'Briarpatch' Episode 4 Review: Felicity's funeral puts Allegra on edge, Ferness does her a solid before dying
'Briarpatch' till now has been choc-a-bloc with details and names that have made the mystery around Felicity Dill's (Michele Weaver) murder grow murkier. Meanwhile, both the senator and his aide Cyrus have grown increasingly insistent that Allegra gets a signed confession from either Jake Spivey (Jay R Ferguson) or Clyde Brattle (Alan Cumming), about the weapons that went missing in Syria.
In Episode 4, the pace slows down considerably as the town's 'misery vultures' descend on Felicity Dill's funeral as the townfolk and the police department come together to bury Allegra Dill's sister "with honors".
Allegra, who has been woken up in the morning by an unusually chatty Floyd Ferness (Jon Beavers), however, is not in a good mood. Ferness reminisces about his glory days as a football star but when Allegra asks for the surveillance tapes he stole from her sister Felicity's secret apartment, he cuts the call and breaks his phone. He is a man clearly at the end of his tether.
But even he is light fare compared to Felicity's colleagues at the San Bonifacio Police Department. Allegra gets VIP treatment with a car (and chatty policeman driver) for the funeral and is brought in to the station where her colleagues make her witness their fond farewell with tequila toasts.
However, it all leaves a vile taste in Allegra's mouth who thinks police chief Eve Raytek's (Kim Dickens) tale about her sister paints her as a too-perfect workhorse. When she tries to talk about Floyd's phone call and her hunch he is innocent, she is told to do her job (mourn) while they do theirs.
Raytek's eagerness to pin Felicity's murder on Floyd without evidence makes that entire San Bonifacio Police Department look suspicious and corrupt. Later, during the church service, Felicity's fiance Colder delivers a pious eulogy that makes Allegra leave the church to get some "fresh air".
While others are reframing her sister's personality and life to suit themselves, Allegra is near exploding at how her sister is being falsely remembered and mourned. The only respite she gets is the time she spends with Jake Spivey and AD Singe, reminiscing about the truly horrible story about her parent's death and funeral that ended with their ashes being stolen. Singe is shocked but for Spivey and Allegra, it is only grist for some morbid laughs.
We get a little more background into Allegra and Felicity's rough childhoods when 17-year-old Allegra became a mother to her 7-year-old sister, with Spivey helping out as Allegra's boyfriend. She clearly trusts Spivey (and her instincts) over Brattle's warning in the last episode.
This is why she is dismayed with Cyrus' instructions to take Brattle's confession over Spivey's. At the burial, finally having had enough, she grabs her sister's framed picture and goes off at a fast jog to get away from the other mourners. She plonks the picture down under a tree, collapsing before it laughing and then crying, finally letting her true sorrow and guilt about her sister's death spillover.
She is interrupted by Ferness hiding behind a tree and asking, "Who you talking to?" He startles her before giving her the tape he got from Felicity's apartment. He tells her that he couldn't get into it because it was encrypted but believes that if Allegra can unlock it, she will know who her sister's killer is.
Then, to make sure no one suspects that he gave the tape to Allegra, he acts like he is going to choke Allegra and then sprints across the graveyard so that the police officers at the funeral can shoot him dead. This 'assisted suicide' brings the slow burn episode to a shocking end, leaving Allegra clutching the tape in shock before she secrets it away.
This tape and the town's crime reporter Freddie Laffer's (John Aylward) tip that Felicity had a tiff with her father-figure mentor, Strucker, for banning her from "Packing Town" just before her death could help Allegra track down her sister's killer. Felicity had probably uncovered something that the other corrupt police officers were trying to keep buried.
This episode's cold open that saw a drone follow Strucker's wife after she leaves the hospital where Strucker is fighting for his life (as the victim of another car bomb) could tie in Spivey-Brattle to her sister's death.
After all, Brattle is the one who showed her the drones, implying that Spivey was controlling them. We are yet to see how Spivey will react when Brattle gets a plea bargain before him and whether his charm and fondness for Allegra will disappear once he knows he could go to jail. We can only wait for next week's episode to find out.
'Briarpatch' airs on Mondays on USA Network at 11 pm ET.
