This episode had great potential. Like many of the best film noir, it features a greedy femme fatale, a painful memory from the past, money and murder.
Dana Delaney does a good job playing David's old flame, although it's clear why her and David wouldn't have worked: Unlike David who seems to be a happy go lucky guy who doesn't care that much about wealth, wealth is paramount to her. That's why she married a man just for his money. And she now claims her husband is out to kill her.
And as Maddie and Dave (mostly Maddie) investigate, it becomes clearer and clearer that for once, Maddie might be right in her assertion of the people involved when she pegs Gillian's husband as less of a potential culprit and more of a victim himself.
The episode peaks in the romantic and very noir scene of Gillian and Dave meeting at night. There's stars, there's the city lights, there's beautiful music...and Gillian's husband? Gillian still has a lot of influence over David as he seemingly feels the need to side with and protect Gillian, although there's no proof so far.
This also doesn't seem to matter anymore as Gillian's husband is dead just moments later, seemingly dying as Gillian uses self defense.
And this is where I start to have my problems with this episode:
Maybe it's partially due to the 40-45 mins any episode has, but this just seems like an episode that would work better if it was longer or a two parter. We never really get to know too much about Gillian and even less about her husband. We do find out that Gillian has been very selfish and reckless with David in the past (which is interesting in a way for those of us who are romantic and maybe thought things were better in the 80s, they weren't). It also doesn't help that the overall dark tone of the episode becomes too goofy and comical towards the end with the chase and music.
I do like the episode for showing us a different side to David we hadn't seen that much yet (maybe in episode 1 of season 2) and to let Maddie shine. But overall, it's "just" a 7/10 for me.
