Wrangling Walker: Season Four Episode Five, “We’ve Been Here Before”

The plot thickens. Captain James found out about the new leads on the Jackal, Geri dreams of expanding the Side Step, Cassie and David make progress on the case and interpersonally, and Stella and Auggie are still investigating the necklace on their own.

The title of the episode is the major through-line of the plot—repeating the behaviors and thought processes that have already proven harmful for a ‘good cause’ and hoping for a different outcome.

I’ll leave the recap to others and dive into thoughts and themes.

Captain James, Cordell, and Trey

Well, that got messy fast. Captain James is understandably angry at Cordell and Trey for working behind his back on the new Jackal leads. Even when Kelly begs him to do this differently and tells him she asked Cordell to leave him out of it, James is furious. He also quickly reverts to the behaviors everyone feared—working without a break, cutting his family out of his time, and losing his sobriety.

Kelly tells Cordell that James ‘forgave’ her for asking Cordell to stay mum, but that it was ‘hollow forgiveness’. That’s a great phrase, and we see more times where the actions don’t match the words as the episode unfolds. Geri tells Cordell that she doesn’t like lying to their friends. Cordell says ‘it’s not lying; it’s omitting’ which is a line straight out of the Winchester playbook.

Kelly is also worried about James staying ‘grounded’. That’s also a recurring theme in this episode, as the characters struggle to find balance and choose courses of action. She also wants to make sure James doesn’t ‘drown’. Cordell certainly understands after how he lost perspective and moorings undercover as ‘Duke’. Both James and Stella are ‘drowning’

Cordell and Trey are following solid leads, but Cordell realizes James has reached out to an old contact and follows him using an undercover car. James meets with the son of one of the Jackal’s victims (who apparently greeted him with a fist when they first met, which James lied about). Henry, the victim’s son, believes he knows who the jackal is based on ‘evidence’ he found while repairing the man’s car. James wants to stop Henry before he hurts someone, unconvinced by the evidence. Cordell barges in when he thinks Henry is going to assault James again.

He and James stake out Henry’s garage (is this a nod to Henry Winchester’s garage in The Winchesters?) and when the man Henry suspects brings his car in, Henry chloroforms him and is about to do worse when Cordell and James stop him, and call for backup. Good thing, because the man isn’t the Jackal.

Cordell tries to get James to go with him to eat, James turns him down. Kelly finds him working late, says she feels like the past is happening again. James says he hasn’t started drinking, but at the end of the episode he grabs airline bottles from the gift basket and downs them. He’s repeating the pattern while denying it, while fixated on not repeating his mistakes. This isn’t going well.

James and Cordell are still not being entirely transparent with one another, even when it’s for a good cause. That means that when they are working together, they’re still somewhat at cross-purposes.

Cassie and David

Trey and Cassie invite David to join them at the Side Step. Trey makes it clear he is all for Cassie and David to get together, despite his earlier interest. There’s plenty of major flirting between David and Cassie, and their rom-com open doors/close doors scene at her apartment was funny. David talks about the importance of ‘finding those moments of light and balance’ to cope with the darkness of their work. Then David double-roasts the coffee beans—an unexpected kindness based on their prior discussion and comes back. He and Cassie kiss.

I’m enjoying their flirtation and hope this goes better for Cassie that the last time when her date turned out to be the crime boss. Time will tell.

Geri

Geri says she has an appointment with an ‘influencer’ about the possibility of expanding the Side Step to additional locations. The influencer turns out to be bogus, suggesting a predatory expansion scheme that Geri sees through immediately. (Thanks to Liam, for stepping in to use his knowledge of contracts to shoot down the unfair agreement)

However, Geri is really excited about the possibility of expanding, and wants to open a location in Oklahoma City, where she grew up.

There are several problems here. First off, Cordell is part owner, and Geri’s not consulting him ahead of taking steps. Instead, she barely keeps him apprised once she’s made up her mind. That’s not a good sign.

Also, opening a new business and getting it off the ground takes time. If Geri is planning to go back to Oklahoma City to do this, it means a lot of time away from Cordell when they’ve only just taken their relationship to a more serious level. That to me indicates a level of ambivalence about the romance, because it isn’t something that a person who was ‘all in’ would do. Has she gotten cold feet or is this attachment avoidance? Whatever the cause, it doesn’t bode well.

Stella, Auggie, and Liam

Stella and Auggie are still looking for the necklace. She rules it out as a Davidson relic, while Auggie has checked out the pawn shops and found nothing. Liam calls to remind Stella that she’s supposed to help at the horse rescue and she lies about needing to do school work and tries to get out of it. Then Liam is on his phone to Ben while riding an ATV, hits a stump because he’s distracted and gets hurt.

Liam is realizing that he misses practicing law, wants to help people, and still has his license. Bonham warns that he’s already overcommitting with the rescue. Ben sent flowers.

Abilene guilts/strong-arms both Stella and Auggie to help since she’s the reason Liam got hurt. Stella asks both Abilene and Bonham about the necklace, and Bonham says it’s much older, late 1800s.

Auggie tells Stella that they’re looking in the wrong places, that the necklace might have been stolen from a museum. And that’s when they find the link—it once belonged to a Rawlins. Was Hoyt the one who stole it?

Stella and Auggie are playing a very dangerous game and over-estimating their abilities as newly-minted adults. Someone is going to get hurt. It’s bad when even Sadie thinks they are being reckless. I guess this is thrown in for the sake of tension, but it’s a forced error and would have been easy to write differently to keep from taking foolish chances.

Final thoughts

Bad decisions seems to be a theme in this episode. Henry’s certain that he knew who the Jackal was, although he was wrong. James falling back into destructive behaviors despite everyone’s warnings. Stella and Auggie taking on a situation that’s too big and dangerous for them. Liam overcommitting. Geri, suddenly making a major business decision without consulting her co-owner and new partner. Whether or not Cassie and David’s relationship is a bad decision remains to be seen, although I’m rooting for them.

And then there’s Cordell, trying to give the people in his life the space they demanded, while watching them spiral. It’s an interesting tactic not to center the title character as the main focus of each episode, and to sometimes have him be an onlooker into the lives of the people he loves who surround him. I think we’ve all felt like that, seeing our inner circle start down dangerous paths and yet not be able to talk them out of it. I’m curious to see where this goes and how their choices, inevitably, impact Cordell.

Some other themes:

—Stop before you hurt somebody

—Make sure he doesn’t drown

—Find those moments of light and balance

—Not lying—omitting.

—Talk about not repeating mistakes—and then repeating them

—Hollow forgiveness, where the actions don’t match the words

What did you see in this episode? Did you pick up on anything I missed? What’s going to happen to Stella and Auggie? Who are Witt and the ‘lady’ and what’s the link to Hoyt?

Guess we’ll have to find out next episode!