'FBI: Most Wanted' Season 1 Episode 2 Review: A heartbreaking and riveting tale of a broken mother
The first episode of 'FBI: Most Wanted' was straightforward and clear. You had your uni-dimensional villain, and the cops had to track him down. The second episode wasn't so easy.
In the second episode of 'FBI: Most Wanted' titled 'Defender', we are introduced to a harrowed and broken mother Denise Tyson (played a fabulous Marsha Blake), whose son Kendall has been arrested. The law isn't on her side. Pushed over the brink by a seemingly cold world, Denise takes law into her own hands. In a spurring moment of emotion, she becomes a criminal in legal terms. But, you don't feel so.
Denise is on the lookout for her daughter, Karina, who was taken away from her at a very young age as she couldn't afford to raise her with a drug addict of a husband. Most of the episode, Denise wildly searches for her, with no avail. She comes across Karina's foster parents, who gave her back "because it was too much".
A furious Denise says, "You gave her back? Like she was some sort of an animal?"
Armed with a gun, Denise still surprisingly shows mercy to the foster parents and just shoots photographs around the room. She sees her daughter in every child. A conversation between Denise and a child in the park is a painful one, and you just wish that she gets the required help.
Nevertheless, the FBI is hot on her heels and come up with a rather dubious method to corner her, which is rather flawed, considering that they almost put a civilian in danger. But it's not all tough cop drama, as Jess LaCroix (Julian McMahon) shows he has a good heart and is determined to find Denise's daughter, who was just edged out of a computer system mercilessly, and hence there is no record of her.
This isn't the end of the Karina tale clearly, and she is sure to make an appearance later.
The beauty about this episode was that it had a mother at the center of it, steering it forward. It's the story of a woman, who has been pushed into the corner. The world around her is cold, soulless and heartless and it seems to have swallowed her child, or so she believes firmly. She is tired of the constant legal and personal battles. The sheer exhaustion from fighting is etched on her face, and the last straw was enough to break the camel's back. Jess says at the end, 'I know you're a good person' when she's cornered by policemen. Unable to fight anymore, she surrenders.
'FBI Most Wanted' delivered an intense, riveting episode with 'Defender'. It's clearly here to stay.