As the episode begins, John Ainsworth (Toby Schmitz) and Leo Doyle (Sam Trammell) speak about Valarie’s body which is now hidden in John’s fridge. John says he wanted to help but Leo wants to make sure that Valarie’s body is found. Leo reminds John that he’ll do whatever he has to do to protect his family from finding out the truth. John says he can help and he suspects that Leo doesn’t want to be the Russian River Killer anymore. He offers to turn himself and take responsibility for the murders. Their conversation ends when Leo receives a call learning about Arlen (Anthony Phelan) being arrested for murdering his mother. Mugshots are taken and DNA is collected from Arlen.
After the intro, Arlen attends his first court hearing. Leo and Mike (Aden Young) attend that hearing. Bill Farham (Richard Piper) defends Arlen and asks the judge to let him go on until his trial. The prosecutor (Tasneem Roc) suggests otherwise and the judge sides with her. Back at home, Candace (Laura Gordon) checks on her husband and tells him that Father Moran called to ask if they thought about holding a service for her. Candace believes a funeral for her would be a good idea before Leo apologizes for not being the man she deserves. Candace says that they can get through this.
Meanwhile, the boss speaks with Mike and Cyd (Gloria Garayua) about getting two killers in one month. He believes they might get a hit and connect Arlen to the RRK but Mike admits they found inconsistencies between Arlen’s timeline and the victims’. Randy says they’ll find out soon enough before he tells Mike to take a few days off. He heads home and celebrates Amanda’s birthday with the family. Jake (Finn Little) is home with the family as well. Paige (Simone Kessell) lets Mike know that they bought their daughter a new phone and it was expensive. Mike tries to convince the kids to hang out with him for the weekend but Paige has to work and the others aren’t interested.
Later that night, Mike speaks with Amanda in her room. He confesses he worries about not being able to protect his daughter in the real world. Then, he apologizes for not being there all the time but she says he was there when it mattered the most. Meanwhile, John and Leo spend the night discussing John taking the fall for the murders. Leo says his father’s DNA will be entered into the system and checked against old crimes. He suspects this will lead police to him and it’ll be the end of the road for the RRK. In the middle of the night, Mike wakes up after hearing something downstairs.
He grabs his gun and chases a hooded figure out of the house before firing several shots at it. He gets closer only to find out that he shot himself before waking up from the nightmare. The following day, Leo gives Paxton (Ed Oxenbould) his camera. He tells Paxton that he’ll always have a family with them and that he isn’t sending him back. Leo tells him that people sometimes do things that are difficult to understand. Candace interrupts before she and Leo leave for church. While they’re away, Paxton grabs John’s key so he can break into his place with Sam (Milly Alcock). Mike takes his family to church as well. Paxton tells Sam about his grandfather’s arrest while they break into John’s place.
They spot the stingray and Sam wants to flush it. Mike catches up with Leo and speaks with him about the arrest and murder. He says he wanted to see justice served. Leo tells Mike that Arlen’s attorney is going to tell the jury how an obsessive cop harassed an old man with dementia. Leo says his father will do whatever it takes to clear his name. Paige checks on Candace and she says they’re managing. Paige reminds her that her door is always open and she offers to refer her to someone else too. Sam and Paxton find blood near the fridge and inside. John carries Valarie’s body down by the river and plants it there. He touches her several times. Sam tells Pax that she couldn’t get rid of the fish before he finds a locked door.
He quickly manages to break into the door using a butter knife and they find a shrine to the RRK inside. The evidence leads them to believe that John is the RRK. Candace asks Father Moran if Arlen could be forgiven for the murder and he believes it is possible. Moran says he is concerned about Leo because he thinks he has been struggling recently. Sam and Paxton contemplating alerting the authorities but Paxton believes it would be a bad idea. Pax says something happened in Arizona and he suggests it would be bad if people found out. She agrees to stay quiet about it. Paxton finds a tattoo in a bottle before John returns home and they hide.
When Paxton goes upstairs, they manage to escape. He hears something and checks the locked room but they’re long gone. Cyd catches up with Mike at his house and kicks the ball around with Jake. They chat about the missing nurse with the tattoo. Mike reminds her that Waller ordered him to stay away from anything related to the RRK. Mike says he wants to see his kids grow up before it is too late and possibly save his marriage. Meanwhile, Bill speaks with Leo about his father’s defense. He believes they can use Leo as a proxy for his father since he has dementia. Leo wants to know more about the DNA sample and how it’ll be checked against other crimes. The attorney says DNA would be very hard to beat.
Paige finds Mike wandering around the house before asking about the girls. Paige is running late for work but she asks Mike if he is returning to work tomorrow. He tells her he has been trying and she knows it. When she leaves, Mike sits down and recalls the dream he had with his family in the Kitchen. He approaches the man with the hoodie and gets ready to pull it off before Randy calls to tell him about the DNA test results. After wrestling practice, Mike catches up with Leo and tells him that the DNA did not match any other crimes. Mike leaves with Sam and Leo finds a quiet place to celebrate. After that, Leo visits his father at the jail. He finds out that Arlen isn’t his real father. Arlen believes Leo’s mother would’ve ruined them. He wonders if he should’ve let her take Leo.
Later that night, Mike asks Paige what she knows about hypnotherapy. She says she isn’t a big fan of it and it is for people looking for shortcuts. Mike says he wants to see someone because he thinks it might help. He thinks it might help him unlock a part of his brain that can help him find the RRK. He tells her about seeing and hearing things that aren’t there. They discuss the hallucinations and Paige says hypnotherapy isn’t the answer he is looking for. Candace finds a rubber glove when doing laundry. Then, she looks at the photo of herself with Leo on 8/30/14. She heads out into the shed and nearly finds the pictures of the victims before Leo enters. She wants to know where he has been and he promises to tell her over dinner.
She leaves and he turns off the light. Next, a group of teenagers finds Valarie’s body by the river. Leo visits John to make sure he did what he asked him to do. Leo wants to talk about John’s plan of taking credit for the RRK murders. He says he thinks it might work but John will have to die.
Reckoning Review
Yeah. This show is getting less and less believable. The story is still fairly interesting but I just can’t bring myself to believe something like this could happen in real life. It feels like the writers were obligated to drag out the show as long as possible and ended up running out of ideas along the way. With that being said, I am glad that the next one is the last. I am eager to see how things are going to end but I have a suspicion that the ending is going to be disappointing.
I hope I am wrong so watching this will have felt worthwhile once it is over. It isn’t awful nor great. It is mostly mediocre. If you have nothing else better to do, Reckoning is at least interesting. The episode scores a 7 out of 10. Previous recaps of Reckoning can be found on Reel Mockery.
