Much like the episodes with Thomas Goff, “Seven Three” doesn’t have much to do with the Nightingale investigation, but it does bring back one major player from the premiere episode — Stan Moreno (Anthony Ruivivar). Moreno was Frank’s point of contact while he was undercover, as well as being the one who set him up to be killed during that botched sting. Since Frank didn’t die and the timeline was changed, Moreno’s double crossing has suspiciously been left hanging during the rush of the Nightingale story and Julie Sullivan’s death. What he’s been doing this entire time, I have no idea. Eating halals? Or, since that scene occurred during an aborted timeline, does Moreno even like halals still? What are halals anyway? Is that the correct plural form?
The most interesting part of this episode wasn’t figuring out what’s going on with Moreno — I mean, it’s pretty obvious he’s a dirty cop, the how and why are less interesting to me – it’s the way the episode puts to use the two different memories Raimy has. I imagine the reason only Raimy can remember the two timelines is because she caused the change to happen. Something along the lines of being in the center of the storm, or something else to do with science that I don’t understand. Besides a few glimpses of smaller scale moments in past episodes, we really spend a lot of time in 2016A and in 2016B. In 2016A, we see Raimy go on her first investigation with Moreno as her training officer. It’s during the investigation of a murdered man who killed his girlfriend that Raimy witnesses Moreno do some shady things, like steal evidence from a crime scene. In 2016B, Frank is Raimy’s training officer on the same domestic disturbance call, but this time, Frank and Raimy arrest the man who murdered his girlfriend. Remember, 2016B is the timeline everyone believes is real, so the evidence Raimy has against Moreno is stuck in the aborted 2016A timeline. Obviously, this is a problem. It’s even more of a problem when that man is released from prison only to die in the same exact way he did in 2016A. It’s kind of confusing, and the details are honestly not that interesting. The episode did a lot of back and forth with too many characters, and Moreno isn’t even outed by the end of it.
On the other end, Frank is just kind of hanging out in 1996 while Raimy deals with things in 2016. I really loved the parallel between Raimy and Frank in this, but it’s a parallel that I’m not entirely sure was intentional because it doesn’t really tell us much about them that we don’t already know. While Raimy is being pretty hard core about her investigation, Frank is conducting his own into young Raimy’s softball coach, who has been spending an unusual amount of time with Julie. This was mostly played for comedic effect, I think, as Frank uses police resources to essentially spy on his ex. But there’s a great moment where the emotions shift from light-hearted to heavy when Frank confronts Julie and who turns out to be her study partner. Riley Smith is terrific in this episode. He shows a vulnerability that is palpable in every scene, whether he’s watching his daughter’s softball game with his ex right next to him or he’s being told by that ex that it’s over, Smith is great at capturing the subtleties. Peyton List too can easily show the minute differences between 2016A Raimy and 2016B Raimy. 2016A Raimy is more hardened with the knowledge that her father was a dirty cop, but 2016B Raimy is more innocent, even with her mother’s disappearance, she had Frank there to help her through everything.
“Seven Three” is kind of an odd episode whose details feel small in scale, but when looked at as a whole, plays a much larger part in the context of what Frequency has the potential to do. Even with aborted timelines, details and people don’t just change because of some weird twist of fate. All that changes is the timing.
And then there’s Satch Reyna. Who is also a dirty cop? I’m holding out on discussing this further, in the hopes that there’s more to Satch’s story. Otherwise, this show is going to turn into a show where every single cop is a dirty cop besides the main character, kind of like what Person of Interest did, and yo, I’m not into that.
Next week, it looks like we’ll dig more into how this whole communicating with the past works, courtesy of Curtis Armstrong! He’s the first Supernatural alum on Frequency, but with Jeremy Carver running things, hopefully he’s not the last. See ya next week.
Rating: 7/10
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