Game of Silence Review: Jessie Makes a Dangerous Move

On the surface NBC’s newest drama Game of Silence may seem like a revenge story we’ve heard before, but there’s one consistency that will keep drawing you in. This is a story about revenge, and if you listen to the sick details you’ll realize just how justified it is. The more consistent theme is the bond of lifelong friendships. Would you go to the ends of the earth for your best friends? That’s exactly the question Jessie faces after learning what really happened to her friends all those years ago in juvenile detention.

At first it seems that some of the weight has been lifted off of Gil now that he has been able to tell Jessie about his time at Quitman. He’s still moving forward with his revenge plan, but the pain isn’t paralyzing him like it did in last week’s episode. After learning what the boys went through, “because of me” she says, Jessie wants in on the plan as well. It turns out that she had her own encounter with Carroll in the past, where he lied so that Jessie couldn’t see the boys during their time at Quitman.

Gil and Shawn want to refocus their efforts into finding Gerald Tyson, an officer at Quitman. We’ve seen through flashbacks that Tyson was particularly brutal and dismissive towards the kids. What Gil and Shawn don’t realize is that Tyson is already dead.

Jackson installs top of the line security in and around the house after the threat he got. Carroll is really trying to paint himself as a fit candidate, and he has the nerve to walk right into Jackson’s office. He doesn’t beat around the bush. He knows exactly what Jackson has been up to, which includes murdering Tyson all those years ago. Jackson has no choice but to tell Gil and Shawn that he killed Tyson, but he doesn’t tell them that Jessie was there. He also leaves out a huge chunk of the story. At the time Jackson only thought he killed Tyson, but he didn’t. Instead Tyson came after him and Jessie shot him dead to protect Jackson.

Detective Winters puts some interesting pieces of Darryl’s murder together. It’s looking more and more like Gil and Shawn didn’t kill Darryl. The same gun used to kill Darryl was also used to kill a rival of Terry’s. Darryl and Terry’s friend Marco actually killed Darryl so that he could take his girlfriend and his place in the gang. Dennis tries to talk his brother out of starting an internal war by killing another friend in retribution. Terry doesn’t listen. He kills Marco right in front of Detective Winters. She is appalled, but since Terry is keeping her brother safe while he is in prison, Winters does what she has to do to prevent her brother from being hurt.

The time has finally come for Marina to realize that something isn’t right with her fiancee. Gil crashes hers and Jackson’s engagement party in a spectacularly drunk fashion. Jackson has to punch Gil out before he can do any damage. He glosses over all of the details when he explains the situation to Marina. He really only mentions how Boots’s death reconnected them all.

The only good thing to happen the entire episode is that Annie has her baby, affectionately dubbed “Lil’ Boots”. The new addition brings the family back together, and even Marina tags along for the ride. The group really feels like a family. For a minute they forgot what they were facing, they forgot the terrors of their past. In this moment they were just a family happily watching old home movies. That ends abruptly when the police call saying they found Boots’s killer. The guys are infuriated that Boots’s true killer is trying to sweep things under the rug, and it acts  as gasoline to the fire. With Carroll’s threat hanging over them, Jackson was going to let Carroll off the hook. Now he’s more incensed than ever. He may have to get in line behind Jessie though, since by the end of the hour she signs up to follow a volunteer for Carroll’s campaign.

Now that they have settled on going through with their plans, there is no turning back. Just how will Gil, Shawn, Jackson, and Jessie get their revenge?