THE FINDER: “A Cinderella Story”

Finding a new television show to watch is very much like dating. At first you decide whether you’re interested enough to get better acquainted, and then over a series of dates you really start picking up on what they’re all about. We’re up to our third “date” with The Finder now, and little bits of its personality are still continually unveiled to delight and intrigue. We have learned pieces of Walter’s past and what compels him to find things. We learned why Willa lives and works at the Ends of the Earth, and that she wants desperately to leave although her demeanor suggests all she really wants is a place she belongs. We also previously learned that Leo’s family was killed. This week we explore more of what happened to Leo’s family and his possible motivations for taking in the troubled Willa.

Since the show is titled The Finder, there is always something that must be found. This week’s client is Ira Messing, a socially inept genius, searching clubs for the woman of his dreams and having no clue how to talk to her if he happens upon her. He tries to pick up a beautiful blond, immediately telling her in his convoluted nerdy way that he wants to have sex with her. It seems dicey at first, but after he tells her about his work she seems impressed and kisses him. He removes some bird feces from her hair. That’s right, bird feces. They end up chatting and quoting The Princess Bride together. She gets a disturbing text just when they seem to be hitting it off, and Ira sees the words “you’re dead” on her phone. He wants to help her. She scribbles something on a napkin then rushes out. Ira follows but all he can find when he gets to the street is one of her shoes. Whatever is written on the napkin is unreadable, beer was spilled on it during the rush outside. After he pours out his story to Leo and Walter, Walter takes his photo. In Walter world, this means he’s going to take the case. Walter goes to the nightclub where Ira met and lost his Cinderella and leaves with a tip on where she purchased her shoes.

Leo tries to mentor the troubled Willa. He shows her a mural painted by an artist who started out in a gang. Willa picks up immediately on the moral of the story, a criminal who turned their life around. She lifts someone’s wallet in the middle of lesson, so her day isn’t a total loss. Being one step ahead of her, though, Leo makes her give it back. As she does, Leo recognizes the man and he does not appear happy to see him.

Willa finds information about Leo’s family on his computer. His wife and daughter died of E Coli poisoning, and the man they saw earlier was head of the company that had knowingly sold contaminated product. Leo is furious to catch her hacking into his computer. Well, sort of hacking. Leo says his password out loud when he types it in, so it’s pretty common knowledge. Willa wonders if he took her in as some strange way to replace his daughter. He’s too angry to speak, just turns and leaves.

Isabel is skeptical when Walter wants to buy her something. Usually he forgets to charge people for finding things for them, so funding seems questionable. When he tells her it’s shoes, she’s more accepting. Isabel loves shoes, particularly the thousand dollar pair she tries on. Walter argues with the clerk, Jonni, about the cost of the shoes and how they are demeaning to women. All Isabel cares about is that her legs look four inches longer. Walter pulls Jonni aside to talk about the knockoffs, and then spills why he’s really there. When Jonni is reluctant to help him find Lisa, Walter tells him Isabel is a cop, and since Jonni is selling knockoffs in the back room, he would be better off if he helped, which he does. Isabel is dismayed to learn her shoes are knockoffs as they leave, but Walter tells her the kind of beautiful she is have nothing to do with those shoes. Isabel is flattered, she stops walking and just looks at him. Walter figures the bonus is that she can point out the counterfeit shoes sales and get a little career boost. She thanks him for the lovely gift.

Walter finds Lisa’s apartment, door open. He walks in expecting to find it ransacked, but there is nothing awry. He checks to see if there’s a dead body, but still nothing. Before he can find anything our of place at all, he is tazed. When he awakens there is a nerdy young woman, Amanda, pointing the reloaded tazer at him. She says she hasn’t seen Lisa in days. She said Lisa often goes away for days with guys, comes home alone. When shown a photo of Ira she recognizes him. She claims she subscribes to Scientific American.

Walter tries to break it to Ira that Lisa apparently has a lot of men, but Ira insists she was terrified that night and he wants to help. Walter assigns him to stake out the bar in case Lisa returns, which is something he doesn’t expect to happen but it makes Ira feel better. Isabel calls to let Walter know that they busted the shoe store. He asks her to keep a pair of those shoes for him in size 12. I do think Walter has the legs to pull off wearing 4-inch heels.

Leo approaches Willa about what happened. He won’t fire her because then she goes back to detention. She can stay until she finds a new place. As his intentions sink in, she’s visibly upset and apologizes, promising never to mention his daughter again, to no avail. She goes to Walter, whom she finds walking around in his gorgeous red high heels. She recommends he start out small, eye shadow and silk panties. Walter isn’t amused, he’s walking in Lisa’s shoes, or a reasonable facsimile. She tells him Leo fired her and asks for advice on how to make it better. Walter suggests she find a way to make it up and make it good. How she does it is up to her. While they talk Walter looks over Lisa’s shoe and finds a sliver of teak which appears to be from a boat.

