The team investigates the death of an exotic animal veterinarian, uncovering a complicated love triangle in the process. Work interferes with Karadec's dating life while Morgan follows a parental hunch about her teenage daughter and snoops on Ava.
Morgan's brain allows her to spot clues and recall a vast array of information before anyone else. She was hired as a consultant for the LAPD to help solve cases quickly and more efficiently. The narrative offers the suggestion that the detectives would have reached the same conclusions eventually. Morgan simply allows them to explore tactics that lead to the result sooner. She has insight into the unique ways in which people are killed. That makes her adept at this job. She obsesses over details. She can't take a weekend off. Her brain doesn't work that way. She wants to be personable. She also invades the lives of others whether they want it or not. She has extreme reactions. She always has the best intentions. She learns and grows from the mistakes she makes. She continues to make plenty of them. She has heartwarming and sweet responses when she knows she did something wrong. Morgan has plenty of complexity. She remains the only character with personality though. That has been a consistent problem throughout the opening five episodes.
Daphne and Oz aren't suddenly given personal information in this episode. They receive more dialogue and screen time though. That's smart. Daphne notes how she is inspired by Karadec. She views him as a great and brilliant detective. Morgan is lucky to be learning so much from him. She is envious. Meanwhile, Oz is secure enough to admit when he has made a mistake too. He believed Nathan was guilty of Monica's murder after discovering his wife was planning on leaving him and taking their son with her. That was confirmed even more with Nathan's confession. Oz is curious as to why someone would confess to a crime they didn't commit. It was a decision informed by love. He didn't want his son to grow up without his mother. That sacrifice proves himself as a caring and thoughtful person. A crime was still committed. The resolution is too easy. The audience knows that because of when the confession occurs in the episode. Too much time remained. A twist had to occur. In reality, Bethany killed the woman she loved because she was afraid Monica was going to take her son away from her.
Morgan makes the connection that Gavin is Monica and Shane's biological son. Monica got pregnant as a teenager and was forced to give the baby up for adoption. That led to her being estranged from her parents for over a decade. Her father still holds plenty of animosity to how this scandal has the potential to reflect poorly on the family. Monica's parents only lived eight miles from her. And yet, they kept their distance. They never reached out or cared about how she was doing. She found her son. She befriended the couple that adopted him. She created a ruse to be present in his life all the time. Bethany believed it was a connection built on love. She was willing to break up her family to pursue this relationship. It was all informed by how people behaved around Gavin. He was special. Everything Monica did was in service of nourishing this connection. When the reveal came that the affair occurred under false pretenses, Bethany snapped. She was simply trying to protect her son. She is arrested for murder. It's a sad, bittersweet conclusion. One that doesn't make Morgan feel good. That's the reality of this job. She has to embrace that. She provides crucial information. She backs it up with scientific facts. The humanity is more important to showcase.
That one insight breaks the entire case open. That's the value in what Morgan brings. That's only a fleeting moment that enhances the drama in the end. It's heartbreaking as Monica's mother interacts with Gavin knowing who he is. This is all the interaction she gets with her grandchild. It's incredibly fleeting. Getting to that moment requires the show to constantly be trying to outthink the audience. That's exhausting. The narrative showcases how Daphne and Oz reach the same conclusion as Morgan and Karadec by different means. That creates a miscommunication as Morgan doesn't follow protocol. That also reveals how Morgan simply gets ahead of the police even though they would have reached the same conclusions. Morgan hits Karadec with a tranquilizer because she knows poison was delivered through soap. It's weird that someone who follows the rules would potentially contaminate a crime scene by washing his hands. That shows how Karadec is only defined by OCD-like tendencies. He has no interests outside of that. That is further communicated through his date set up by Morgan and later crashed by her with new information. Similarly, the police would have found the missing frog eventually. The crime scene had only begun getting processed by the time Morgan started looking for clues. These details are relevant. When they are noticeable, it removes the viewer from the experience.
