This episode starts with Alak’s Bachelor party. Alak gets in a fight with one of Castithans that questioned his manhood. They crash into a wall and a dead skeleton. The man was Hunter Bell. He owned the Need/Want before Kenya. Kenya was married to him.
With a dead body on their hands, Tommy and Nolan try to search for the killer. While investigating we learn from a series of flashbacks about the townspeople and Hunter Bell. From Amanda and Kenya’s flashbacks we see that Hunter Bell violently abuse Kenya and Kenya loved him regardless. Also through flashbacks we see that Tommy was a hustler who was given a chance by Bell to become a deputy. This past history prompts Tommy to find the killer.
While Tommy and Irisa gets a hot lead, they head over to Gerald’s the barkeep trailer to find out that he was murdered. Nolan comes by and sees for himself. He determines that Datak may have killed him. So tommy and Nolan arrests Datak in the middle of the market place. Then they take him back to the precinct to talk about Hunter Bell. Nolan and Tommy try to connect a cane with Datak but that does not work. We see the next flashback. Datak use to work for Hunter Bell in the past. One night Datak gets into a fight with Hunter and Mr. Bell decides to pull out a knife. Then Rafe steps in and breaks up the fight. Datak and Rafe were cordial in the recent past but things went south. Nolan lets Datak free. At this point the case does not get solve but at the end of this episode everything gets tied up.
Let’s talk about some of the interesting minor plots. The first revolves around the Tarrs. Rafe sits down with Datak at the diner to tell Datak that the mines are going to the Irathients when he dies. Datak storms off. He goes back home to talk to Stahma. We see the two discussing rather or not to end the wedding and Stahma disagrees with Datak. Alak’s happiness is the most important thing to her. This is the first time Stahma outright defies Datak. Then Datak talks to Alak and Alak refuses to end the wedding but he goes over to the McCawley’s anyway to end the wedding. When he tells Christie, she cries and Rafe talks to Alak. The wedding is still on because Alak and Christie’s love is important. There is also a thing with a Castithan blindfold but that becomes a non-issue.
The final subplot revolves around Nicki. Nicki is really an indogen and she killed Hunter Bell. Doc Yewell knows all of this because she was there when it happened. However, Doc Yewell had enough of Nicki when news broke that Gerald was murdered. So Doc Yewell kills Nicki, put her body in her car and turns it on. After the wedding, Nolan and Tommy see the supposed suicide letter on the windshield that confesses her involvement.
This episode was another world-building episode that used Hunter Bell to build background on the main characters. Three major things are established here. Doc Yewell has the artifact. Christie and Alak are married and Datak knows he does not run the family. Finally, Tommy and Irisa are similar people with similar paths. They are seen holding hands at the wedding. This progressively gets better in the area of world-building. Defiance airs on SyFy. Here is next week’s trailer:
image: NBC Universal