Photo Courtesy of USA Network
Graceland, Season 1, Episode 7: “Goodbye High”
Written by: Joe Henderson
Directed by: Russell Lee Fine
Airs Thursdays at 10 pm (ET) on USA
On this week’s Graceland, Paul makes a shocking confession, Jakes uses professional means for personal gain, Charlie comes clean about her drug usage to the house, and Mike ponders his future.
After last week’s stunning revelation–Briggs attends Narcotics Anonymous meetings for heroin addiction–“Goodbye High” picks up with Briggs offering Mike the truth. In the early days of Briggs’s undercover status, he made the idiotic decision to confront the head of a Mexican drug cartel alone. He never got the chance to meet the man; instead, he was kidnapped by members of the cartel, held in a shack, and fed a steady diet of heroin for two weeks straight before being released. (If the news came out that Briggs was a heroin addict, then the Bureau would have to reopen all of Briggs’s past cases, many of which involved the arrests of members of the cartel.)
Meanwhile, Jakes pays a visit to the mother of his child (presumably fathered whilst Jakes was undercover) and later researches the man his ex-girlfriend is now seeing. While most of the Graceland crew see one another as family, despite their being in the house because of their jobs, Jakes only sees Graceland as a temporary home–he has a real family, only one he can’t be a part of because of Graceland. His discontent with the house could provide tension in the future (he does, after all, tell Mike to stay with his island girlfriend Abby, despite everyone else in the house suggesting otherwise for the sake of Graceland).
Similar to Jakes, Briggs realizes the house members are only in Graceland for their jobs; he disapproves of Charlie’s confession to the house members because now they’ll have to lie if they’re ever asked about drug usage within Graceland. By seeing them all as family, Charlie’s put everyone in a compromised position. Mike, on the other hand, seems to toe the line between viewing Graceland as a temporary stay or a place of familial comfort. He offers support to Briggs and Charlie, but also runs to the Bureau with Briggs’s confession and tells Abby he may be able to head east with her.
Graceland‘s striking character gold by examining what its namesake means to each member of the house–the potential for plenty of heavy and emotional stories is right within the house itself–and the show clearly means to explore the characters from this angle.
Ashley Laggan