Betrayal -- I Confess

The episode begins where it left off with Carsten throwing Jack under the bus. It's actually a clever ploy, since he's giving Drew the ammunition to make his rival pay. He even sweetens the pot by trying to make it appear that sweet little Sara was the innocent victim of mustache-twirling Jack. He claims that Jack seduced Sara [giving her a total free pass on any wrongdoings] because he was the DA handling Uncle Lou's murder case.

To give Drew his due, he doesn't immediately take the bait. But it's more about not wanting to let the big fish off the hook [Thatcher] and settle for the little guppy [Jack] even if said guppy stole his wife from him.

He starts to investigate. TJ's boss at the garage says TJ had no idea that the gun was in the trunk of his car, which supports Thatcher's claim that Jack planted in TJ's trunk to frame him because he's jealous of TJ because TJ is a real Thatcher and Jack isn't. And there's even some truth in that, as even Jack told Sara that he'd been jealous of TJ and was to blame for TJ's accident.

Drew does, however, seem to be buying into the part of Thatcher's spiel that gives Sara a free pass for her actions. He tells her that Jack purposely seduced her because he was handling Uncle Lou's case. That way he can free pass Sara and take her back and pretend none of this ever happened. She even seems to be buying into it.

Meanwhile Jack is getting sucked back into his old life by the problems his family is having. Elaine mentions the encounter she and Aidan had with the cops and Jack offers to look into it. What he finds out is Aidan is a fed and he tells Elaine.

Elaine handles the news in a unique way. She invites Aidan to lunch with Thatcher. Then she reveals she knows who and what he is and suggests if he has any questions about her father, he should ask Thatcher, himself. Needless to say it's over between them. And when Aidan is leaving the restaurant Jack can't help but play White Knight to his wife and bunch Aidan out.

Val's girlfriend, Jules, also tells Jack the feds are starting to lean on her hard to turn state's evidence. She says she didn't destroy the documents that he told her to shred. She claims to have them hidden well, but that may not be the case when Aidan's handler shows up to put the screws to Jules.

A bigger problem for Jack is his son Vic who sudden starts acting out of it. He talks to Vic about what's the matter and gets more than he bargained for. It appears that it was actually Vic that killed Uncle Lou. And it also appears that TJ knows all about it.

Jack has a powwow to Elaine about Vic before he enters the police station and confesses to killing Uncle Lou. Thatcher couldn't have planned this better if he tried. Meanwhile Sara finally asks Drew when Lou was killed and she reveals Jack has an alibi and couldn't have killed Lou. Drew's not thrilled to learn that Sara was in a motel room with Jack the night he called her up looking for their child's favorite toy.

Having Jack confess to killing Lou to protect Vic is actually the first redeeming quality they've given this character. He really hasn't been shown to have any up to this point. Unfortunately, he didn't talk to Sara before he decided to make his sacrifice and doesn't know she just told her husband the DA that Jack couldn't have done the crime. Which will throw a major spanner in the works regarding Jack's confession.

A big question is did Thatcher know Vic did the crime the same way TJ apparently did? I'm not so sure. By pointing the finger at Jack, he risked his grandson getting a giant case of the guilts and coming forward to admit to what he did. I think it's more likely he thought he was protecting TJ and he could also get himself blanket immunity by selling out Jack and making him the fall guy because he refused to return to the fold.

Once again, the cracks in Jack and Sara's relationship are starting to show. She doesn't trust him and he doesn't trust her. If he'd gone to her beforehand to tell her what he was going to do to protect his son, she wouldn't have told Drew that Jack couldn't have done it. Of course, if Sara had been honest with Jack about the things Drew told her, he might have figured out Thatcher was setting him up and copped a deal with the feds so his son wouldn't have to go down for killing Uncle Lou. So far, all it seems that Jack and Sara share is sex.

I mean, Jack decided unilaterally to give up all chance of a life with Sara to protect his child and he didn't even discuss it with her beforehand. That is not the signs of a good relationship. The future doesn't look bright for this duo. But can you really have trust between you when your entire relationship is founded on lying to your loved ones to have an illicit sexual relationship?

To be honest I think in a way Jack and Sara just used each other as an excuse to get out of relationships they weren't really happy in. Sara seemed to have married Drew because her sister was getting all the attention from their parents so she married Drew so she'd have all his attention, and when he started ignoring her and paying more attention to his career it wasn't long before she strayed. And Sara seemed to be an escape route for Jack from Thatcher and all the immoral things he had to do working for him. She's his fresh start to a like away from the crime family he fell into. He's even finally started questioning his parents' deaths and wondering if Thatcher was behind it and that's why he took him into his family.

The lust they feel each other is all good and fine, but unless they start building it on real things like trust and honestly, this relationship doesn't have a hope in hell of lasting.