This week’s episode of The Endgame was fast-paced and took us on a scavenger hunt of sorts. It seems the writers themselves wanted to switch up the constant storytelling theme and we were okay with that. We do love the stories but, it’s nice to get a variety of ways to do them. It keeps things interesting and makes us want to tune in every week. That being said, let’s get into The Endgame 1×06 “Judge, Jury, and Executioner.”
In ‘The Endgame’ 1×06 “Judge, Jury, and Executioner” the theme was corruption. We’re still focused on the people in the photograph that Val found because they are all Elena’s targets and not everyone has been exposed. Elena’s latest target is Judge Caroline Walsh. Director Real has paid her a visit to inform her that she is the next victim on Elena’s list. Listen, Judge Walsh is annoying and stubborn as hell. She tells the Director who it’s clear she’s got major history with, that she doesn’t know why Elena would be coming after her.
When he tells her she’s literally in a picture with all the targets Elena has hit so far, she’s still not hearing him. Judge Walsh is adamant that she had nothing to do with the operation that blew up the church where Elena and Sergey were to be married.
She claims that she just happened to walk into the room as the operation was taking place and all she saw was the drone footage and she thought it was just a military operation. Yeah, we don’t believe that. We are six episodes into this series, and we know how Elena rolls. Girlfriend does not go after someone for nothing, and its obvious Judge Walsh is hiding something.
As Director Real is warning Judge Walsh, a prison break is happening over at Elmira Correctional Facility. As soon as he leaves the judges place, she is immediately captured by the Snow-White operatives along with the escaped convict who we now know is Jamie Alfonso a murder whose case she tried. And so, begins the new mission.
This time we’re at bank number two which is First Capital Security Bank. Elena’s lead Woman Rona is taking charge of that bank and she and her team are decrypting the security Doak, and his team set up to prevent her from breaking into Elena’s frozen bank account.
Doak is convinced Elena is now working on her escape plan since her team is trying to get into her account. He devises a plan to do an exchange with Rona. If she gives up the hostages, he will give her back her boyfriend Louie. Love is a powerful thing so naturally Rona agrees.
Val is tasked with saving Judge Walsh and so she’s off following the trail of clues Elena has left for her. Nothing Elena does is without a purpose. There are a total of three clues, but the main goal is to follow the corruption. Val doesn’t know just what that means but as always, she’s able to decipher each and every clue Elena left behind.
See, we always talk about how it’s so easy for Val to figure everything out but, we have to remember and respect the fact that Val is smart and has a lot of experience in her field. Not only that but Elena knows if nobody else understands her clues, Val will.
Back at Fort Totten Director Real confronts Elena to find out why she had Judge Walsh taken. See, he still believes in Judge Walsh and that’s because he’s got a past history with her which Elena somehow knows. We’re always surprised and confused as to how Elena gets all the information she does.
And we’re not talking basic info, like, she knows specific details. Those specific details she happens to know are that Director Real and Judge Walsh were dating in their senior year before law school. That past history is clouding the Directors vision of Judge Walsh. He doesn’t think she’s capable of doing anything corrupt but Elena’s got a rude awakening for him.
Val and Anthony eventually get to Judge Walsh and Jamie Alfonso is holding her at gunpoint. He threatens to kill the judge if she doesn’t admit that she sentenced him for a crime he never committed. Despite the threat of death, the judge continues to try and deny what she did, and that the corruption goes even deeper.
When she finally does admit that she knew Jamie was innocent but sentenced him anyway, he pulls her out of a window with him. Don’t freak out, both of them survive and he manages to escape. With the new information that Judge Walsh has been taking money to coverup crimes committed by the Beloks, the Director has had enough and tells Val to bring her in.
Back at bank number two, Doak who has asked Director Real for some snipers, is in the middle of doing the exchange with Rona. Before sending Louie out he shows him the engagement ring he knows he got to propose to Rona. He tells Louie he will give it to him if the exchange goes smoothly. If it doesn’t, he will take the ring and personally show up to his jail cell and flush it down the toilet right in front of him. That’s some kind of threat, right?
