Brick by Brick It Also Falls
Episode 9 of Truth Be Told Season 2 begins with Micah heading into the hospital to check up on Rose. It’s late at night, she’s alone and sits on the end of the bed. Rose wakes up and implores Micah to tell the truth and admit she’s wrong. Instead, Micah deflects back and encourages her to play ball, showing an old trinket from the past. Rose rings Poppy later that day, confirming she’s been discharged. Poppy heads in and speaks to Rose, who confirms that one of the men involved with the Sons of Ivar threatened Josh that night. The identity of this man is Martin Haywood, a guy who was part of the SFPD until a few weeks back. It turns out Aames actually planted him in the Sons of Ivar as an undercover cop. Only, he ended up getting too deep and lost his marriage in the process. The night of the murders he was part of an initiation at the Sons of Ivar, with a solid alibi. However, given the man has come apart at the seams, and could well be using police money to cover his tracks, Poppy enlists Aames help to see if he’s the one responsible for killing Josh. Micah arrives at Shelter and learns that Ivy has usurped her and changed the date of the board meeting. When Micah confronts Ivy about it, the former decides to fight her (despite saying she’s not) over whose loyalty the workers will side with. Ivy warns her not to do this but Micah presses ahead nonetheless, calling a conference and ousting Ivy in front of everyone, telling her she needs to start the talk. Unfortunately it all goes awry as the people decide they much prefer Micah. Following Poppy’s confession at the end of the last episode, she sits with her family at the bar and reveals that she was a victim of abuse. She doesn’t blame anyone outright, although Leander originally telling her not to cry as a child makes him believe he’s partly to blame. Remember Drea? The girl who went missing and this whole subplot had gone AWOL for half the season? Well, she suddenly rocks up in the bar that night. Well, that’s a relief! Meanwhile, Poppy learns that Martin Haywood was a no-show for the initiation which means he could well be the one who killed Josh. With this rattling around in her mind, she heads up to see Micah while she’s talking. STILL talking since we saw her earlier in the episode. In fact it’s dark now and all these people from Shelter have listened to her ramble on since then. Poppy calls Micah out and questions whether she teamed up with Martin Haywood to kill Josh. Poppy doesn’t get much of an answer, with Micah instead turning and speaking up, asking her Shelter comrades whether they believe in Micah or not. Emphatically, they do. Back home, Poppy phones Demetrius and tells him she doesn’t want to go to trial over the Warren Cave situation. She decides to settle on Alana’s terms, choosing to let her family get the closure they deserve and be done with this. This comes off the back of speaking to Leander, closing out old wounds surrounding her parentage. After discussing their past, Poppy accepts that Leander is her father, despite not being blood-related. That evening, Poppy heads back to the bar but ends up cornered by Martin Haywood. As he grabs Poppy and holds her against the bar, Leander suddenly comes flying through the door and stabs the man twice, once in the back and another in the gut. As Haywood collapses on the floor in a heap, Leander holds his daughter and reassures her, telling her everything will be okay.
The Episode Review
Truth Be Told’s penultimate episode rolls round with the first twist in this case since the season started. It seems like the Sons of Ivar are more connected to this than we initially realized, although one would assume this is a way of crowbarring the crooked cop subplot into the murder mystery story being woven through the show. While there’s nothing wrong with that, the show has run these weird parallel lines, with subplots that feel insignificant to the main story. And worse, they’re resolved with very little dramatic tension too. Ivy taking over Shelter? Nah, Micah’s there so it’s fine. Drea going missing? Oh, there she is, she’s back. There are so many moments like that through this series and it ultimately highlights how weak the storytelling has been. That’s a shame because there’s definitely potential here but it’s unfortunately squandered in the wake of such a tepid story. Still, the finale is up next so hopefully that can deliver one final hoorah before we bow out.
