The third episode of the season is pretty intense both on the job and off. Andy and Ward get acquainted and then immediately get in a dangerous situation, there's a unique kind of who-dunnit, Chloe flirts with someone new, and Sam, Marlo and Andy contemplate their family/romantic situation. Although it's annoying there are now two story lines hanging in the wind — the serial rapist and the bomb attack on 15, the episode works.
Without further ado, here's a look at what happened:
The case
In parade, Oliver — who it's hard to take seriously because he has an eye patch on for an eye infection — tells everyone the mission for the day: They will be doing a prison transfer for two inmates from a nearby, short-staffed correctional facility. He assigns Andy and Ward to one inmate and Nick and Gail to the other.
At the prison, after the warden has the officers remove their weapons, she leads them to the inmates. Warden says that Kenzie Grant (Andy and Ward's assignment) is a handful — she's being transferred to a maximum security prison because she stabbed another inmate in the shower. The other girl, Rochelle Dawber, is the opposite.
When they reach the prisoners, the seemingly timid and innocent Rochelle is ready to go. But Kenzie, with an attitude, says she's not ready. When they do get her to start walking out, she bumps another inmate on the way, which leads to mass chaos. In the pandemonium Andy and Ward find Kenzie with a stab wound in her stomach.
Nick and Gail, who've gone ahead with Rochelle hear an alarm. Nick wants to go back for Andy and Ward but Rochelle says she wants to stay with him so Gail goes back instead. Back at the warden's office, the warden tells Chris and Oliver that protocol for a prison riot is to go on lockdown and wait because if they go in guns blazing, it makes things worse.
As Ward and Andy are on their way to taking Kenzie to an infirmary she said was nearby, Oliver instructs the officers to head to a nearby entrance instead, where they'll have an EMT waiting. Hearing that, Kenzie pulls a knife from her pants, pins Ward against the wall and holds it to her throat. She demands they take her to the infirmary so she can get to J. Bird, her bunkie. She wants to "get the real story" and find out why she's pinning the stabbing on her. Turns out Kenzie stabbed herself so the officers would take her to J. Bird.
The warden tells Oliver that J. Bird is the inmate Kenzie allegedly stabbed. Then, over the radio, he, they hear Kenzie say Donnelly is lying, and that J. Bird is her best friend. The warden explains Donnelly is a guard who resigned two weeks ago — the third resignation in a month.
Andy, trying to talk Kenzie down, asks what happened with J. Bird. Kenzie says the last time she saw her she was lying in the shower with blood all around and the next thing she knew, they're saying she did it. Ward, trying to stay calm but clearly terrified, tries to get Kenzie to let her radio Oliver but Kenzie makes Ward and Andy remove the radios and orders them toward the infirmary.
Oliver gets the warden to call in a hostage negotiator and calls Traci. He tells her to find out what she can about Kenzie. When she calls back a few scenes later, Traci explains that Kenzie has been in and out of prison since being a teenager and her only friend in there is J. Bird. A guard that witnessed the stabbing said it was Kenzie and J. Bird corroborated from the hospital. Traci says there have been a number of complaints against Donnelly and he apparently had an inappropriate relationship with one of the inmates: Rochelle Dawber.
Cut to Nick and Rochelle. While Andy and Ward were dealing with Kenzie, Rochelle led Nick to the basement, where they'd gotten stuck in the lockdown. After Traci's reveal, Rochelle is shown trying to sweet talk Nick. She says she doesn't belong in prison and starts babbling about how she's an indigo child, which means more light falls on her than most people, and she has an energy aura around her. Nick isn't having any of her nonsense, but when he says he doesn't want to see her aura, she says "I think you do because I forgot to mention... I have a key." With that she slips out a gate, leaving Nick still trapped.
Meanwhile, Kenzie and the officers have arrived at the infirmary. After Kenzie asks J. Bird for the truth and she again blames her, Kenzie starts freaking out, desperate for an explanation. At this point she's barely paying attention to Ward. There are two officers and one of her. Why don't they do something? J. Bird starts to apologize but then kind of seizes and goes unconscious. Kenzie threatens to kill Ward if they don't save J. Bird. Andy convinces her that she needs Ward's help so Kenzie releases her.