During the exchange, all of the hostages were able to make it out safely and Louie was able to make it back to his love. But not before the snipers started firing on Rona. Thankfully nobody was hurt because Doak literally had the sniper fire out into the open while the hostages were still standing around. We must admit, we were ready to call Doak a dumbass, but it turned out his plan wasn’t so bad after all. He’s also more cunning than we gave him credit for. Doak planted the perfect trap, and we were impressed.
After the exchange happened Doak realized Louie had taken the engagement ring, but it was his plan all along because the ring had a tracker in it. Just as Rona and Louie thought they were in the clear, Doak showed up and captured the two of them as they were preparing to make their getaway on a bus. The two had no choice but to cooperate and were hauled off to Fort Totten.
We can’t close out this review without talking about Val and Isaac Bigby. Early in the episode, Elena and Val discuss Isaac and his whereabouts. Val tries to act like she’s totally unaffected by finding out that the man who murdered her mom is alive but it’s obvious it still affects her.
That’s evidenced by the flashbacks and nightmares she is still having and Elena drudging up memories of the past doesn’t help. Val really doesn’t know what Elena wants from her or what she expects to gain from everything. That is until Val learns that Isaac Bigby was on a list of paid FBI informants.
Once Val finds this out, she realizes that what she and Elena have in common is that the US government took family from the both of them. We’re still going to need more information on that new revelation because that doesn’t tell us everything.
Before getting this piece of information Val was dead set on not going to Isaac Bigby’s place. She and Anthony did stop by his place earlier in the The Endgame 1×06 “Judge, Jury, And Executioner,” but he was able to convince her not to do anything. Later that night Val thinks back to Elena’s question of what she would do if she could get justice for her mother’s murder. The desperation to confront the man to get some sort of closure, is strong.
Val shows up on Isaac’s doorstep and he denies who he really is which was to be expected because nobody is going to give up their information when they don’t know the person they’re talking to. We know it was hard for Val to face the man who murdered her mother, but she did it.
She let him know he much he took from her and the way he impacted her life. We really didn’t know what to expect as Val spoke with Isaac, but it was a tense moment for sure. As she turned to leave, a delivery man showed up to bring Isaac his essentials which included a pack of cigarettes. Isaac lights up and immediately has a reaction and goes down. Val attempts to save his life but unfortunately, he ends up dying.
Val knows Elena had something to do with his death and that she laced his cigarettes with poison. Elena isn’t sorry and her reasoning for doing it was to give Val the chance to see Isaac take his last breath. She knows Val is upset but assures her she will be a different woman after this. Before Val is able to say anything else about this, the power goes out and even Elena is caught off guard. We don’t know what is about to happen but if even Elena is looking worried, it can’t be good.
Other Thoughts
- Anthony (Agent Flowers) is the best friend we all need. Seriously, we love how much he has Val’s back.
- The fact that Judge Walsh was still talking all that shit to Director Real after she was rescued, makes her a terrible person.
- Those clues this week had us feeling like we were in one long riddle.
- Good to know that those bullets flying around the hostages were blanks.
- So, we know that Rona and Louie committed a lot of crimes, but it was pretty slick of them to leave behind that 10 million in cryptocurrency for Jamie to find once he got on the bus after Doak took them into custody.
- Val’s memories of her mom throughout the episode especially the one from 1990 as she was teaching her about lies and corruption got us.
- Sergey and Owen what are you two up to? Four more days? Four more days until what?
- So, dude they poisoned is out of the infirmary. So much for THAT plan.
- “We’re both in the dark agent.”
- So, we’re just gonna forget about the melting gold bar situation from The Endgame 1×05 “Gold Rush” huh?
The Endgame airs Mondays on NBC.