'In the Dark' Season 2 Episode 11 Review: Murphy and friends bury Nia's body as Sam seeks revenge
Spoilers for 'In the Dark' Season 2 Episode 11 'Bad People'
Last week's episode of 'In the Dark' was a big one as Nia Bailey (Nicki Micheaux) found out about Murphy Mason's (Perry Mattfeld) betrayal, courtesy Dean Riley (Rich Sommer). As Nia got ready to kill Murphy, someone else shot her from the back. The last few minutes of the episode revealed that Nia's killer was, in fact, Murphy's best friend, Jess Damon (Brooke Markham).
In an earlier episode, we had seen Jess leave Chicago with her girlfriend, Sterling (Natalie Liconti) left Chicago after Jess's encounter with Nia. When they were away, Jess had proposed to Sterling, who accepted. This week's episode picks up on what happened with Jess and Sterling after the proposal and before Jess showed up to save Murphy. After Jess leaves their hotel room, Sam (Cortni Vaughn Joyner) shows up to confront Sterling for running away with Jess. To recall, Sterling was Sam's girlfriend and Nia's employee. Sterling was sent by Nia to spy on Murphy, Jess, and Felix Bell (Morgan Krantz) at Guiding Hope while they were laundering money and distributing drugs for Nia.
Sterling manages to get away from Sam and steals the latter's car. In Sam's car, Sterling listens to a voicemail from Nia on Sam's phone about Murphy's betrayal. Panicked, Sterling rushes to Jess to tell her they need to go back to Chicago to warn Murphy. Jess reaches Chicago just in the nick of time and from there, the race against time starts as the group tries to get rid of all the evidence.
Burying Nia
While Murphy, Max Parrish (Casey Deidrick) and Felix panic, Jess takes charge and tells them that they need to get rid of the evidence. While Felix initially argued against leaving Ben's (Chris Perfetti) body in the cafe where his girlfriend, Chelsea (Lindsey Broad) works -- Ben is Chelsea's brother, he later insists on dropping Ben's body at a hospital so Chelsea gets closure.
Murphy agrees with Felix and at this point, it is nice to see how much Murphy's and Felix's friendship has evolved. In the first season, they barely liked each other. However, in their misadventures, while working for Nia, the two found common ground. While their friendship won't rival that of Murphy's and Jess's, it's still a nice dynamic to watch. Of course, when Sterling had to tell Jess to warn Murphy, she also had to come clean about working for Nia. While things are cold between Sterling and Jess at the moment, Sterling steps up to help the "Guiding Hope kids" clean up the bodies and get rid of the evidence.
All the relationships seem fraught at the moment. While Jess and Murphy seem to be okay at the moment, Jess is upset with Sterling. Max is upset with Murphy after finding out about her sleeping with Josh Wallace (Theodore Bhat) -- though they do end up sharing a quickie in the woods. Felix gets upset at all of them when he realizes they never intended to drop off Ben's body at the hospital.
Somehow, they manage to bury the bodies and the evidence. Whether they are safe or not remains to be seen. Just as Murphy, Max, Felix and Jess get set to run from Chicago, they go back to Murphy's to retrieve her seeing-eye dog, Pretzel (Levi). Unfortunately, Josiah (Maurice Compte), Nia's rival is waiting for them there to collect Nia's shipment of drugs.
Sam is on a path of revenge
Vincent (Aidan Devine), one of Nia's deputies had seen what was going on, but before Sterling could shoot him dead, he gets away. Later, we see him stashing Nia's money. When Sam reaches, he tells her what happened. Sam wants revenge, but Vincent thinks Josiah will kill the "Guiding Hope kids" when he doesn't get the drugs leaving Vincent's and Sam's hands clean.
Unfortunately, Sam is a real loyal one; she wants to kill Murphy, Jess and the others herself. However, she also holds Vincent responsible for what happened to Nia and so she shoots him before she sets out to find Murphy and the others.
Sterling has said that she will take care of Sam but seeing as Sam seems hellbent on revenge, we are not certain Sterling will succeed.
Dean's hope runs out
Meanwhile, Dean is waiting at his home for a call from Nia. He had ratted out Murphy's plan with Josiah in exchange for the money from part of Nia's shipment. With overdue bills and him having lost his job, Dean figured going to Nia would be the best thing for him. While Dean is waiting, his former partner Gene Clemens (Matt Murray) shows up to apologize for not being able to get Murphy and the others. We really like Gene to be honest -- this is one cop who is dedicated to his job and seems to be turning into a "bad apple" because of Dean's influence.
It is clear that Dean does not feel the same sense of camaraderie towards Gene as Gene does towards him. He gets rid of Gene quickly and goes to Nia's room, where he meets Sam and Vincent. Sam tells him that Nia is dead and at this point, it seems like Dean has no options left. Dean is one character that we are tired of slinking away from consequences easily and though we love his daughter, Chloe (Calle Walton), we really hope Dean pays for his crimes.
Final thoughts
We had predicted that even if Nia is dealt with, Josiah will be another obstacle to tackle. If Murphy and the others are able to find out where Ben hid the drugs, they may be able to escape Josiah, but even so, this is not a given. Meanwhile, it seems like Murphy and Max are just going around in circles and at this point, everyone around them are just casualties.
Finally, we are so happy that Jess is back. Time and again, she has proven that she is the real hero of the show - Murphy's moral center. It's high time that we get more Jess-centric stories, outside of her friendship with Murphy.
'In the Dark' airs on The CW on Thursday nights at 9/8c.