Last week’s cliffhanger of The Bridge, left us all biting our nails to the nub. David Tate tosses up the most devious of smokescreens to go after his one, big, objective. Gus Ruiz. In the opening sequence, an injured Gus is tied up in Tate’s backseat. Gus pleads for answers. Tate casually asks Gus how old he was. If things had worked out differently, he muses, his son Caleb and Gus would be high school classmates and friends. Gus asks what Tate plans to do with him, but Tate does not respond directly. “For Caleb, it was the sins of the mother. For you, the father.” Gus tries to explain that his father is a good person, but Tate counters asking if Marco is a good father. Wanting to be a good father, and being one are very different in Tate’s book. The El Paso PD descends upon Sonya’s accident scene as she is loaded onto a stretcher. She recites Tate’s plate number and weakly tells Lt. Wade to find Gus.
In the newsroom, Frye is back on the sauce and looking worse for wear. Adrianna is disheartened and tells Frye to be a good journalist and give it up. Easier said than done, Adrianna. Frye is on a shame spiral, and confesses to Adrianna how he ended up a target of David Tate. He tells her about the night Santi Jr. went off in search of more coke and hit Tate’s wife and son. Santi Sr. paid Frye with a dream job, not to testify against his son. At the time, Frye felt no remorse about his decision. Now it eats him alive from within. Adrianna tells Frye that she hates the way he talks when he’s drunk. As much as Adrianna wants Frye to change, he knows he can’t without help. She offers to accompany him to an early AA meeting the next morning. After hemming and hawing, and maybe a little soul searching, he agrees. Tate pulls up to an industrial area, and pulls Gus out of the backseat. Gus tries to reason with him and reminds Tate how, as Zina, he convinced Gus to give his father another change. He doesn’t get very far with Tate though, because he is soon tasered into unconsciousness. At the Ruiz residence, Marco arrives home with little news for Alma. He tells her that they are moving her and the girls to a safe house, but she refuses. Her brother and father are coming to take them home, where they will protect the family. She blames Carlos for everything, and short of saying, it’s evident that this is the end of the road for Marco and Alma. He tries to explain that the affair with Tate’s wife happened before he met Alma, and apologizes for what this has done to his family. Alma is unimpressed with Marco’s new fondness for honesty, and tells him to go find Gus. A battered and broken Sonya sits on a hospital bed. Her arm is pretty much crushed and requires surgery. Sonya isn’t thinking about her arm, or the pain right now. She wants to know what’s happening with Gus. Kitty joins Lt. Wade at the hospital, and the both of them try to convince Sonya to stay put. Lt. Wade tells her Marco is alone, and Sonya remarks that Tate wants Marco to suffer. At the local AA meeting, Frye and Adriana listen to the members’ stories. When it’s Frye’s turn up to bat, at first he lashes out with inappropriate humor and bile. He quickly softens though, and begins to cry. He tells the circle how cool they are, and that maybe since they believe he can change, perhaps he can start believing in himself. He decides that he is at least willing to try, which makes Adrianna smile. In the parking lot, Frye takes a deep breath and drinks from a paper coffee cup. Tate comes out of nowhere and sticks a needle deep in Frye’s neck. Before anyone can stop him, Tate tosses Frye into his car and takes off. Adrianna witnesses the car peeling out of the lot and knows that it’s not Frye behind the wheel.
At the station, Marco and Cooper begin to sift through Tate’s belongings. Cooper is convinced that the highly methodical Tate has left clues for them to follow. Sonya walks in, looking like three shades of awful. She apologizes to Marco for not protecting Gus. Failure is not a familiar feeling for Sonya and she can barely stomach it. Marco doesn’t have the patience to coddle Sonya, and walks away. Lt. Wade asks Marco when the last time he slept was. He suggests that Marco take a step back, and Marco asks him, what would Wade do if he was standing in Marco’s shoes. They then get a call that Tate’s car has been found, so Marco and Sonya rush to the scene. The car is abandoned in a cemetery. In the distance, Marco sees a fresh grave and runs toward it. He drops to his knees and begins digging. Sonya pulls him away, saying that it’s just a trick, Gus isn’t there. Marco starts to lose it, shouting and crying. Sonya, in an attempt to comfort him, promises that they won’t stop till they bring Gus home. Down at the courthouse, Charlotte gets the rude awakening that her late husband didn’t think too highly of her. At the reading of the will, he bequeathed most of his money and valued possessions to his daughter Kate, leaving Charlotte with only the ranch. As Kate leaves, she regales Charlotte with a charming memory of her father. He thought Charlotte was an idiot. “Bye, whore,” Kate tosses over her shoulder like a hand grenade. Ray tells Charlotte not to worry, because they still have the tunnel, and lots of things to smuggle. Adrianna arrives at the police station to report her suspicion that something terrible has happened to Frye. She relays the story of how Frye helped cover up Santi Jr.’s hit and run, and how it’s pretty damn likely that Frye is on his “soon to be murdered” list. Somewhere in a dark barrel, illuminated only by a glow stick, Gus regains consciousness. The barrel is bad enough, but it is beginning to fill with liquid as a terrified Gus looks on. Following clues found it Tate’s car, Marco and Sonya head to a nursing home where they find out Tate visited a patient on a regular basis. The patient is suffering from dementia, but it turns out that he is Tate’s uncle. They head to his house to check it for clues. There they find a freezer, complete with blood stains where Tate likely kept Christina’s legs. Tate calls Marco in the midst of this discovery. Marco yells at him to punish him and not his son. Tate says he most certainly is punishing Marco, and asks Marco to meet up. He leaves Sonya behind, making her promise not to tell Lt. Wade that he went off on his own to meet Tate. Against all her instincts, she complies and calls for a ride. Charlotte and Ray meet up with Timmy the Ice Cream Arms Dealer in a nice, remote part of town. Ray draws his gun and they demand to know who Timmy is working for. He admits it’s the ATF, but promises they don’t even know where he is. Charlotte tells Ray to kill him on the spot. Ray can’t bring himself to do it, remembering prom night and all the good old times. Charlotte however, is feeling less nostalgic. She pumps Timmy full of lead why Ray looks on in horror. Geez Charlotte, you kill one old, murderous lady in self-defense and all of a sudden you are a mercenary? Tate taunts Marco about Alma. He tells Marco that he had sex with her, and that it was so easy. Marco accuses him of lying, but knows in his heart that it’s true. Marco tries to reason with Tate that none of this is Gus’s fault, but Tate has other things on his mind. He asks Marco if he had sex with his wife in Tate’s bed. Marco reluctantly says yes.
Sonya is not doing too well back at the station. She’s sweating and swaying, so Kitty sits her down and makes her eat. Sonya does so even though she hates bananas like whoa. She tells Kitty that she knows the answer to where Gus is, is somewhere in those files. She just has to keep looking. Marco and Tate finally come face to face in a pull off near the highway. Marco can no longer control his rage and grabs Tate by the throat. Knowing that killing Tate won’t help him find Gus, he lets go. Tate asks him how it feels to be powerless. He tells Marco that when he was falling apart with grief and madness, Marco never reached out or tried to help him. Marco yells that Linda chose him and he’s not the first person in the world to lose everything. Tate fancies himself special, but Marco shoots that right down. Tate tells Marco to ditch his phone, then the two men drive off together. What did you think of this week’s The Bridge?
