S02.E07: High Planes Grifter

[WendyCR72]

A week off this week. This will air on November 4, 2021:

Quote

Stabler and Brewster take advantage of Reggie's insecurities to force his hand. Bell and Nova must protect each other's secrets. Agnes makes a desperate choice for her family.

 

[The Wild Sow]

Whoa!

Is the real Eddie Ashes' son (Louis, I think?) following in his old man's footsteps, but kickin' it up a notch?

BTW, where is the real Eddie?  I know they flashed on a headline about him going to prison for 5 years in the first ep.  But is he just in prison?  Where he could communicate with people who actually know him, and find out someone stole his identity?  Is he in some kind of incommunicado supermax place?  For arson?  For just 5 years? Not likely.  

It would be pretty hilarious if he either escapes or get early release, and shows up in the next episode - titled Ashes to Ashes, so I may be on to something!  😁

[TooMuchRealityTV]

Reggie is such an unfortunate character. The mafia never valued him, even though all he wanted was to move up. I mean he was disposable enough to be used to kill the politician. The Albanian mafia now wants him killed. The person he loves the most, his mother, took the first opportunity available to signal to the mafia he was talking to the grand jury. So even she would pick the mafia over him. I don't think he will live until the end of this. I wonder if this case will fall apart should someone manage to kill Reggie.

I don't think Eddie Wagner's son planted the bomb, I think the mafia did it because they are onto the grand jury. Easy way to destroy evidence. I doubt the son knew about it. If Wagner's son did it, he's pretty bad at this type of thing. I imagine the goal is to get safely away before any explosion. I do wonder why he went back to the gym though.

Also, no Stabler family and no Liv! I hope we will get many more episodes like this.

Edited November 5, 2021 by TooMuchRealityTV

[milkyaqua]

Reggie's mom is a true gangster.  She sells out her son and sends some dumb, greedy stenographer to her death to protect her brother.  She never trusted Eddie either.

What I didn't understand is why Kosta, Albi and Flutura didn't just get the heck out of Dodge when they got the heads-up?  Reggie is probably on borrowed time and the other main witness dies in prison.  Seems like it would have been easier to just quietly slip out of the country knowing the cops are going to round up all the lower level folks first.

As for Wagner's son, dumb is dumb.  He should have taken the money and stayed gone.  I get he wanted some sort of family/stability whatever but you're doing dealing with criminals and even he couldn't have been that dumb to not know that.

Bell gets screwed out of a promotion and now she has to figure out where Nova standards in regards to the crooked congressman (guessing this will pick up as another thread when the Kosta stuff is wrapped up).

 

[The Wild Sow]

51 minutes ago, milkyaqua said:

As for Wagner's son, dumb is dumb.  He should have taken the money and stayed gone.  I get he wanted some sort of family/stability whatever but you're doing dealing with criminals and even he couldn't have been that dumb to not know that.

Aw, he likes Stabler & wants to impress him - you gotta admit, blowing up the bad guys is pretty impressive!  Of course, getting a little farther away from the building before The Big Boom would have been better.  Kinda hope the kid makes it.

[Raja]

Just as I was feeling okay with Albi for saving Flutera from further sex slavery he goes and tips a girl just to kill her. That was beyond cold.

[milkyaqua]

33 minutes ago, Raja said:

Just as I was feeling okay with Albi for saving Flutera from further sex slavery he goes and tips a girl just to kill her. That was beyond cold.

It was completely expected.  This young woman was a court stenographer while a grand jury is taking place dealing with mobsters where evidence has been given about them being murderers, drug dealers, human/sex traffickers.  So she agrees (because of greed which is how Abbey duped her after seeing she likes nice things) to go some place and deliver a message to said criminals.  Even if she didn't know the names of the folks involved and that's highly unlikely, how she didn't know she would be very possibly walking into a situation where she could likely be killed is just beyond bone headed.  Especially for 50K.  Not worth losing your life over.

Also, at what point do the folks running the grand jury and the task force not notice a missing stenographer?

[faithie]

5 minutes ago, milkyaqua said:

Also, at what point do the folks running the grand jury and the task force not notice a missing stenographer?

That whole scene was extremely preposterous.  After  the judge, the stenographer is the 2nd most important person necessary for a courtroom to function.  The mom could have walked in the hallways and gotten some random person to send the message to her brother.

Let me get this straight:  the mom can't speak because she was shot in the crossfire when her own brother killed her husband?  And now she's ready to sacrifice her own son to the same brother who killed her husband?  If I didn't grow up in the Philadelphia area in the late 1970's- early 1980's I would say this scenario is also preposterous - but the Sicilian-American mob of that era wasn't too far off from Dick Wolf's imagination here.

