Thursday, December 24, 2015

Longmire - The Calling Back


Walt (Robert Taylor) runs into all kinds of complications while looking into the rape of a young Native American woman (Julia Jones) by local oil workers. First, because the crime took place on the reservation but by American citizens the prosecution of any case falls into a legal quagmire a Federal prosecutor would need to untangle and neither Walt nor Mathias (Zahn McClarnon) have the jurisdiction to investigate the case on their own. Also standing in the way of the truth is a traumatized victim who is hiding facts from Walt about that night, the girl's ball-busting mother (Irene Bedard) who is more concerned about how the tragedy effects her than her daughter, and the lack of a proper rape kit and DNA evidence to match up to the perpetrators if they can even be found and brought to trial.

"The Calling Back" offers different kinds of challenges for Walt to solve a case that most, including the girl's mother, would prefer be left alone. A refusal to proceed any further after the kidnapping of the victim throws one final wrench into the case as justice seems far off in this instance. The episode is one of the least hopeful of the series but also one of its most brutally honest when dealing with the near insurmountable odds in this kind of investigation. In terms of ongoing storylines "The Calling Back" continues Henry (Lou Diamond Phillips) getting pulled into Hector business while Vic (Katee Sackhoff) getting evicted from her home (by Walt of all people) creates the unexpected situation of Vic and Cady (Cassidy Freeman) as temporary roommates.

Cady is correct in her praise of how good Walt is with the rape victim, as she also champions the girl's cause in an attempt to convince a Federal prosecutor (Christine Dunford) to take the case. The mother convincing the girl to drop the matter is equally devastating to both Vic and Cady as the episode comes to a close. My favorite scene from the episode doesn't come from the investigation itself, but a quiet moment on the road between father and daughter as Cady realizes an important truth about her father and his role as the sheriff of Absaroka County.

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