Mikes Film Talk

The Catch on ABC is moving on with the story of Alice Vaughn (Mireille Enos) trying to catch up with “Benjamin Jones” (Peter Krause) the man who conned her and the company before disappearing.  It also follows “day-to-day” investigations that Vaughn’s private detective agency undertakes.   

Episode two begins what appears to be a long term con where the target is a Princess’ console.  Jones’ business partner and lover Margot Bishop (Sonya Walger) tries to get him to leave the country as Alice and her agency know his face.

This plan is cancelled when the team learn that Interpol official Agent Dao (Jacky Ido) is in Los Angeles looking for Jones.   In The Real Killer a man acquitted of murdering his older and very rich wife attempts to frame her son by hiring Alice and her agency.

Vaughn finds the painting that Ben/Christopher stole from the museum and placed into her apartment.  A little investigation proves it is real and Alice heads to the museum to find that they have a fake up in place of the stolen art.

Ben realizes that he loves Alice and cannot bring himself to  break cleanly away.  The third member of his little con group,  Reginald Lennox III (Alimi Ballard) warns him that if Margot learns that Ben has been in contact with Vaughn  she will kill her. 

By the end of the episode, Vaughn has proven that her initial instincts about their client was correct but his new wife kills the murderer before he can be brought in.  Vaughn learns of a pattern to the identities taken on by Jones.

She provides him  new one, as bait, and he takes it.  Alice, and Agent Dao (who bugged her house), can now track his activities via his new credit card transactions.

In  episode three; The Trial,  Vaughn and Jones are still part of the running plot as is the Princess con.  Valerie Anderson (Rose Rollins) is undergoing a divorce and her soon-to-be-ex Dan Bailey, turns up with a case for the company.   Bailey’s sister was  part of a trial for MS sufferers that ended with her in  ICU.  Valerie’s estranged spouse  (Alan Ruck) wants to learn what happened. 

Benjamin is still “working the princess” (Medalion Rahimi) and he, along with his team, get the woman away from the “mark” Qasim Halabi (Navid Negahban). Qasim quite rightly deduces that Benjamin, as Mark Thorne, set him up for the fall and things turn ugly. 

Halabi confronts Thorne with a silenced pistol. The two men fight and as Qasim overpowers Mark, Margot retrieves the gun and kills the angry Halabi. Vaughn sees Thorne/Benjamin but cannot react properly as she was poisoned at the trial Susan Bailey attended.

Margot and Reginald dispose of the body and later Reginald takes off to make the Princess’s people believe that Halabi has left with her money.

Later, Benjamin warns Alice to back off so she does not end up dead in the trunk of a car like Qasim.   Vaughn will not stop though as she now has the man’s location.

As mentioned before,  the show is pretty much a long running “cat and mouse” scenario between Alice and Benjamin.  Micelle Enos’ character is pretty bad a** and one heck of a detective. She is also carrying a big grudge.

The wild card in all this, plot wise, is Dao (Jacky Ido) who is working hard to catch Jones for a murder in Europe.  Dao fluctuates between being a bull in a China shop (See what we did there?) and being dead clever (putting the bug on Vaughn’s door). Jones’ team fear the Interpol/FBI official so Dao must be good at what he does. 

Enos is good as the tough and intelligent P.I. who let love get her, and her company, in trouble. Although  they did manage get all the pilfered moneys retrieved in the pilot episode. Krause is convincing as the smooth as silk conman who is still carrying a torch for Alice.

The show looks brilliant with lots of split-screen action going on, tight editing and smooth storylines. The sets look fantastic as does the outfits worn by the players.

The Catch airs Thursdays on ABC.