TVSquad

(S01E18) David Arquette stepped in to direct his sister this week and I think we have to say he did a pretty nice job. It didn't hurt that he was given a very fun script to work with. Much like we saw with Dr. Walker and Captain Push earlier in the season, we were again treated to an appearance of a recurring character. Allison's brother Michael (Ryan Hurst) is back. He was also featured in "Lucky" from season one and "Lucky In Love" from season two.

Truth be told, I think the interaction of Allison and her brother would have been enough to sell me on this episode. They were very good together. Two of their scenes stood out to me. The first one was the meeting with Tanya King (Cindy Pickett). Allison's reaction to Michael's "psychic" work was very amusing. Every time she gave a drawn out sigh I laughed.

Even better than that though was the fight as they watched the interrogation of Henry Alonso (Andy Mackenzie). It all went to Michael's head way too fast and he should have known better than to dismiss big sister's "stupid dreams."

As good as all of their stuff was though, it was just a small part of the episode. None of that even mentions Christopher McDonald. McDonald is so versatile. The more of him on our TV the better I say. That was a great piece of casting, and a well written character. When we first see Gregory with Monica, it changes everything about how we see him. Suddenly he's not just some innocent victim murdered over money. He's a bad dude smacking around a girl. That was an interesting twist.

It really added to the story because pinning Wes down for the murder early on wasn't a big leap. But figuring out why Gregory was covering for him and creating this elaborate frame up of Alonso was certainly intriguing. As he recounted his story to Michael in bathroom after bathroom it all started to make sense, in an admittedly twisted way.

Gregory also set up a nice little will he or won't he moment with Michael. Being Allison's brother, I didn't think he'd take the $349,000 and skip the country. Aside from it just being the right thing to do, he had to know that Allison was going to put it all together anyway. I really liked the payoff to that. Michael only said to Allison, "How are we going to get Henry Alonso out of jail." But the way he said it, there was a sorry, you were right, I was wrong, floating around in the subtext.

And if all of that wasn't enough, we got a fun little Joe and Bridgette story on the side. Joe really should know better by now, and I think he wanted to believe Bridgette's story about the window, but his hands were kind of tied. How do you make a move based on that? The one part of their story that kind of struck me as odd was how Ariel looked when telling Joe that the principal wanted to see him about Bridgette. She looked almost giddy at getting to deliver the news.

Overall, this was a very good episode. A fun story with an unexpected twist, some good Joe and Bridgette stuff, and the welcomed return of Detective Scanlon. With a bonus point for bringing Michael back and the great performance from Christopher McDonald, I'm giving this one a 6 out of 7.