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“Complications” recap (1.10): End of the line

Previously on Complicationshonestly, guys, if you haven’t been keeping up maybe just don’t watch the finale, okay? Lots of shit has gone down. I don’t even know where to start.

One month ago

Some gang friends are having a lovely evening counting their money and teasing leader Alvarez’s little brother. (First impression: I kind of want to join a gang. Look at how many dollars they have! So many!) They get a call from Alvarez and have to leave immediately, but Little Bro isn’t allowed to come because he needs to stay safe. That decision was a mistake, however, because almost immediately after his buddies leave, there’s a knock at the door and Little Bro gets shot. As Little Bro takes his last breaths, his unknown shooter takes all of the cash.

Present

It’s the morning after John had his prison confrontation with Easy, and Sam wants to talk about the affair she had with Kyle (aka the worst dude). John is still really angry and not in a place to discuss it, so they argue. Sam tells John that the affair happened when she was grieving and she felt totally alone. John counters that he’s never stopped grieving. Sam wants to get through everything together, but John won’t talk to her. Instead, he escapes to the shed just before his dad, Gary, arrives, toting luggage he got out of John’s totaled car. Gary’s gun is still in John’s medical bag, so Gary gives his son another war speech about, like, holding your weapon until literally everyone else is dead. Or something. IDK-I kind of tune out the soldier stuff.

John goes over to Gretchen’s house and asks her to come with him to talk to the cops. Gretchen’s response is:

Gretchen’s like, “You’re hilarious, bro, but for real: keep me the fuck out of this. You’re the only one connected, as far as the cops know.” Gretchen’s is going to go take Antoine out of the surgery center, so John better not mention anything about her or that place. John agrees. As John is leaving, Ingrid, bless her little soul, threatens John. She’s like, “If anything happens to Gretchen, I will fuck your shit right up.” She’s so little and I love her.

John heads over to the diner to meet up with Detective Fuckface and his partner, Detective Fuckface 2, another white dude we’ve never seen before. The cops are ready to get down to brass tacks, but John is married to a lawyer and he knows that he needs to talk to a DA and not these idiots. The cops really want to know where Antoine is, but John says he won’t tell them until he has a deal. Detective Fuckface won’t drop it, so John finally tells them that Antoine is safe and being monitored in a medical facility.

Meanwhile, Gretchen is over at the medical facility trying to get Antoine out. She convinces the douchey doctor to help her transport him soon, but in the meantime, Antoine has been stashed away on an empty floor. Gretchen is pretty pissed about that, but the doctor reminds her that he could lose his license so he had to hide the kid well. He also tells Gretchen that the kid better be gone by Tuesday, or it’s another 25k and a forced sushi date with him. Charming, sir.

As John gets back to Gary’s house, he receives a call from Bridget. There are gang members with obviously fake medical complaints at the hospital asking for John, and she does NOT like it-NOT ONE BIT. John tells Bridget to, like, totally take a chill pill, because he’s handling it. Bridget, however, reminds John of the fact that he handed her a mysterious package yesterday because he might die, so she’s not feeling very reassured by his promises.

Gretchen is up on the abandoned floor of the surgery center checking on Antoine, and he’s still a little weak. He’s like, “Yeah, I mean my gunshot wound kind of hurts, but the real issue is the fact that I’m way behind on Pretty Little Liars.” #priorities

As Gretchen goes to get him a new IV bag, she sees Detective Fuckface out the window-and he’s taking a gun out of an evidence bag and screwing a silencer on it. Ruh roh. Gretchen calls John, all, “WTF, dude? I thought you weren’t going to tell the cops about this place!” John’s like, “Derp, I didn’t! I mean, I told a professional detective that Antoine was safe in a place that rhymed with smurgery tenter. I don’t know how he could’ve figured it out!” Gretchen’s just like:

…and tells John to get there ASAP. She goes back to Antoine’s bed and tells him that he just might find out who “A” is a little sooner than expected.

Back at Gary’s house, Sam tells John that he needs to call the police, but John explains that the police are dirty and terrible. He tells Sam that he has to go and be a hero, and she should take Ollie to the lake house and not tell anyone. The lake house! Of course! Where was this magical lake house last week? Noel Kahn was throwing an epic rager, probably.