I can't be the only one who initially thought Nova was working undercover as the stenographer.  It took me several minutes to realize it wasn't her.

[edhopper]

I thought it was Nova too faithie. And I refuse to accept that this show can have a women with mystical-psychic powers. This is the kind of show they bust fake psychics. The Mother reading the steno's coffee grounds to know she needs money is beyond stupid. Leave that stuff for fantasy shows like X-Files or Evil. And the steno was beyond stupid for walking into the mob office. In real life someone being killed because they got into the middle of some criminal happening it's a tragedy. On TV it's a comedy, whether it's the steno, or the Politician's wife or Eddie's kid, as Forest Gump said, stupid is as stupid does.

[SuzieQ]

Even with the total separation from reality that you have to mentally digest most weeks, I think this show is killing it.  You had to know the court stenographer was going to bite the dust.  More unbelievable to me was how willing she was to get wrapped up in that!  This was a great episode and no Benson BS!  YAY!

[preeya]

3 minutes ago, SuzieQ said:

Even with the total separation from reality that you have to mentally digest most weeks, I think this show is killing it.  You had to know the court stenographer was going to bite the dust.  More unbelievable to me was how willing she was to get wrapped up in that!  This was a great episode and no Benson BS!  YAY!

Best episode so far and even better without St. Olivia.

Edited November 5, 2021 by preeya

[Cristofle]

I really loved the reveal to Reggie that Stabler is a cop. I knew it was Stabler when they didn't immediately cut the camera to whoever had opened the door, and still the actual moment was a bit of a punch because it was so well acted on both sides. That's really the best of Stabler as a cop - there's a lot of focus on his rage-outs, but often in the actual heat of the moment when something is spiraling, he can be very calm, like how he did not flinch when that table turned over. Also, I loved his blunt explanation to Reggie on how this was an intentional suicide mission for him. 

Reggie's mom is ice cold, man. Yikes. 

[The Wild Sow]

7 hours ago, milkyaqua said:

Reggie's mom is a true gangster.

Well, what did Reggie say to the grand jury?  You don't join the Albanian mob - you're born into it.  Agnes was born into it.

[Snazzy Daisy]

“Blood makes you related. Loyalty makes you family.”

Mama Agnes showed how the game is played, true gangster! The task force was overconfident and they underestimated her. I hope Reggie will make it to WITSEC and leave his mama behind.

Am supposed to hate Reggie because he’s one of the bad guys, but I don’t. The scene between him and Eddie in the interrogation room was well acted by both actors.

At this point, Elliot should stay away from any visible ops to arrest Kosta, Albi and Flutura. Eddie betrays all of them, and revealing himself as a cop isn’t a good idea.

The part that doesn’t make sense - nobody noticed the stenographer was missing.🤦🏻‍♀️

I hope Bell and Brewster’s drama/politic will be kept at a minimum, not interested in this. 

Edited November 6, 2021 by SnazzyDaisy

[Zaffy]

Realism and this show are not very compatible.
I mean Stabler is everywhere near police.
He visibly went to save that Congressman's wife on the scene, he went to prison walking among cells filled with prisoners, he went to the raid, he spends half of his time with his real family. Do I miss something about police undercover work?
If this Costa guy was really smart and had Stabler followed, it wouldn't take him long to find out he is cop.

[judyri]

We don't know if the stenographer would be considered MIA. She could have said she had a family emergency or a migraine, and just left.  

[MarylandGirl]

2 hours ago, Zaffy said:

Realism and this show are not very compatible.
I mean Stabler is everywhere near police.
He visibly went to save that Congressman's wife on the scene, he went to prison walking among cells filled with prisoners, he went to the raid, he spends half of his time with his real family. Do I miss something about police undercover work?
If this Costa guy was really smart and had Stabler followed, it wouldn't take him long to find out he is cop.

Agreed! I mean, at least put on dark glasses and a hat when you're going to the station or to see your family. Make *some* sort of effort.  Though I don't get the sense that Costa is particularly bright...

[TM101]

12 hours ago, Zaffy said:

Realism and this show are not very compatible.
I mean Stabler is everywhere near police.
He visibly went to save that Congressman's wife on the scene, he went to prison walking among cells filled with prisoners, he went to the raid, he spends half of his time with his real family. Do I miss something about police undercover work?
If this Costa guy was really smart and had Stabler followed, it wouldn't take him long to find out he is cop.