Back at the police station, Dov and Traci have Donnelly in the interrogation room. At first he sticks to his story about Kenzie stabbing J. Bird and doesn't admit to a relationship with Rochelle, who they've learned has a history of weaseling her way out of trouble, including DUI and stalking charges. But after the officers use a tactic of pretending to know more than they do, Donnelly cracks. He says J. Bird wanted a favor from him so he got one from her, but Rochelle caught them and freaked out. She thought J. Bird was encroaching on her territory so she attacked her and then threatened to kill Kenzie if J. Bird didn't say Kenzie did it. Donnelly says he lied because Rochelle is a sociopath and if she wants J. Bird to pay, she'll kill anyone that tries to stop her.
Cut to Rochelle walking into the infirmary where the police are still trying to save J. Bird. Ward uses the distraction of her entry to get the jump on Kenzie and manages to knock the knife out of her hands. During this scuffle, Rochelle locks the infirmary door behind her. For some reason neither officer thinks to retrieve the knife, so while the officers are distracted with J. Bird, Rochelle picks it up, undetected. Soon a mob arrives at the door of the infirmary looking for drugs. Just when Andy and Ward announce they've saved J. Bird, Rochelle unlocks the door and in the hysteria that follows the mob rushing in, tries to get to J. Bird. But before she succeeds the tactical team, with Nick, arrive just in time and throw some kind of light grenade that stops everyone cold. The day is saved!
The people
I. Chloe and Duncan
In the second scene of the episode, Chloe walks into the station even more bubbly than usual. Duncan notices and makes a flirtatious comment. In the conversation that follows Chloe says my sun penetrates clothing. Duncan interprets this as a sexual innuendo and in response, says "you're sun doesn't have to work so hard, I can just take my clothes off." Chloe replies, "don't make the sun's job so easy because I like to work hard." She hits him playfully and then realizes things have gotten weird. In trying to wrap up whatever it was they were doing, the painfully awkward interaction between the two most painfully awkward characters gets even more awkward. In the end, Chloe slaps him lightly on the face and walks away. Duncan is boyishly giddy about whatever just happened. Let it be nothing!
In the locker room he starts talking to Dov. He tries to ease into asking him about Chloe by asking getting-to-know you questions and sharing information about himself, like how he likes to pee sitting down sometimes. Before he gets to his point though, Dov walks away from him.
At the end of the episode, he tries again. He asks Dov, "if a girl says she wants to touch your skin with her eyes but doesn't want you to take your clothes off because that's half the fun, does that mean she's into you?" Dov says yes, so Duncan asks him if he and Chloe are "done, done." Before Dov can react to finding out Duncan meant Chloe, Chloe arrives. Duncan asks her to the local bar. Chloe hesitates and asks if everyone's going. Duncan says Dov doesn't want to go out so it's just them. Chloe hesitantly agrees. Dov looks on, perplexed, as the two walk away, with Duncan going to put his arm around Chloe but deciding not to. Ew times a million!
II. Gail.
When Gail went back to help Andy and Ward, she got stuck in a cell with an older inmate. At first the woman seems creepy but ends up being harmless, albeit a little depressing. After she gets Gail to admit she's trying to adopt a child, she warns that youngsters suck the life out of you. She seems to completely resent being a parent, noting that she should have created a bucket list to do things she couldn't do once the youngsters came — i.e. ride in a hot air balloon, drink a Mai Tai, sleep with a black man, pinch a stranger's butt just because. This rant is hitting Gail hard and you can see doubt about her decision spreading across her face. But before Gail leaves the woman, she asks her why she's in prison. The woman explains that she killed her husband after he fell asleep smoking a cigarette, causing a fire that killed their children. She tearfully says that the hardest thing about being a mother is that you can't protect them from anyone, they become your life and if you lose them, you don't know how to keep living.
III. Ward.
Ward and Nick share a flirtatious hello in parade, which Andy notices. Then, as Andy and Ward are on their way to the prison, Andy spills her guts about her Sam situation. At Ward's shocked face, she says she figured they'd skip the small talk and go straight to over-sharing. So in that spirit, Ward admits to being crazy about Nick. How'd she go from too cool for school to lovesick school girl so quickly?
