Jericho Season 4: Issue #3

Synopsis (SPOILER ALERT):The issue begins with Major Beck arriving at the local J&R detention center in Jericho allegedly to interrogate Hawkins.  He is actually getting Hawkins up to speed on what is currently happening and he tells him that Tomarchio and Valente want him interrogated but are concerned about trying to transport him to Cheyenne.  Instead, they have decided that Valente will come to Jericho to interrogate Hawkins who seems please by this development and asks if Major Beck is ready for Phase 2 of their plan which involves beginning the coup.  Meanwhile, at the school, Emily talks with John Smith and apologizes for Jake's behavior the previous day (see the prior issue).  Smith tells her not to worry about it and instead to be supportive of him because he is just trying to protect her like Smith tried to protect his wife.  Smith then returns to his house and is jumped by someone who injects him with a needle.  We see that it is Jake and that he has injected Smith with sodium pentothal in order to interrogate him which he will have no memory of later.  In a flashback, we see that Jake and Hawkins planned this before the latter was arrested in an attempt to get the access codes for the Precipice.

The scene switches to Stanley and Mimi's farm with Dale confronting Mimi about helping the Easterner, Benji.  She confesses to it and claims she was doing what she thought was the right thing.  She asks Dale not to tell anyone and he agrees on the condition that he gets a chance to talk with this person.  Switch to Palmer talking with Valente and telling him that he believes that Heather in is tight with the resistance and that she is also close to Major Beck and thus his assumption that Beck is himself sympathetic to the resistance.  Then back to Jake questioning Smith and the former has placed a suggestion that Smith is still back at J&R in an attempt to get trick him into giving up the access code.  This seems to work, but Smith also mentions that he has a backup plan that may have dire consequences.  Hawkins had previously warned Jake that he only had fifteen minutes before the sodium pentothal would wear off, and he runs out of time to uncover the truth about this backup plan.  He then puts Smith asleep in his bed who wakes up later and seems to have an inkling of what happened to him.

The scene then switches to Dale and Mimi with Benji as Dale has brought guns for the Easterner to take back with him to help defend against the ASA.  They are only handguns, though, and Benji was hoping for assault rifles.  Dale then starts questioning Benji on what route he came from and his answers don't seem to add up.  Benji then pulls a gun on the two and reveals that he really came from Texas and then tells them to head back to the farm where he will reveal his true story.  Switch to Heather coming home where Major Beck meets her with a passionate kiss.  Outside, though, Palmer is watching.  Then Jake returns home where he expects Emily to be upset because he missed dinner.  She's not, though, and she tells him about her talk with Smith and how she trusts him.  Jake then decides to tell her the truth about Smith (which Hawkins had previously warned him against), and the issue ends with her look of shock and surprise.    

Review:  Yeah, I know that I'm way behind on getting this review posted, but just got side-tracked with vacation and other things.  Issue #3 came out within a reasonable amount of time, only about two months after Issue #2 (and I'm a month behind with get this post up).  Let's hope they can keep that schedule for the next two installments of this mini-series (and beyond).  And this issue definitely had a lot going on.  They are having to cram a lot within the covers of each comic, but they are managing to do it without feeling overly dense or jumbled (though with the extended gap between issues, its probably best to go back and read the previous synopses).  Kalinda Vazquez again handles the scripting chores from the story that she and the Jericho writing team put together.  The dialogue rings true to the characters that we know from the TV series and carries the story along quite well.  Erfan Fajar steps in this time to take over the artwork, and I thought he did a decent enough job with the character renditions following closely enough to the original actors.  I consider this yet another solid issue in this fine series and just hope that they can get in on a regular schedule and also turn it into an ongoing series instead of a progression of mini-series.  TFAW.com shows August 14th as the due date for Issue #4 (pre-order at this link), so let's hope that's pretty close to when it actually hits the stands.  And you can still order the current issue at this link.