Game of Silence: Blood Brothers Unite

NBC’s newest drama Game of Silence doesn’t always move the fast in the present day, but if the flashbacks are any indication, you may want to stick around to see justice done. This week the show continues to mount the evidence against former Warden Carroll as Bobby, Gil, and Shawn lay their brother Boots to rest. They set out to put their abuser away according to the law, but whether or not that will remain the plan is yet to be seen.

Following Boots’s funeral, Jackson, Gil, and Shawn are murder suspects. They all deny killing Darryl, and even Darryl’s friends have no idea how he ended up dead. Detective Liz Winters doesn’t get any answers from the guys about the murder, so she decides to Darryl’s girlfriend Mariah. Mariah points her back in Gil and Shawn’s direction, having seen two men matching their description near the crime scene at the time of Darryl’s murder.

Jackson, Gil, and Shawn tentatively agree not to kill anyone, but they are done lying down. Jackson convinces the others that they will build a case against Warden Carroll and his crew that is undeniable and doesn’t have a statute of limitations, like murder. In flashbacks we learn that a boy named Petey was with the boys at Quitman.  He was badly injured by a chemical burn and the boys never saw him again after he was tkane away.. Through the nurse who worked at Quitman the guys learn Petey was last seen by Bobby Marx, one of the less sadistic officers who worked there.

The guys track down Bobby, who admits he believes Carroll had Petey killed. Bobby admits all of this on camera with tears in his eyes, not that Gil believes he is the least bit apologetic for his role in Petey’s death. Gil believes Bobby is a natural liar since he lied about attending the warden’s “parties” back in the day, which Gil had the unfortunate history of being forced to attend. Gil was right to be suspicious, since Bobby’s next call is to Carroll. In the meantime Jackson entrusts the video footage to Gil for safe keeping.

During all of this Jessie, Boots’s wife Annie, and Jackson’s fiancee Marina are all being kept in the dark. Marina doesn’t even know that Jackson has a friend that just died, and she’s too busy trying to entertain her visiting parents. Annie can’t make sense of why Boots would suddenly turn violent, and as much as Jessie wants to tell Annie her suspicions, she keeps her mouth shut. Not to mention the less Jessie says the better, lest she slip about the last time she really saw Jackson.

Carroll informs Terry of who Boots and his friends really are, so now the guys really have to watch themselves. Not wanting anything to ruin his bid for Congress, Carroll requests that Terry handle the situation.

Though there isn’t much movement in the story in this episode, most of the power in the narrative comes from the flashbacks. Everytime the men remember a moment from the nine months they spent in Quitman we can see another terrible reason for their justified hatred. Gil in particular has a quick trigger temper as a result of a particular incident at Quitman he would rather die than discuss. For now Jackson is calm and collected, treating this manner as if it were any other case. The pushback from Carroll and his motley crew of criminals is coming, so at some point Jackson is going to be put in a position of whether or not to stick to his original law-abiding plan.

Will you stick around to watch Game of Silence?