Review: The Bridge ‘ID’ – Eat Your Freedom Fries

Although ‘ID’ suffers from another case of Convenient Killer Syndrome, it manages to be an entertaining (if completely unsubtle) exploration of what happens when we let the ghosts of our past haunt us. Everyone from Sonya to Hank to Daniel has to deal with something drudged up from their pasts (or in the case of Daniel’s drug abuse, very recent) – and it gives the characters of The Bridge a lot of texture they haven’t really had to this point.

The one character that suffers in ‘ID’ is (suprisingly) Marco; he’s revealed to be a repeating cheater, the Mustachioed Womanizer who haunts the single, possibly widowed women of America and Mexico so he can undermine the love he has for his family. It feels like there are suggestions ‘ID’ tries to make as to why Marco cheats, but these aren’t explicitly established through anything the character does. On some level, it appears the moral decay Marco grew up with still tugs at him on ocassion – maybe he cheats to take out his frustrations on doing everything else right in his life (though if that’s the case, it’s a really, really bad bit of character). But this is never expressed very well: we get some exposition from Fausto that their fathers had some sort of business or partnership together, and the news from Louis that Marco’s put his dick where it doesn’t belong before – none of it really works to help personify Marco’s internal struggles, despite Bechir’s always-terrific perfromance.

However, Marco isn’t really the focus of ‘ID’: Sonya is, even though we don’t spend a ton of time alone with her. Through Hank, we find out what happened to her sister (raped, beaten, and murdered) and what happened afterward that brought her and Hank together (he caught the case, and paralyzed her sister’s killer by shooting him in cold blood). It not only explains why Hank is so protective of her, but puts her interactions with Gina (the unlucky girl rescued at the end of last week’s episode) in an entirely new perspective. For the first time in ‘ID’, we see Sonya showing some compassion: though she’s very disruptive about how she tries to get information for Gina, she brings her breakfast, asking tons of questions because she’s desperate to find the killer.

Why? Sonya doesn’t just want to solve the case: she wants a second chance at protecting her sister, something she wasn’t able to do the first time around. And we don’t get to spend a lot of time with her after Gina is killed seconds after fleeing from the cops (GROAN), but her death clearly affects her: she later stands in front of her desk with blood all over her hands, staring at the only part of the police sketch Gina finished before Hank called Heartburn Hour: the eyes of La Bestia, staring from across the desk.

The other “ghosts” parading around the episode aren’t as interesting: Ray’s basically a hornier, scummier version of Bobby Cobb, banging Charlotte and trying to run drugs across the border the second she puts him in charge (AFTER the lawyer and Eva make it clear that drugs aren’t something they move around), and the only demon Daniel’s got to chase is his addictions. As in previous episodes, Daniel’s mostly around to piece together bits of exposition about how things work in Juarez (and Ray’s less of a character than he is some pecs and tall hair), but they do provide a bit of comic relief to the heavier, Sonya-intensive material around it.

For the most part, ‘ID’ is a really enjoyable episode – though characters like Marco and Charlotte aren’t being very logical, and the whole “killer who is a cop who can show up anyone and murk someone in a second without anyone getting a look at him” angle is wearing thin, even after six episodes. But even with the investigation (mostly) on pause, the solid character work will make the investigation-heavy episodes later on carry some more emotional weight with the audience. The narrative to The Bridge has always been interesting: ‘ID’ takes some important steps to make sure the characters will be, too.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

– why do writers think it’s normal human behavior for a person to automatically profess their love for a member of the opposite sex FOUR SECONDS after they announce marital problems? It’s suuuuuch a cliched bit.

– ending the episode with Sonya visiting her sister’s killer isn’t as effective as it might seem: we know that Sonya doesn’t process emotions like normal people, so her anger/pity/sorrow at seeing him doesn’t really shine a light on anything we didn’t already know.

– Ray’s drug connection turns out to be a snitch…. here comes another round of hot water for Charlotte (who is characterized as “horny” in this episode, and nothing else. Her character kind of sucks at this point).

– So the cop doctor who got the Colombian necktie both treated Hank, and sold drugs around the area, including Gina’s mother (his ex-wife). Convolution, commence!

– Hank: “Burgers, chili, onions… HEARTBURN!” That’s a helluva motivational speech right there.