Graceland H-A-Double P-Y Review

The episode starts with Johnny, who has been infiltrating Carlito Solano's group of friends, finding Carlito and Lucia going at it.

Lucia is throwing valuables at Carlito's head because he scared off her latest boyfriend, finally pegging him in the head. Carlito takes Lucia down and chokes her until Johnny punches him off her.

Although Lucia's first words are "you shouldn't have done that," this was a smart move. It will make him even more interesting to Carlito, who gets off on making people do things that hurt themselves.

Paige and Mike are getting paperwork in order and share a weird little moment about Shirley Temple and the song the episode title comes from. Paige is having a hard time with the dead ends surrounding her black-market girls and Mike is conflicted over whether he'll head back to D.C. after the case is over. Afterwards Jessica (Emily Rose) shows up, of course, introducing personal drama.

She has apparently come to congratulate Mike on laying eyes on the contraband, an excuse that doesn't hold up.

She's there to shut down the bus operation, which will take Johnny's possibly-blown cover away, shut down Paige's DEA investigation and take away Mike's credibility inside the bureau.

Jakes runs into the prostitute he slept with the other day, finding her sleeping on a bench. He takes her back to the place he planned to share with his son so she can clean up and catch some Zzzs. It's, of course, incredibly awkward when they get there.

"Kinda had a bad day," he says, when she sees the room he destroyed. Understatement. They begin to make out when Mike calls him away to the bus depot.

Once on the job Jakes takes a couple of swigs of liquid courage to play his part up to his recovering alcoholic bus station manager.

He throws up on the manager to get him out of the office so he can grab the schedule off his computer. Jessica is not terribly impressed with his technique, but it is effective.

Jess tells Mike that after the latest bust, the job will be over. Somehow I don't think this is actually the case.

Jakes gets back to his apartment to find his son playing pretend with the prostitute. The floor is lava.

Daniel, his son, tracked him down from the copy of the restraining order his mother had sent to her house, but when Jakes goes to tell Daniel they can't see each other, Romona, the prostitute gives him some darn good parenting advice: be there for Daniel.

Mike breaks the news to Paige that they won't have a team for her bust, so Paige tells him to do whatever possible to get Jessica to give her a team.

Meanwhile, Jakes, Romona and Daniel are at the fair eating cotton candy, popcorn, and forming some gigantic cavities.

Jakes tries to have a conversation with Daniel before realizing that he's basically talking to himself. They go on the bumper cars, form some memories, and hopefully take Daniel back to his mother's soon.

Johnny goes over to Carlito's place to see if he can't salvage his cover. The lights are out, the music is creepy, and Carlito hasn't cleaned up the broken things on the floor.

"Did you enjoy hitting me?" Carlito asks.

"A little," Johnny responds. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified of you killing me right now, though."

Carlito tells him a morbid little story about being abused as a child and forming a suicide pact with his sister. This is supposed to convince us that Lucia is Carlito's weakness...but only so much as he'll allow. Johnny is incredibly shaken after Carlito invades his space massively, not unlike when Carlito first met Johnny and came on to him hard.

I'm enjoying the inclusion of a bi- or pansexual character on Graceland, but I do wish his sexuality weren't being used as a threat.

We've already seen him rape women (the ones in the last episode who were too high to actually give consent). It's not a crazy conclusion to draw that Johnny will end up his victim, as well.

Once Not As Hot As Brandon Bollig and Johnny report this to Mike, Mike wants Johnny to use Carlito's feelings for him to get him to pick up his own shipment tomorrow.

Johnny seems reluctant at first, but when Chuck points out that female agents do it all the time, he agrees.

Jakes and Romona bring Daniel back to his mothers' house. After giving him a hug and a kiss he sends him inside.

It's incredibly sweet and painful to watch, even if you have a cursory interest in the characters. Romona takes $80 from him for the day, clearly upset and touched. She takes off for sexier pastures, where she'll actually make some money.

In an interesting parallel to Johnny's mission to use Carlito's feelings against him, Mike sets out to seduce Jessica into keeping the human trafficking case alive and well.

He uses a little reverse-psychology and sacrifices his own pet project to do so. Jessica (Emily Rose) catches on darn fast to his manipulations when his feelings for Paige overwhelm his interest in having sex with her.

We're supposed to be invested in how Mike is torn between two worlds, represented by two really similar-looking women, but I'm just not convinced. He's super bland and the least compelling character on the show, sadly for the viewers.

Paige is upset and confused, and grabs Jakes to come along on as she follows some human traffickers. Sounds like a party to me.

Meanwhile, Johnny is at an actual party at a club, trying to walk the line with Carlito.

He tells Carlito he wants to go on the pickup, pushing Carlito's buttons one by one. He gets Carlito to take him into the back room and threaten him when Johnny kisses him.

Interestingly enough, Carlito's reaction is to pull a gun on Johnny and call him a maricon sucio ("dirty fag" in English. They probably couldn't get it past the censors if it weren't in Spanish).

While he's been putting off signals that he's very into Johnny, he's scared of actually crossing that line.

"You want people to be honest with you? You be honest with you!" Johnny yells at him after Carlito pistol-whips him in the face.

"I know who I am," Carlito says, and Johnny tells him that he isn't afraid of him. They share a pretty passionate kiss with some bonus erotic gunplay.

Wow. Is it insane that this episode is the one I'm most invested in on this show? It's certainly the most interesting.

Johnny gets Carlito to commit to the pickup. It's vaguely hilarious that Johnny is so interested in Lucia but has to seduce her brother instead.

Meanwhile Paige has boarded a bus with a Tinkerbell Girl on it. Anika is nervous, and sweating.

She looks sick; based on the previews this must be the girl whose bag of heroin burst inside her.

Paige gives her a recorder and GPS device and asks her to take it. She tells her to just do what the men say, and that they'll be her back-up.

Johnny and Lucia meet up outside the club and Lucia tells Johnny it's an open secret that Carlito is gay.

She gropes Johnny a little and he swallows his tongue before jumping in the truck with Carlito on the way to the meet-up.

Not As Hot As Brandon Bollig and Chuck report in to Mike, who is setting everything up outside the bus depot.

Paige thinks that Anika is nervous, and encourages her to throw up the balls of heroin.

As this is happening, Jakes is getting pulled out of the car by the cops. Anika begins to seize, and neither Paige nor Jakes can help her.

Carlito gets a phone call and pulls a dramatic U-turn with Johnny in the car. "The pickup is off," he tells Johnny. Briggs radios the info in to Mike, who freaks out and rushes the bus depot, which explodes.

The Shirley Temple song the episode is named after begins playing and everything happens at once. Anika dies, Jakes runs from the cops arresting him for violating his restraining order and gets tazed, arrested and taken to jail.

Paige takes the balloons of heroin and, telling Jakes' empty car, swallows the heroin and takes Anika's place. She, of course, has no backup due to Jakes being arrested.

Mike comes to the conclusion that there is a leak inside the organization since no one knew about the sting except for the agents.

Paige puts on her best (worst) Eastern European accent and goes with the cowboy-hatted gentlemen who want to take her heroin and sell her for sex.

As she's about to get into their car, she is knocked out.
That's it until next week.