THE FINDER Recap: ‘The Inheritance’

Hello! I can’t wait to hear what you thought about this episode of THE FINDER because I have to say it’s my favorite one of the season so far. It had a good case, some funny moments, including some classic Leo lines, and like we talked about last week, Walter showed some much-needed heart toward his customer, and I think that went a long way toward making this episode so fantastic.

The aforementioned customer is Joyce, a friend of Isabel’s (sidenote: I think that makes the second or third “friend” of Isabel’s who has needed help from Walter — 11 eps into a 13 ep season, that plot is pretty thin, writers, so come up with some other reasons for Isabel to be involved, okay?) who is currently working as a mortician in order to work her way through law school. Joyce (played by Mageina Tovah, who was excellent, and if I were creating a show, I’d want her to audition) is eternally optimistic, always seeing the bright side of things and learning valuable lessons. I have to say that I ADORED Joyce. Is it bad that I am sort of a Joyce? I don’t think it is, and that’s all I’ll say about that!

Joyce has reason to be sad, as her father has recently died. Isabel wants Walter to take the case, but he refuses — stating he doesn’t like finding murderers. After all, once you do that, you’ll spend the rest of your life finding murderers, he says. But at the bar, Willa tries to intrigue him with the idea of finding the murder weapon, and if the murderer is also revealed, awesome. Walter doesn’t fall for it, but when Isabel suggests that Joyce’s inheritance is missing, Walter takes the bait and decides to find it.

The case takes Walter and Leo to racetracks where Joyce’s father, Stan, frequented for over 20 years. He sat in the same seat, and Walter realizes Stan had a system. When they run into three shady looking men, later nicknamed “Fat Man,” “Tall Man,” and “Short Man,” they realize something fishy is happening at the horse races.

Isabel gets a hit on Fat Man and tells Walter and Leo that he was once arrested for having exotic animals. She and Walter break into his house and find him on the floor, dying from snakebite. He does die, but not before revealing to Walter that Stan knew the three men were doping a horse, Sweet Stakes, in order to win. They’d paid Stan around $51,000 to keep him quiet. Everyone things that money is Joyce’s inheritance.

In the only cliché moment of the night, Isabel and Joyce are walking together alone. At night. In a parking garage. They didn’t even need the ominous music they used in the background, right? Sure enough, Tall Man attacks Joyce and tells her he knows that SHE knows where her father put her inheritance. She says she has no idea. Luckily Isabel drives up and Tall Man runs away. Joyce calls it a valuable life experience. HA!

Once Walter identifies Stan’s system, he knows there is a bigger pot of money out there. The key to Joyce’s inheritance is a betting slip worth over $200,000. Stan bet his savings so that Joyce could have money to pay off her student loans and start her new life. She tells Walter a story about lucky horseshoes and realizes that just knowing that is inheritance enough — luckily the team talks her into still trying to find the slip.

But just as they are about to leave, Walter is jumped by the jockey, who takes him down with some chloroform.  He comes to and Tall Man is holding them a gunpoint. But Walter quickly disarms him and Leo gets rid of the jockey once and for all.

Remembering Joyce’s story about the horseshoes, Walter leads her and Isabel to Stan’s seat at the tracks — underneath it is a small envelope with the slip. Joyce tears up, and in a wonderful, wonderful moment, Walter tells her that when someone you love is gone, it’s okay to be sad. I loved that moment, and I loved it even more when Walter awkwardly slipped away while Isabel and Joyce cried and hugged. Haha!  The end scene with Walter and Isabel was also sweet.

I haven’t said much about the Timo and Willa storyline in this episode, but I don’t want to end the recap without at least touching on it. It might just be me, but I sort of got the vibe that Willa might actually like Timo. But I’m also pretty sure that she is trying to scam a ton of money in student loans. Not sure if that money is for her or Timo and Magdalena. Thoughts from you?

Here are the classic Leo lines I mentioned before:

• After Walter gets tricked into taking the case to search for the inheritance: “And there you go.”
• After being told by the jockey that he wasn’t afraid of him: “Then you are foolish.”
• After Walter snorts what appears to be cocaine and drinks what appears to be urine but is merely baking soda and energy drink: “You took a big chance finding that out”.

Typing out those quotes doesn’t really convey exactly how funny they were, but I hope you laughed as much as I did. Other than that, how did you like this episode? Did you think Walter showed the right amount of empathy with Joyce? Which Leo line made you laugh the most? It’s a sure bet that Willa is trying to cheat the student loan program, right? Comments are open — let’s discuss!