Diane drops off the evidence she found from the crack-making operation at the center to Haynes. Claire snoops around BJC’s finances and discovers the huge unexplained payments to Laycock Logistical. Myrna is alerted to the same and goes to Frank for help. He asks for Myrna’s BJC credit card and asks her to send Claire on a “coffee run”. Ben and Esme are paid a visit by their mother, who is a month clean. She got to know of the programs through the leaflets that Myrna distributed with the drugs. Despite Esme’s request to stay with her, Ben shoots her down saying one month isn’t a long enough time. Diane also fills up Gabby with details of the date last night with Greg. It is, of course, negative and leaves Gabby with a lot of work to do on Greg to make him dateable. While she shows him how to flirt, Claire calls her asking about Laycock and also thanking her for the 100k she donated to the BJC. Gabby doesn’t know about it and looks at Greg suspiciously when Claire says that organizations like the BJC are often used to launder money. Frank works his plan by replacing Claire’s card with Myrna’s at the coffee shop. Gabby pays a visit to Spencer and asks to look at her account. When she sees what Claire told her, she freezes her payments and goes out for a drink with Spencer. Frank decides to take out his family for a lobster dinner; while Rani and Ben have dinner again with the former’s parents. They also reveal that they have decided to help with the food store. But the mood is spoilt by Dean’s call saying they’re short of 10k (the money which was supposed to go out that day but Gabby froze it). The group meets at the center. Greg explains the situation. Amidst the floating ideas from everyone, John proposes bullying the customers to buy more of the load on the same day. He mysteriously shows signs of amnesia as well, probably the aftereffects of his drug rave. Gabby is just beginning to vent her anger with drugs and alcohol and it doesn’t look good for the group. They restart their operations, trying to make up the difference. Gabby’s live stream is not only seen by Greg, who is sent by Rani to find and stop Gabby, but also by Haynes’ partner. Haynes listens to it as well and hears Greg’s name. She remembers it from the day he bailed out Tyler (in episode 4). She asks her partner to bring in Gabby for questioning. Frank pays for the dinner with the credit card as Greg reaches Gabby but is stopped by the bouncer for his “nerdiness”. He goes after Gabby in his car, while Haynes’ partner goes after him in his. Haynes is still on the runner she has been tracking and follows him after he finishes deliveries. Greg climbs atop a building where Gabby goes next to the party. It is protected by a password that Greg does not know. He also spots the officer and Rosie (from Season 1) in the room he enters through the window. He locates Gabby downstairs, while the officer is on his tail. Greg dies a horrible job of half explaining the situation to Gabby as he does not want to make her complicit. Ben spots Haynes driving in and following his runners. They all go into the community center and Haynes makes her way into the building. Ben breaks the news to everyone else. But Myrna and John are able to salvage the situation by turning the fiasco into a social cause class. Haynes seems unconvinced but doesn’t have any evidence to incriminate them. But they are on her radar and that can explode any minute. Gabby walks in with Greg and mockingly berates the group, before going into an emotional meltdown about how they all have broken her heart. She saw them as an adopted family. So why didn’t they involve her as well? She knows everything about drugs! Gabby actually isn’t too upset with them and the situation is under control. For now. Gabby asks Spencer to make the payment the next day and Rani delivers the good news to Christian. She also seems low-key upset about the operation ending. Christian probes and she says she might be enjoying the gang clan culture too much. Christian then tells her about Ben and his story and how they were never able to get out of the drug menace once they were in. Myrna secretly exchanges the cards with Claire and the job is done. Greg applies the final touches. Esme again has a fight with Ben when he confronts her about a boy she was studying with last night. Rania admits to him that she was getting hooked on the buzz and makes up with Ben. She also nudges him to help his mother by keeping her close to Esme and off drugs. Haynes plays a dirty game, just like the outlaws, by threatening Christian to cooperate and give testimony against the Dean or else she will brand him as a rat. And prisons don’t like snitches. Rani and Ben are called away by the Dean, who hands them another 10 kilos of cocaine to sell. Rani meets with the group and proposes they kill him before Frank intervenes and says something about one of his unique grafts: “brass bunkum”.
The Episode Review
Another graft from Frank to save the day. It has become quite the mojo for season 2 of The Outlaws. The swanky American still seems to have his touch of class when it comes to criminal acts. He has bailed the group out on more than one occasion in this season and makes this another instance. But here, the group will have to rally together as a unit to bring down the Dean. It was also a bit of relief to see the drug operation come to a finish. The mechanics of the process took its toll on our outlaws, who held on by the smallest of margins. There were fractured precepts within it and Rani was the person at the top of the pyramid. She clearly established a chain of command – quite frighteningly – and made sure the operation ran smoothly. Season 2 has had its share of surprises. While in the last season we did not have such interesting, subtle variations in story and character, episode 5 manifests the same. Rani’s coming of age in many ways is a liberating exercise for her character, who has always been told what to do. She was the deer in the headlights in season 1; now, she has transformed into the person driving the car with the headlights. We almost thought Gabby wouldn’t have been redeemable after learning the harsh truth but she came affront quite quickly. It was a bit of a shocker but Merchant thought it best to lengthen the story. Probably a big negative for this episode. Elsewhere, we now see Myrna’s sensibilities change. Her rigid moral compass has gradually loosened as she also scopes the end and not the means. Overall, this phenomenon has grown stronger during the course of season 2 and has taken center stage in episode 5. On to the final episode where the outlaws will execute “brass bunkum”, whatever hatch plan that is.
