NOTORIOUS “Chase” Recap

By Kirsty Pearce

A Twist-Filled Ride to Closure

Picking up 3 days after the last episode, this week starts with LHL reporting that Jake has gone on the run, with police in pursuit, before going back in time to 48 hours earlier, at Jake’s bail hearing. Represented by his brother, he gets handed down a $10 million bail and is restricted to LA with an ankle bracelet. The charges against Oscar have been dropped, and at a press conference he gives the credit for his release to the DA, praising him for his dogged determination for the truth, and turning against Jake. Proving yet again what a fantastic brother he is, Bradley takes out collateral on their law firm’s building plus his retirement fund for Jake’s bail, and they go to inspect the murder weapon, with self-confessed micro-managing Max overseeing.

Back at the law office, they decide to switch from defense to offense, calling in favors and researching anything in connection with the storage locker. Jake, showing the strain of the situation by snapping uncharacteristically at Ella, can’t go home, and also can’t stay at the office, as he would only get in everyone’s way, and cannot remain objective. So he shows up at Julia’s, who was at his bail hearing as a friend, and is taking the situation hard as well. While she welcomes him with open arms, she then continues with her plan to go out to dinner with Max, who tells her he is planning on granting exclusive access to the case and his team to Callie Conner’s from last episode, but Julia convinces him rather quickly that she can be objective. They start by booking a forensic psychologist Max wants Louise to interview. On the show the next day, the psychologist, who knew Sarah before she died, shares that in his professional opinion she had borderline personality disorder. Max, who is in the studio, then springs on Julia a tape he wants her to play that has been authenticated by his office, a 911 call from 2002 that has a terrified unidentified female begging for protection against Jake, who you can hear in the background banging on her door. When Julia gets home, he explains, saying it was an ex-girlfriend who was not happy when he broke it off, slashing his tires and harassing him, so he went over there to get her to stop. At this point, it’s good to see he is able to take his own advice and keep a clear head, refusing to engage. Julia, however, is not so forgiving, telling Max their deal is off the next day, and that she won’t be a party to railroading her friend whom she knows is innocent, even for the good of her show. Max in turn shares they picked up Axel on a DUI, who spilled that he made a fake passport for Sarah, a fact Jake had not disclosed to the cops. Max spells out for Julia why he believes with conviction that Jake killed Sarah, and I was surprised at how protective of Jake I was feeling while listening to Max state his case; I could easily empathise with what Julia must have been feeling in that moment.

Ella locates the man who forged Sarah’s fake passport, Axel, who Bradley quizzes about when he meet Sarah to take her photo. Through this, Bradley finds out that Axel had overheard her having a phone conversation with somebody called Brian, telling him to stay away, and that he wouldn’t hurt her anymore. Axel also shares that Sarah was referred to him by her loan shark. Ella and Bradley then head off to speak with this loan shark, who tells them Sarah was paying him $10,000 a month, but not as a client; instead, she was paying off her brother’s gambling debts. Digging a bit deeper, they discover a substantial amount of money that Sarah had wired to a bank account belonging to one Brian Farringdon, who was a soldier in Afghanistan, and now works as a consultant for a private security firm in San Diego. Jake immediately heads out to his car, calling someone and telling them to meet him. Max calls Julia, asking if she knows that Jake’s running as his bracelet was trigged. Jumping back to the opening scene, we see the police pursuit end with the revelation that Ella and Bradley were the ones in Jake’s car.

Jake has gone to see Brian, and meets his wife, and his daughter Zoe, who it is revealed in a twist I did not see coming is Sarah’s biological child that Jake had been told died, Sarah contacting Brian a month ago because she wanted to make sure Zoe had money for college. Jake grabs a juice box with Zoe’s fingerprints from the trash on his way out because he believes he could be her father. He asks Julia, who has come to pick him up and bring him to the courthouse so he can give himself up quietly, to run the box against his DNA. In a twist worthy of a soap opera, we find out that Zoe’s father is in fact Alan, Sarah’s own brother. Sarah’s name came up in hospital records 9 months before Zoe was born with broken ribs and a broken arm, suggesting incest by rape. Jake and Julia theorize she initially agreed to pay Alan’s debts to keep him from sharing the secret that could ruin her daughter’s life, but had finally decided enough was enough and was going to stop bailing him out.

Julia gets Max on board with this new theory, and he is able to connect Alan to the burner phone the person Sarah was talking to when she went to the forger’s was using. Ambushing Alan in Julia’s office, he is arrested with Julia’s team filming the entire thing. While packing up the case notes at the law office after being released, Jake stumbles upon evidence that Oscar and Alan had meet up a month before Sarah’s death. When Sarah refused to pay Alan’s debts anymore, he decided to tell Oscar he had proof that she was going to leave him, and together they come up with a plan to kill her, making Oscar an accessary. But with no proof, Jake decides to unearth the stash of cocaine they hid for Oscar when he was still their client, and gets him arrested on drug possession. As Jake and Julia are celebrating on her patio, she gets a call from an old friend, who asks if Julia can get her in touch with Jake while standing near a pool holding a dead body.

This week’s episode focusing entirely on wrapping up the mystery behind Sarah’s murder, it was very fast-paced, with twist after shocking twist. Delving into two serious and troubling issues like rape and incest, I hope that the effects of this case won’t just be glossed over in the coming weeks. And while I found myself not trusting Max for a good piece there, I am glad he turned out to be a good egg, and I really enjoyed when Jake came to him for help in getting Oscar convicted. I wouldn’t mind seeing these two working together again, as I think it adds an interesting dynamic. The fact that all attorneys are not adverse to employing the tactic of using the media to control the narrative, and trial cases in the court of public opinion first I found very interesting to see play out, Jake knowing exactly what Max would do.

Now the Sarah arc has mostly been tied up, I am looking forward to finally seeing some of the supporting characters pulled forward more and getting their fair share of screen time. Next episode here we come!