As we saw in the end of last week's episode of Jericho, Jimmy, the usually-clueless cop, heard the radio news about the New York terrorists having fake FBI badges, and tells Jake that Hawkins had one. I wonder why he needs Jake, other than the fact that he's The Hero of the Show. Emily, who's back to flirting with Jake already, concurs, commenting that they should get "a bat-signal" for moments like these.


Hawkins is alone in his house, remembering an evening out with his wife, and receives a text message from Sarah's contact saying "When can we meet again? We're growing impatient" which he doesn't reply to. Hawkins leaves the house to go on patrol, as he's pretending to be a useful member of Jericho's society, and Jake and Jimmy break in. They find a whole drawer full of fake IDs, and when Hawkins returns, Jake holds him at gunpoint, cuffing him to a chair and demanding some answers.

The Morse code in the opening of this episode says "Who Ran Red Bell."

Hawkins at first tells Jake that he was in the FBI, but then says it was actually the CIA, and that if he tells Jake the real truth about why he came to Jericho there's "no going back." The reason he came to Jericho is that it was known to be safe from fallout & had access to lots of resources, he tells Jake, showing him a handy map.

According to his story, which is quite confusingly told in flashbacks in some sort of random order, he was told at the start of his mission that his family would be fine when he got back. He explains that he was part of a team on "Project Red Bell" that was trying to locate some stolen Russian nuclear warheads that had been turned into bombs.

Jimmy loudly returns to check on them, and Jake is distracted – Hawkins gets the gun from him and makes Jake send Jimmy away again. But then he takes the clip out of the gun and says he's ready to tell Jake the whole truth.

Hawkins claims that the terrorists were thought to be a coalition of anarchists and fanatics with only one goal in common – to destroy the government. He was undercover for some time, went to prison for a year in the process, and even killed an FBI informant as part of his attempt to fit in with the bad guys. He's the one who supplied the terrorists with the fake FBI badges, in fact. Sarah is seen in flashbacks pushing to extend the mission to get all the bombs, while Hawkins wanted to take out the ones they've already discovered. We revisit some of the flashbacks from "The Day Before" but this time see that he gave information about the other trucks with bombs to the CIA, which is how the New York bombs were stopped.  

Hawkins takes Jake to the shed and shows him the bomb that was meant for Columbus. Jake asks him what he's going to do with it, and Hawkins says he'll keep it secret, keep it safe, saying it can give Jericho power but also make them a target. (This is getting very Lord of the Rings.) Jake agrees to share this "burden of knowledge" and tells Jimmy that Hawkins is indeed in the FBI, just like he said.

The guy in charge of Project Red Bell was Valente, a bald man with a cane who worked for the Department of Homeland Security. Apparently it hadn't occurred to Hawkins before suffering through the flashbacks that this might also be the "boss" he has a satellite photo of, who wants to buy the "package" back. He's sure it's Valente now, and writes it down on his board. Boy, that's a great way to keep it secret, considering how many people come into that room lately.

Other stories are interspersed randomly:

Bonnie let her boyfriend sleep over, and Mimi is worried that she's supposed to be mothering Bonnie and Stanley won't like what's going on. Bonnie says "Stanley's not here!" and flounces off. Mimi spends most of her scenes talking to a chicken, which she eventually manages to butcher for dinner, and in the process comes to a conclusion about her role in Bonnie's life, and asks Bonnie to be patient with her.

Something or other is going on with Johnston. Gail visits April's grave (boy, Jericho has the resources to make fancy headstones in just a few days? I question their priorities) and complains about her husband. He spends the whole episode moping in a hunting blind, refusing to come help anyone or even go home for dinner. I'm not sure why we need to see this.

Emily tries to teach high school, saying that the old United States is gone but they can study history to learn how to rebuild. The teens are not interested, more concerned with helping their families with surviving right now, and everyone leaves except Allison Hawkins, who confides in Emily that she "did something unforgivable" and thinks her mom sees her as a monster now. Emily reassures her; it's an interesting parallel to Hawkins telling Jake he killed the FBI informant. Allison's mom Darcy meets her after school, and they make up and cry.

-Mel Harris, BuddyTV Staff Columnist

Photo courtesy of CBS