After Jake gets over his initial attempts to shoot D.B. Sweeney"s Goetz where he stands, Jake tries to kill him in a different spot: his barcodes. No, seriously. Jake has intimate knowledge of J&R"s practices, protections, and predilections toward OCD, and he uses this knowledge to make sure that Frodale"s black-market vaccines for the Hudson River Virus get duly punched into a few significant arms around town. Of course, Eric helps out a bit by giving Trish something that J&R isn"t used to: a conscience.
Also in this episode, Beck is putty in Hawkins"s hands as the regional bad-ass obfuscates the truth about Sarah Mason until it becomes the truth. It all culminates in Beck"s asking Valente a key question about the ongoing investigation, and Beck finally learning -- or at least suspecting -- that Valente is a big, fat, bald, Cheneylicious liar.
In other Beck news: Heather appeals to his softer side when she tells him about a town in Missouri that is secretly suffering from the Hudson River Virus. At first, Beck plays it off, trotting out the party line that if the town were really in trouble, the current administration would have swooped in before things got out of hand. Because, you know, they always do. It"s quite likely that Beck shares our cynicism, because in a darkly-lit scene, Heather confronts him with the news that the Missouri town just got an army truck filled with vaccines and a med tech. Beck plays it off all humble-like, but the fact that he went above his chain of command to send the necessary help is as clear as the sound of Heather"s zing-zing-zinging heartstrings. These selfsame heartstrings hit a flat zong when we all learn that Beck -- the hottie from McNottie, the pants from Penzance, the ass from...Kansas -- is married. But his wife seems to be missing, so, you know, there"s still hope.