Yeah, this show is very entertaining and I am loving it, but the undercover angle is pretty unrealistic. Costa has been suspicious of him since he came along. I would assume a mob boss would easily have him tailed to see what he’s up to on a day to day.

I don’t even think it’s realistic with Stabler testifying at that point in the case in front of a large jury while still undercover. 

[TV Diva Queen]

Never knew you could read a coffee cup from court house coffee.  I thought you had to use the stove top thingy that us put in finely ground expresso, the one my Greek yia yia  used to use.  Ya learn something new everyday.../s

[wknt3]

On 11/5/2021 at 3:29 PM, edhopper said:

I thought it was Nova too faithie. And I refuse to accept that this show can have a women with mystical-psychic powers. This is the kind of show they bust fake psychics. The Mother reading the steno's coffee grounds to know she needs money is beyond stupid. Leave that stuff for fantasy shows like X-Files or Evil.

Come on. Wouldn't "Seer" or "Pure" or "The Gift" have been better with actual psychics? But seriously I don't think we're meant to believe that she has actual mystic abilities, just that she actually believes in it. I mean guessing that you can bribe a low level civil servant to play messenger for $50K isn't exactly something that requires other worldly perception. And we haven't seen anything that couldn't be explained by her having a bit of experience with the criminal world and a little perceptiveness. I think it was included to show that her mental issues aren't totally faked as we've seen before in the franchise even if she's not as out of it as she might seem.

Edited November 9, 2021 by wknt3
fix typo

[illdoc]

19 minutes ago, wknt3 said:

I mean guessing that you can bribe a low level civil servant to for $5K isn't exactly something that requires other worldly perception.

$50K. The $5K was extra.

[wknt3]

56 minutes ago, illdoc said:

$50K. The $5K was extra.

D'OH! Stupid typos. Fixed. Now I have to blow up your house or send my least impressive relative to take you out...

[CrystalBlue]

I thought Eddie Wagner's Not Son was headed to the airport?  I didn't think Nova and the greedy, gullible stenographer were the same woman, but it didn't take me coffee grounds to know she was going to get shot before leaving the office.  I actually thought Albi was going to pull the gun on her after he put the money on the desk and was surprised when she ended up turning around with the loot.

An exciting and well-acted episode!

[love2lovebadtv]

On 11/8/2021 at 7:17 PM, wknt3 said:

Come on. Wouldn't "Seer" or "Pure" or "The Gift" have been better with actual psychics? But seriously I don't think we're meant to believe that she has actual mystic abilities, just that she actually believes in it. I mean guessing that you can bribe a low level civil servant to play messenger for $50K isn't exactly something that requires other worldly perception. And we haven't seen anything that couldn't be explained by her having a bit of experience with the criminal world and a little perceptiveness. I think it was included to show that her mental issues aren't totally faked as we've seen before in the franchise even if she's not as out of it as she might seem.

Yes, I thought it was fitting that Agnes read people's coffee grounds and also that she didn't only rely on that to make decisions - including bribing the stenographer with what is more or less a year's salary. She is a part of the organization so, like you said, her perceptiveness isn't far fetched. 

Did I miss something about Agnes being shown to have mental issues? Or do you mean her speech impairment? She's never seemed out of it to me. 

On 11/8/2021 at 10:57 PM, CrystalBlue said:

I thought Eddie Wagner's Not Son was headed to the airport?  I didn't think Nova and the greedy, gullible stenographer were the same woman, but it didn't take me coffee grounds to know she was going to get shot before leaving the office.  I actually thought Albi was going to pull the gun on her after he put the money on the desk and was surprised when she ended up turning around with the loot.

An exciting and well-acted episode!

Nova and the stenographer are definitely not the same person. I was surprised at how nice they were but that's also when I realized she was going to die. Especially putting the money in a plastic bag so she didn't get blood on it!

[CrystalBlue]

5 hours ago, love2lovebadtv said:

Yes, I thought it was fitting that Agnes read people's coffee grounds and also that she didn't only rely on that to make decisions - including bribing the stenographer with what is more or less a year's salary. She is a part of the organization so, like you said, her perceptiveness isn't far fetched. 

Did I miss something about Agnes being shown to have mental issues? Or do you mean her speech impairment? She's never seemed out of it to me. 

Nova and the stenographer are definitely not the same person. I was surprised at how nice they were but that's also when I realized she was going to die. Especially putting the money in a plastic bag so she didn't get blood on it!

I also think the $50,000 was a coded message to Albi from Agnes.  She got her message to him with the pre-arranged code to make sure you kill the messenger, not have them walk away with $50,000.