CONVICTION “Dropping Bombs” Recap

By Geannie Bastian

I wondered this week going into our new episode, is it could be possible for Conviction to be as predictive of headline as it was last week. Last week’s case involved three men accused of a crime similar to that of The Central Park Five – just as that story made its way back into the news last week. But this week’s story did it again, with a case involving the bombing of a mosque and a convicted extremist, just after a potentially similar plot was stopped by the FBI a few days ago.

As before, Conviction managed to come up with an even more complex version of the potential storyline than real life could produce. We have a hard-core extremist already locked up in prison, but he swears that he didn’t do this crime. The reason? It’s not extreme enough. And the team has to juggle with the concern that if they do their job right and it turns that an innocent man was convicted, they will be putting a man back on the street who is anything but truly innocent, and a potential threat to boot.

Recklessness meets Justice

After being more or less jerked around by her mother, and minimized by the press, Hayes, true to form, is looking for a way to rebel. So she finds a case where the client is a genuinely reprehensible hate monger, Rodney Landon, who might also be innocent. Frankie’s friend helps them set up a duplicate bombing, which reveals that the residue it is not consistent with the expected mix of the convicted bomber. So, if he wasn’t the bomb maker, who was?

Even more complicated? Maxine makes contact, with the help of her father, with someone in the counter terrorism unit who informs them that the unit had conducted an illegal search of Landon’s apartment ahead of the bombing – that uncovered his plans to bomb a mosque. But this is where the claim that the event was too small comes into play. Everything about Landon says he wants to make a statement. Not kill a handful of men around a desk.

As Hayes grapples with the idea that revealing the illegal search runs the risk putting a dangerous man back out on the street, she has a thought. The murdered Imam’s wife was the only one who didn’t have nice things (or anything) to say about him. Everyone loved him, especially the young women around him, but his wife doesn’t display his pictures.

Video footage from the day of the booming shows the Imam’s wife was there around the time of the bombing, with a bag large enough to carry the bomb. A search of her home turns up the bag – with traces of explosives.

When Sam hoes to inform Landon of the Discovery that would vacate his conviction, the man makes even darker threats. So, before leaving the prison, Sam tells another prisoner that Rodney Larson is being released because he’s a snitch. This leads to a confrontation in prison before Larson can be released. Because Larson attacks another inmate in that fight on camera, he’ll remain in prison.

Will They/Won’t They, Did They/Do They?

Tension and implied history between Hayes and Wallace has been raging from the first moment they shared a screen – implied history everywhere, and constant references as to how well they know one another.

This week it seems like they did the entire dance in one episode. She’s smug and trying to get one up on him, he’s smug back. He’s angry and hurt towards her, she reads him like a book. But wait – something new. We finally discover they had a past relationship in Chicago – and she left him. Wallace might be a little bitter about that, too.

But then, oh but then – Hayes turns up at the end of the day to thank Wallace and being there to support her throughout the case, even though she was trying to tweak him with it. And she apologizes for Chicago. Trying to be the new Hayes Morrison, she says. Wallace’s response? He’s kind of fond of the old one. Cue full scale old-flame make-out session.

But then, both their phones ring and Hayes says they need to turn on the news. Moment broken. Way broken, given the secret is out about the deal that lead to Hayes running the Conviction Integrity unit. Mood killer, level 10.

Who leaked the info? Where will the sparks between the former flames go next? And will the case be as creepily timely next episode? See you next week to find out.