Meanwhile, at the surgery center, Gretchen is panicking and trying to get Antoine out of bed. That poor kid has been stashed alone for an indeterminable amount of time! His leg muscles have all probably atrophied, so he falls right over. Gretchen picks him and puts him back into bed, but Antoine is in a lot of pain.

John calls Darius from the car as he speeds across town toward Gretchen and Antoine. At first, Darius is just like, “Oh, did you forget that we’re sworn enemies now? Because we totally are. So BYE.” But then John tells him what’s up, and Darius is like, “Okay, FINE, I’ll meet you there. We ride again!” BrOTP lives!

At the surgery center, Gretchen finds a gurney for Antoine, who is really not looking too hot at the moment. She tries to wheel him out toward the elevator, but Detective Fuckface shows up so they hide in a supply closet. She tells Antoine to stay super quiet and gets some cleaning supplies. When Detective Fuckface makes his way over, she pretends to be cleaning the abandoned floor because of some Staph bacteria. Detective Fuckface lies and says he’s with the insurance company, and asks if he can take a look around.

Meanwhile, John is driving through Atlanta like a maniac, just fucking Tokyo drifting left and right. Okay, but he literally got into a car accident just last episode! And THEN this motherfucker whips out his phone to call Gretchen! JFC John, I am honestly astounded by the fact you have survived this long.

Back at the surgery center, Gretchen gets Detective Fuckface to stay away from Antoine by claiming that she got a message about a kid in another wing she needs to check on. The detective’s stupid little ears perk up at the word “kid,” and he says actually he’ll go with her, if that’s okay. Gretchen looks like she wants to, for real, murder him. Same, girl.

John makes it to surgery center in one piece and meets Darius in the parking lot. Darius is pissed and can’t help but remind John about that time he thought the cops were the solution to all his problems. And yet, here they are, having to deal with some crooked cops. John’s like, “Ugh, I know, just stfu.” But I think they secretly really missed each other.

Detective Fuckface is getting awful nosy with Gretchen as they walk to the nurses station. Gretchen gets a text from John that he and Darius are there, so she makes up an excuse about needing to check something else and lets the detective know to ask a nurse if he needs help finding anything.

At Gary’s house, Sam is just finishing packing for the lake house when some cops show up. Gary is like, “Aw, nuts-it’s the fuzz. You take the kid and scram, see? I’ll take care of these pigs.” Gary steps outside and when Detective Fuckface’s partner, Detective Smarmy, asks to speak with John or Sam, he’s like, “They’re not here, oksorrybye!” Then he tells them to get off his private property, while Sam and Ollie sneak out the back door.

Gary asks to see a warrant and the cop is just like, “FUCK YO’ WARRANT.” He sends some officers around the sides and says, “Screw your constitutional rights, I’m going in.” Gary is just like, “Eh, fuck it,” and takes a swing at the cop. It’s pretty great. They restrain Gary eventually, but not before Sam and Ollie run through the backyard and past the murder shack (?) that Gary apparently has on his property. Detective Smarmy runs through the house and sees footprints in the dirt out back, so he goes following in the direction Sam and Ollie went.

John and Darius are stalking through the surgery center halls and John tells Darius to stop waving his damn gun around. But Darius is like “No fucking way, man. Instead, I’m gonna serve you up some exposition.” He asks John to remember how this whole gang war got started, because Little Bro got killed when the other gang’s stash house was robbed. John’s like, “Yeah, dude, why’d you do that?” Darius is like, “Dude, we don’t even know where the stash house is!” It was Detective Fuckface! Of COURSE.

John’s classic white person response is just like, “Wait, wait, wait, are you telling me that an officer of the law, someone sworn to protect and serve, is actually a terrible racist piece of human garbage? You get right out of town!” Darius is like, “JFC, John. ::facepalm:: If we’re gonna be BrOTP, you gotta wake up.”

Gretchen calls and tells John to get his ass upstairs ASAP because something is wrong with Antoine. John does some very serious-looking medical needle-sticking thing on Antoine, and tells Darius to go get the car ready so they can move. Darius is about to leave when Detective Fuckface walks in and shoots him twice in the chest without hesitation. No! What the fuck!

After murdering Darius in cold blood, the detective tells John not to move. And it’s a painfully and startlingly accurate reflection of what is happening in America right now: a police officer values non-white human life so little, that he is happy to end it without thought or regard.