Walter and Leo sit on the pier fishing, eyeing boats in the marina. Of all the marina’s in Florida, Walter has narrowed it down to this one. No cab company had picked Lisa up, and this marina is the only one close enough that she could have walked to the club in heels. Lisa also had bird poop in her hair, and there are a lot of them flying about. They find a boat they think looks promising and despite the illegalities of it they go inside to search. It looks like a fishing boat. It smells like a fishing boat. But when they find what initially appears to be fish guts, they find a molar. Then they find a collection of single shoes kept together in a closet. Realizing they are chasing a serial killer, Walter calls Isabel and says he needs her to find out who owns a boat. She needs him to realize she’s not his secretary. When she hears Leo mention the tooth in the background, they suddenly have her attention. She wants to know what they are hiding, but Walter hangs up. He wants to take the shoes they found to help in the search. Leo names the laws and statutes they are breaking and how much time they will spend in prison. Walter convinces him, though, that they need to take the chance if they are to save Lisa from the killer.

Willa cons her cousin Timo into helping her rob Nathan Stein. It’s her twisted, criminal way of making a peace offering to Leo. Timo is reluctant, they are gypsies and they steal, not rob. Willa urges Timo to confront Stein and take his briefcase, which she has lied is carrying a lot of valuables. They confront him in a parking garage with a bat. After they take him down Timo grabs the case and takes off, but Willa picks up the bat and beats him some more, telling him he can’t kill people and just walk around rich and happy.

Walter has a dream that he is prince charming, holding a slipper. When the coach arrives, Cinderella Isabel exits. He tries to put the slipper on her foot. It won’t fit. He asks what’s the matter with her. She says it’s not the right question, the right question is what’s the matter with the slipper. Not all women have the same sized feet. He says he can make it fit, but she takes the slipper and starts thumping him in the head with the heel…at which point Walter wakes to find Isabel standing over him tapping him on the forehead. She wants to know what he and Leo are up to, and is furious when he tells her about the shoes he thinks belong to a serial killer. He realizes the shoes all have the same wear pattern, meaning they were all worn by the same person. The killer.

Leo is staking out the bar, watching the crowd and watching Ira at the bar when he receives a video link from Willa containing the news report of Stein’s attack. He doesn’t have much time to react before he sees Ira following a woman out of the bar. As he goes after Ira, Walter calls to let him know Prince Charming is not the killer, Cinderella is. Lisa drops the shoes, then kills all the Prince Charming’s that track her down. Leo has lost sight of Ira, both he and the woman are gone. Walter tells Leo to meet him at the boat.

Timo is angry to find the only take from the robbery is a Rolex and a thousand dollars cash. He can tell she did this on purpose, but she won’t tell him why. She worries what he will tell Uncle Shad. He doesn’t want to tell Shad anything, he would have to admit that she tricked him and that would make him look bad. He reminds her that without her family she is all alone in the world.

When Walter, Isabel, and Leo arrive at the marina, the boat is gone. Walter steals a jet-ski to go after it. Once he finds it he calls Isabel to give directions. She has help on the way and tells him not to go onboard until they get there. Of course, being Walter, he does just that. He finds Ira tied up and gagged, and he’s tazed from behind. It’s Lisa, or so it would seem…it’s actually Amanda, the mousy roommate that tazed Walter before. She ties Walter up too, the opens her tool kit. Walter suggests she attach herself to the anchor, the world would be a better place if all serial killers started with themselves. She tells him he’s the first Charming to find her without the napkin, so that must make him the smartest. Walter wonders why she hates Prince Charming so much. She doesn’t hate him, she’s still waiting for him to walk through the door, but so far all have been imposters. Walter says she needs someone to see past her beautiful exterior, to see the real her. He starts naming off observations he’s made of her. She’s falling for his words at first, and he asks her to let him put the slipper on her foot. When she leans down to kiss him afterwards, he head butts her and grabs her knife to cut himself loose. They struggle until Walter can shove her into a closet.

Later, back at the bar, Isabel asks Walter if he realizes how close he was to getting killed. He believes she should be happy, she got all the credit for catching a serial killer. But Isabel doesn’t want the credit if it means he’s dead. He tells her not to get all soft on him, he’s not her boyfriend. Also at the bar is Ira, with a new Cinderella that Walter found for him.

Leo tells Willa that he wants to keep her at the Ends of the Earth, but she has to tell him the truth. She admits Timo helped her. She tricked him into it, and if he tells the family she lied to him they’ll kick her out. She blames Walter, he told her to make it up to him. He tells her Walter meant bake him a cake, not violence. Leo tells her how Walter once stopped him from killing Nathan Stein, that’s why they are all together now. Much as Leo loved seeing Stein bruised and beaten, what he really needs is to forgive. He tells Willa about his daughter, Ellie, and how much he loved her. Willa thanks him for forgiving her. They sit in front of the mural he showed her earlier and have a quiet moment together.

This episode really started to firm up some of the relationships between core characters. I like the “misfits forming a family bond” theme, and although Willa doesn’t seem close to the other characters yet, the seeming father-daughter bond she has with Leo seems genuine and stirs the heart. They both are filling a void for the other. The character whose ties are least defined right now are Isabel’s. There seems to be history and flirtation between she and Walter, but so far no real reveal to explain what happened. Her career does seem to be an issue as to why they aren’t together or didn’t work in the past. I would really like to see her bond with Leo and Willa’s characters more as the season moves on, though. In the meantime, I feel my new “relationship” with The Finder is working. It’s fun, sometimes quirky, and the four main characters all are characters you can root for. Most of all, it has heart.

The Finder airs on Fox, Thursdays at 9/8c.