Wrangling Walker: Season Four Episode Six “We All Fall Down”

Walker’s “We All Fall Down” is aptly named, as it shows us the way the characters have stumbled recently, both personally and professionally, and how the past is surfacing to threaten the present.

As usual, I’ll leave the full recap to others and zero in on what stood out to me.

Hoyt, Stella, and Auggie

It was great to see a flashback of Hoyt! “We All Fall Down” starts with Hoyt stealing the necklace that everyone wants to get their hands on, and making his escape with his buddy Mehar. 

Stella wants to reconnect with Mehar and find out what he knows, blowing past Auggie’s cautions. She tells him, “I’m the adult you go to” and everyone over 21 in the audience cringed, knowing this is setting them up for a big fall. Stella isn’t as grownup as she wants to believe, and Auggie is right to worry. We can, however, identify with her desire to stop people from terrorizing her.

The Mustang and Hoyt’s jacket used to belong to Mehar, who lost them to Hoyt in a poker game. Stella and Auggie set Mehar up by letting him steal Stella’s wallet to get into a student-only exhibit at the campus museum, where he steals a brooch while they create a distraction. I really didn’t follow this ‘logic’ as it makes Stella and Auggie accessories to a theft – all for the hope of getting information from Mehar? Stella is once again letting us down on adult logic, and endangering Auggie as well.

Cordell and Geri, Ben and Liam

Geri is already looking for locations to open another Side Step. Cordell is making breakfast and burns the biscuits. He invited the kids to brunch to break the news about having Geri move in with them, but they don’t show up. Cordell knows something is off with the kids, because they aren’t acting right.

He goes to Ben and Liam for a sanity check about the kids. Liam questions whether Cordell is moving too fast inviting Geri to move in, and tells him not to rush into it, but Cordell isn’t listening. He goes ahead and asks her, she says yes, and they kiss. But how is this going to work with her opening a second location far away and on her own?

We get a flashback of Hoyt finding Cordell when he was undercover as Duke. Cordell had been gone for three months, and Hoyt is worried about him. Hoyt and Geri meet at Emily’s grave and she says Cordell isn’t holding up well. Hoyt tries to give her the necklace, which is a family heirloom, but she refuses it, saying she will keep it ’only if you’re staying’.

Staying or going is a theme in this episode. Geri is conflicted, while Ben and Liam seem to be on the right track. Stella and Auggie are caught between being adults and teens, but also needing help with a grown-up situation.

For as good as Cordell was with James, he blows it with Stella and Auggie, losing his temper and yelling at them because they aren’t showing up for family time. Stella tries to talk to him and he cuts her off. He completely overreacts, and Geri clearly isn’t happy. Of course, Stella and Auggie close up, so they aren’t going to ask for any help with the real reason for their absence. For all the progress Cordell has made with the kids, he’s losing ground when he forgets that they are now adults.

Liam tries so hard to do the right thing, and no one ever listens. But I did think the scene of him and Ben talking—and then kissing—in bed was hot! Ben wants to quit his job because work keeps him away too much and he likes working events at the ranch with Abeline. Liam says his parents want to retire. Could he and Ben run the ranch and a law office and bring it all together? “I like that future” seems to not only apply to Ben and Liam, but also to the alternative futures opening for Cordell/Geri, James, as well as Stella and Auggie, although not all of those paths look as rosy.

Geri doesn’t think Cordell is ready for them to move in together. She wants him to talk it over with the kids first. Her reason is encouraging, that when she moves in she never wants to move out. She thinks he is moving too quickly because he wants a ‘full nest’ aka doesn’t want to be alone. They restate their love for each other and she leaves, with Cordell looking around the empty house, lost.

Captain James, Trey, and Cassie

Captain James and Cassie update the Jackal survivors, who aren’t particularly friendly. Cassie shows her interest in the lieutenant position that is open and James cuts her off. Trey also asks about the position but doesn’t get shut down as hard. I’m not keen on pitting Trey and Cassie against each other for the job.

Trey worries that James doesn’t look good and that he’s not remembering details. James says that he fell down. Trey’s answer is ‘we all fall down’.

That’s not just the title for the episode, it’s the running theme. Cordell makes mistakes with his kids and Geri. Stella and Auggie are heading for a fall. Geri’s preoccupation with a second location seems questionable, especially since it would require being gone for a long time at a crucial junction in her relationship with Cordell. Is it an excuse to run away again? James falls off the wagon, and his marriage is in trouble. The damage is all self-inflicted. Have the characters forgotten the hard-won lessons they learned, or are we seeing people revert to old patterns under extreme stress?

James shows up with a flask, so he has definitely relapsed. Did anyone else think his journal looked a lot like John Winchester’s? Kelly found the vodka and his journal and kicked him out.

Cordell confronts him, and James starts crying, talking about how he lied and created rules/rituals to keep himself from drinking because it takes him to the worst version of himself. When he says, “I’m being honest now—what choice do I have?” I got the feeling this is foreshadowing for more than just his drinking problem.

James turns the investigation over to Cordell, who encourages him. “You beat this, you can beat it again. Let’s find our way back,” sounds like something Sam Winchester would have said when Dean had the Mark of Cain.

At the end, Cordell snoops in James’ journal. I wonder what he’ll find? Let’s hope it’s not ‘if you can’t save him, you’ll have to kill him’!

What did you think? Do you have a theory about the necklace?

 

Find more of Gail’s commentaries on her Writer’s Page.

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