Meanwhile, in the B plot that I kind of don’t understand/don’t care about, Detective Smarmy is chasing Sam and Ollie through the woods. Just, why? Is he trying to kill them? Anyway, fucking Ollie trips and makes some noise. UGH Ollie, get it together kid! You’re ruining everything. The detective, hot on their trail, stumbles out of the woods and into a parking lot. The detective asks a trucker if he saw Sam and Ollie and, after some dramatic glances to the pair of them hiding in the cab of his truck, the trucker tells Detective Smarmy that he did see the pair. They hitched a ride heading north. HAHA SUCK IT, DETECTIVE.

Back at the surgery center, Detective Fuckface is like, “Muahaha, you almost got away with it, too. But my detective skills are real good and I remembered the lady’s half-face from that night in the ER!” He points his gun down at Antoine, and Gretchen leans over his little body.

John tries to talk him down, all, “Listen, bro, I’m pretty much the king of things spiraling out of control, but don’t make this any worse than it already is!” Detective Fuckface is like, “No! You just made it worse with your whiteness and your interference. I was very happy to let all the brown people kill each other, with a little help from me of course! Now you’re forcing me to also kill a white man and an ethnically ambiguous woman (who I obviously don’t care as much about killing)! I never wanted this, John.”

John is like, “Hey bro, we can figure this out-just put down the gun.” It looks like maybe that’s going to work for a moment, but then the detective lifts the gun to aim so John dives for his medical bag. John is somehow miraculously able to reach into the bag and pull the trigger before Detective Fuckface can get a shot off. John shoots him in the chest and kills him. Luckily, the drugs they gave Antoine kicked in and he’s snoozing hard.

John checks both men’s pulses and then stumbles out the door. Uh, bye John? Gretchen goes after him. John is about to call the cops, and Gretchen’s like, “John no!” but then John is like, “John, YES!” Eventually, however, Gretchen is able to convince him not to call the cops. She’s like, “Why throw away your whole life for that piece of shit cop? Everyone will just think they killed each other.”

John and Gretchen head back into gang territory to try and explain the truth about what happened to Alvarez. He doesn’t want to believe them at first, and honestly is only hearing them out because of that one time Gretchen helped save a kid from a pedophile. John is finally like, “Hey, man, this is what’s up. It’s the truth. I’m not scared of dying, so if you want to kill me go right ahead, but I’ve lost someone too. You’ve got to do the right thing.” Alvarez tells them to gtfo, but doesn’t shoot them, so I’ll call that a win.

John finally gets back to the lake house. He checks on Ollie and asks Sam if she’s thought about what he asked earlier-if Sam will help him cover up all of his one billion crimes. Sam doesn’t think his plan will work, but John does. He just wants to keep the family together, and Sam is like, “Are you sure? Even though I banged Kyle, the worst dude in the world, and you killed people?” John does his usual thing of comparing the current situation to something medical, saying it’s like how sometimes a gunshot wound victim just needs to keep the bullet in, because it’s actually better in the long run.

As he’s med-splaining this, there are some flashes of stuff happening. Darius is zipped into a body bag (goodnight, sweet prince), and John glares at Detective Smarmy while leaving the police station. Bridget gives John back his phone, but with a real stern look on her face because she is still not happy about this whole situation. John deletes a bunch of pictures of dead bodies off his phone, real casual like.

Easy meets with Alvarez in prison. Gretchen and Ingrid give a much healthier Antoine back to his gang friends. John sits at the table with his family, enjoying a lovely meal.

Sometime in the future, John is back at the hospital doing normal doctor work with Gretchen. Bridget informs John that he has an urgent call and when John asks who it is, she reminds him that she didn’t take secretary class at medical school. I luh you, Bridget. Anyway, John picks up the phone and it’s a random dude who wants to meet with him. The dude runs cancer clinics in the area, which John might remember on account of the time he hulked right the fuck out and BURNED ONE TO THE GROUND. John’s like, “Hmm, no, that’s not ringing any bells.” But the dude, incredibly, does not buy John’s half-hearted lie, and tells John that he has exactly three minutes to get down to the parking garage. And then he hangs up.

FIN

Well, I, for one, did not see that last twist coming. What a wild ride, eh? I have to say I’ve really enjoyed this show, thanks in large part to Gretchen, Bridget, and Jed’s cat. Still no word yet on whether there will be a Season 2, but keep your fingers crossed. In the meantime, I’m on Twitter: @jennalykes.

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