No point comes from drudging up this painful past. That's far from the truth. It unearths new threats and challenges relationships. That has the potential to be interesting. And yet, this is a season finale that doesn't really feel like it until the last few moments.
Trudy calls R.J. out for crossing her boundaries. He does so casually because he's working a case for Emi. Trudy sees that connection. R.J. doesn't. He was hired to do a job. It doesn't matter who hired him. He's invested in the case. He pokes holes in what the police did. He wants answers. Using his friends and resources on the force will help him solve them. He can't go to them. Doing so would be admitting that mistakes were made. They couldn't tolerate that especially regarding the murder of their friend. Trudy feels that camaraderie too. She's not police. She works alongside them. R.J. asks her for favors when they pertain to Emi. He probably would do so with any case he was investigating. It's simply unfortunate that Emi becomes a part of their relationship. Emi didn't know who Trudy was. She now learns she's a friend of R.J.'s. She's fine with that. It remains awkward. The show highlights this tension. It doesn't really do anything with it. When Trudy runs the prints and identifies the actual killer, she goes to Mel. She doesn't call R.J. even though she said she would if the results proved his theory of the case.
For a moment, R.J. believes Mel would plant evidence to convict the guy she thought killed her friend. Bobby's former partner had no qualms about planting evidence. He had a gun prepared to do so. He stole it from his uncle's gun locker. He didn't file the report when his aunt notified him it was missing. It caused a fight between him and Bobby. That appears to be at the center of this conflict. The fight over the drop gun made people anxious. They had to take action before Bobby could. R.J. sees that motivation clearly. He just has to find the person who actually pulled the trigger. Multiple individuals were invested in the outcome. Flynn wasn't a good cop. He was removed from the force a couple months later. He wasn't handling his PTSD well after Bobby was killed. He didn't tell anyone when his stolen gun was stolen from him. He lied to cover his tracks. It's completely random when the gun pops up again after a billboard was used for target practice. R.J. jumps from one person of interest to the next. He's determined. He knows when the evidence potentially incriminates Mel. It's not long until she apologizes. She refused to see the case any other way. Gabriel was guilty. She couldn't reckon with being lied to for a decade. That's exactly what occurred. R.J. can't be blamed for that. He opened her eyes to the truth.
Jessica killed her husband. The motivation is a little fuzzy. The plot means to convey that she did so because she was worried about what he would do. And then, it pivots to present her as a serial killer. This wasn't her first marriage. She killed her first husband as well. She did so to collect on the life insurance policy she convinced him to get. It's the exact same scheme this time around too. The money motivated her more than worrying about Bobby's morality on the job. The only thing that can truly be believed about Jessica is her love for her daughter. She loses custody once the police start investigating her for murder. That, in turn, inspires her to target Cat and Sofia. Mel is with R.J. at the trailer park when she gets the call. It's threatening. People they care about are in danger. Nothing happens. It's an ominous tease of what's to come. It's unresolved in a way that's not all that thrilling. It's presented as an ending tacked on to force the network's hand. It's not all that successful. This was a weird season because of how truncated it was. That didn't allow any of the relationships to evolve in meaningful ways. The show was focused on its case-of-the-week investigations. Those didn't inform how the nature of the job was changing the characters. It was just delightful absurdity that allowed the audience to escape for an hour each week. Nothing's wrong with that. It just doesn't present an immediate case for more.
