TVSquad

(S04E13) "...and dry erase boards. Lots of dry erase boards." - Charlie

Return of the nerds! It's been almost 3 months since we last saw an episode of Numb3rs, and I've been looking forward to it to be honest. Not because it's the best show on TV, but with all the crap that rolled out during the WGA Strike... well, you get the idea.

The episode began with a really well done montage that juxtaposed Don and his FBI team against Charlie, Amita, and Larry handling a lecture at CalSci. CBS must be really worried about maintaining old viewers and picking up new ones because the entire sequence could have easily served as the opening to the pilot episode for this show. It laid everything out - who was in charge, their jobs, attitudes. After the first commercial break, it was back to business though.

The team had been staking out a meth lab and after the raid, they encountered a guy who had been staking it out as well. He had a van full of goodies - guns, duct tape, zip ties, and other assorted hardware essentials. He ended up being tied to an anti-government militia group with plans to blow up a bank's headquarters in downtown LA. They were buying chemicals for a bomb from the meth cookers.

With all the excitement this show had, I was hoping for a bigger pay off at the end to be honest. The fact that those guys were just planning on blowing up the bank to destroy some suspicious records on their terrorist money fell a little flat for me. It kind of took away from the mystique that they had the backing of this big organization with grand plans to overthrow the government. They turned out to be a bunch of trigger happy idiots with no real plan. This was quickly apparent when David and Colby raided the house and one of the suspects started firing off shotgun rounds... next to the bomb lab. David said something like, "you should know better." Ka-Boom! Colby's response? "Apparently not."

Now I mentioned that after the opening, things went back to normal. In more ways than one. It seems as if Larry's trip to space and Colby's apparent "treason" have all been forgotten. Larry is no longer at the monastery, he shaved his beard, and seems to be helping out Charlie as much as he used to before his shuttle experience. On top of that, any tension that existed between David and Colby (as a result of his deception at the end of season three) is gone. Their camaraderie is back. I like both these choices though. It acknowledges that some time has passed (because of the strike) and it also gets rid of two plotlines that really weren't working that well. Smart move.

The other big news to discuss is Diane Farr. As I'm sure most people have heard, she's decided no to return to the show at the end of this season. The writer's wasted no time is setting up her exit strategy. Always the moral do-gooder, Megan has consistently found fault with Don's decisions to cut corners if it meant making a case. Her displeasure with his leadership was readily apparent in this episode. Larry picked up on it and bluntly suggested finding a new line of work. Adios. I'm all for this as well. Peter MacNicol isn't leaving (yet... anyway), so that gets rid of the romance between Larry and Megan; another storyline that just never did it for me. Plus Numb3rs is just like Criminal Minds. You can replace cast members very easily without wrecking the dynamic of the show. Numb3rs has already done it once. Farr was a replacement for Sabrina Lloyd at the end of season one. I'm sure her replacement will ease in without much fuss.

A few more thoughts...

• Charlie and Amita are still in this weird sort of stand-still. They're not moving in, but they're happy. Up until now I've sort of been chastising the two of them for not making any sort of forward moves. But this episode shed some light on the subject and I'm glad to see that it's not really her or Charlie's fault. She's trying to introduce him to her parents (which I assume will set marriage plans in order) but they keep bailing on her.
• I hope the story of Alan making the house "green" continues. You hear about this all the time and I'll admit that I know little about it. It'd be nice to see some of things you can do without having to watch an hour special on HGTV.
• I loved the scene when Colby started to sound like a mathematician. That's been a long time coming.
• Another Colby moment: when he asked David about these girls at bars who just drag you home. "Where do I find them?" As I mentioned earlier, the camaraderie is back between the two of them.

Overall, not a bad episode. But hey, at least it was a new episode.

This week's numb3rs: 15 guns; 10 destinations; 2 houses; 1 black swan
This week's math: Black Swan