Oversight (Jericho episode)

"Oversight"
Jericho episode
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 4
Directed by	Steve Gomer
Written by	Robert Levine
Original air date	March 4, 2008
Episode chronology
← Previous "Jennings & Rall" Next → "Termination for Cause"

"Oversight" is the fourth episode of season two of the CBS drama Jericho. It was broadcast on March 4, 2008.

Plot

Morse code	.- -.-. --- ... - .-.. -.-- -.. . .- - ....
Translation	A COSTLY DEATH

The townspeople are upset with Jennings & Rall who are slowly taking financial control of the city's farms and businesses. Gracie's Supermarket and Bailey's Tavern are among the local businesses losing money because of Jennings & Rall's new restrictions and rules. Dale Turner has been secretly continuing to import and export from local tradeposts and has been using Stanley's farm to get in and out of town (because that is the only area along Jericho's borders that is not under supervision of Ravenwood or the military). Stanley demands that Dale stops using his farm because he is afraid that Jennings & Rall will take away his farm.

Hawkins receives a call from his informant who calls himself "John Smith". John Smith claims to know everything about Project Red Bell and of Sarah Mason's betrayal. He warns Hawkins that he will be caught within 24 hours by Major Beck because the latter is currently in possession of an Aerial Radiation Survey that has listed the location and detection of radiation activity in the area. A page in the Aerial Radiation Survey will reveal that Hawkins has the bomb hidden in his home. Hawkins asks Jake to retrieve the page that would blow his cover, but discovers that the Sheriff's Office inside City Hall (now Major Beck's office) has now been activated with a thumb scan device and Jake has been excluded access. However Jake finds that Heather is one of only eight people who is given access and manages to convince Hawkins to involve her in the plan. Jake and Hawkins decide to tell Heather about the cover-up of the attacks. She remains in some denial of the conspiracy, but she agrees to retrieve the page from Beck's office.

In order to continue trade and businesses outside of Jennings & Rall's control, Mary convinces a soldier who is going to be on checkpoint duty to "look the other way" for a truck that she claims will be carrying "just booze". However, a local farmer rats out Dale's black-marketing to Goetz and Ravenwood arrests Dale just as he was about to leave town. Jake and the Rangers find that Dale is being shipped to prison. With the crude financial restrictions and Dale's arrest Jake declares that they're now "losing this town" and the Rangers rush to rescue Dale.

Meanwhile, Hawkins manages to lure Beck out of his office by telling him that Sarah Mason was spotted near a farmhouse somewhere in Nebraska. Major Beck, Hawkins, and other soldiers rush to Nebraska providing the distraction needed so that Heather can get into Major Beck's office to retrieve the page from the Aerial Radiation Survey. The soldiers arrived at the farm house but it has been burnt to the ground. There is no sign of Sarah Mason but they do find the skeletal remains of a man (who was left there by The Old Man) and an undamaged hard drive. When Major Beck returns to his office, he finds that one of his soldiers has subdued Heather after he catches her snooping around in the office. (Heather was able to grab the page before she was caught). She lies to Major Beck stating that she was merely checking the books on some New Bern reports she had been working on for him. The soldier that caught Heather is convinced that she is lying, but Major Beck sends him out of the office. He apologizes to Heather and says that he hopes that the situation did not alter her trust in the soldiers. Heather manages to walk out of the office with the page and a huge burden of guilt for having lied to Major Beck.

While working at Jennings & Rall, Mimi had been working on an accounting report for the Allied States of America's new currency exchange and finds that $10,000 may be missing from Jennings & Rall since the new currency arrived. Goetz confronts Mimi about the situation, but Mimi claims that she is right because she has a ledger which allowed her to independently track Jennings & Rall's finances and finds that there's a $10,000 difference between her oversight reports and the ones that are being tracked by the company. After arguing about the ledger, Mimi finally promises that she would bring it to work tomorrow to show him.

Jake and the Rangers manage to stop the military convoy that is taking Dale to prison, giving Eric time to contact Major Beck and tell him about the situation. Major Beck orders his soldiers to release Dale on the claim that he is a special terrorist informant.

Mimi returns to the Richmond farm worried that Goetz may be on to her about the missing money. A few minutes later, Goetz and other Ravenwood members arrive at the house. Bonnie attempts to go outside and cover for Mimi saying that she wasn't home, but Ravenwood demands to search the house. Bonnie rushes back inside and Mimi runs to the kitchen pantry to hide. Immediately, Ravenwood breaks into the house and gunshots are heard. Instead of going into hiding, Bonnie has taken Stanley's shotgun and starts a shootout with Ravenwood. Mimi tries to intervene, but she is hit by an errant bullet and retreats back into the kitchen pantry badly wounded. Bonnie manages to bring down most of the Ravenwood men except for Goetz. In the pantry, Mimi hears three more shots go off and then silence. She tries to peek through the bullet holes but collapses from blood loss.

Major Beck looks at the hard drive retrieved from the destroyed house and finds information revealing Sarah Mason's connection to the September attacks. He is also shaken when he finds video surveillance footage of Valente dealing with the possible terrorists. John Smith sends Hawkins a Continuity of Government report from Jennings & Rall dating back to 1993. The report, which Smith claims he helped write, deals with a scenario where 25 nuclear weapons are detonated in American cities. John Smith states that the people behind the attacks managed to gain access to the report and implemented the scenario for real. Smith also reveals that the mysterious Project Boxcar is the Cheyenne government's plan to cover up and destroy any and all evidence revealing the secrets behind the September attacks.

In the final scene of the episode, Jake and Bill arrive at the Richmond house to find Mimi critically wounded and being treated by a Paramedic...and that Bonnie, cradled in Stanley's arms while he weeps, has been shot and killed.

External links

• "Oversight" at CBS.com