1x06 Papier

This episode was one of this first season's better ones. It was certainly better than the previous episode. The pacing was slow, I guess. Or neither slow nor fast; just right. Something about it made that not matter, although that seemed to matter somewhat previously. And the storyline is beginning to come together. There were also a few moments that elevated the episode entirely.

We learned something vital about Finlay's wife, which added a lot more depth to his character; through that, a lot of depth was also added to his relationship with Reacher, how he confided that information to him; despite his earlier conversation with Mosley, in this same episode. Not only that, their moments together, along with the further building up of their friendship/bond, were pretty good.

And one thing that I noticed was that there wasn't a flashback in this episode. I'm pretty sure there's been one in every episode up to this point, until now. I doubt that means anything; I just thought it was interesting. I feel like there will be another one in either the next episode or the finale or both. Maybe an important one, one that goes beyond exposition and background into Reacher's character. Or maybe not.

• Picard is super sus. Those two guys conveniently knew where the Hubbles were, yet they were also not making a move on them for some reason. We know (from the previous episode) that the EPA investigator Joe was looking into was gunned down in his home: a dead federal agent, so naturally, the FBI stepped in. Same post-mortem M.O. as Joe aside, the FBI "determined" it was a random burglary gone bad: despite the evident details contradicting that. Know who we know is an FBI agent? We know with whatever's going on, the people involved have a lot of influence, the means to do whatever they want, whenever they want. Taking out federal agents, civilians: making files disappear at a federal agency; on top of instilling fear into people to make them do their bidding, rather than taking them out as well.

• Lol, did anyone notice that subtle botch by Alan Ritchson? He tried to throw the suit jacket (?) into the garbage can, nonchalantly: and messed up. Nice save by him, though. Imagine how hilarious it would've been to have no choice but to redo that, and all because you messed up throwing a piece of clothing into a garbage can. Then again, who knows; maybe that wasn't a botch.

• That fight sequence at the end was great. I think it's my favorite so far. I never really give it any thought about what order I'd put all the fight sequences in so far: but I'd say the one in the previous episode where Reacher gave Kliner Jr. and his two buddies, cousin included, a beating, was my favorite one yet, and I feel like the one at the end of this episode topped it. The latter may not have been better, objectively; it may have been better objectively, but I think I liked it just a tiny bit more.

The halfway point of the episode, I feel like, is when/where it started getting pretty good. Before that, the highlight was the moments between Reacher and Finlay, but that's pretty much it. This episode was decent. I'm hoping the next episode has super exciting moments: same with the finale.