After Andy assures Ward it's not weird for her to talk about, Ward says she is looking for excuses to avoid Nick so who better to ask than his ex. Andy essentially says Nick is perfect, so Ward points out that Andy's not with him anymore. Andy explains that's only because of her history with Sam, but otherwise, Nick is a great catch. Ward asserts that she doesn't want to date a cop. Andy says she had that rule too, but holds up three fingers indicating how many she's dated.
Later on, when Ward and Andy first meet Kenzie, Kenzie claims she knows Ward from Vancouver. Ward insists she's mistaken. After the scuffle breaks out and the officers find Kenzie wounded, she again says she knows Ward. She claims Ward used to go with a dealer and she used to wonder what someone like Ward was doing with that kind of guy and crowd. Ward still laughs it off like Kenzie is wrong.
However, after Kenzie holds Ward hostage at knife point later and won't respond to Ward's attempts to gain her trust because she thinks she's been lying about knowing her, Ward changes her tune. She describes a bar in Vancouver and says the two of them got drunk together there. Kenzie says Ward got drunk while Kenzie waited for the dealer to come with her dope. Ward tries to remind her that they must have gotten along, but Kenzie says she was a b****.
At the end of the episode, when they are driving back to the station (Should they be driving after all that?), Andy calls Ward a liar. She asks what that whole situation was with Kenzie. At first Ward claims she just said what Kenzie wanted to hear. Then she spins a different story: She went undercover and fell in love with a drug dealer. That's why she's so careful now about who she gets involved with. But she got herself out of the mess. Andy doubts she did it without any debts or ties to the bad crowd she'd fallen in with. Ward insists she did and then pleads with Andy to keep this information to herself because it's a dark time in her past she's ashamed of.
She soon gets into the car with mystery creepy guy and mentions her cover almost being blown. He says he'll cover her tracks. Is Andy in trouble? Ward says she doesn't like lying to everyone but the man reminds her she doesn't have to like it, she just has to do it.
IV. Sam and Marlo... and Andy.
The episode opens with Marlo alone at the doctor's getting a checkup on her baby. Sam arrives, bug-eyed, apologizing for being late. Marlo is surprised but smiles. He's shocked to see a picture of the baby. The nurse is acting as if something might be wrong with the baby but won't say until the radiologist gets there. Marlo tells Sam he can go but he insists on staying unless she wants him to leave. She says it's his baby too, so he stays. A few scenes later, as they're still waiting, she again says he can go but he insists he wants to be there.
While they're waiting, Marlo breaks the slightly awkward silence by rambling about time and Sam starts talking about June bugs. Marlo doesn't know what they are so Sam describes the bugs he grew up seeing when he visited family at a beach. Marlo says she went to that same beach every August. The two have a moment as they realize the coincidence or possible of maybe being at the same beach at the same time when they were kids. I know we're supposed to root for Sam and Andy, but this is a cute moment.
When the radiologist finally comes she explains that there's a sign of a potential neural defect in the baby that will lead to development issues but for now, there's no reason to be concerned. The doctor then accidentally reveals the baby is a girl. Sam and Marlo are overjoyed. Marlo asks Sam to keep it a secret and he agrees but says he's going to tell Andy. This annoys Marlo and she asks him how it's supposed to work, them having a baby together but not being together while he builds a life with Andy. Sam says that it's simple: he'll always be there for Marlo and the baby but Andy can't come third. Marlo points out that he's making a big promise to everyone. Sam assures her he can deal with that. Marlo drops the issue... for the time being.
In the last scene of the episode, after Andy shares her day with Sam, she asks about the appointment with Marlo. Hearing it's a girl, Andy says that's amazing, "you're going to have a daughter," but the thought makes her sad. Andy says the baby will adore Sam and he says she'll adore Andy too. But Andy is distraught and comments on how complicated things are. She asks where things will go between them and Sam just says up. She asks him how that's possible and he says, matter of factly, "hearts." It cheers Andy up a little bit and the two share a loving but strained gaze and embrace. I don't know if I am into this baby mama drama. It's kind of exhausting.