THE FINDER: “Eye Of The Storm” Recap

Walter is preparing for a hurricane. It’s supposed to come aground some distance away from them, but it’s name is Katherine and Walter has an ex with that name, he knows it’s gunning for him.

Willa’s probation officer, Christina, drops by to check on her, narrowly missing discovering Timo hiding in the bathroom of Willa’s trailer. Willa keeps him hidden in her trailer and she goes to keep an eye on Christina, who has moved her questions on to Leo. She’s anxious to finish her check on Willa and get out of there, but Walter was right about the storm and Christina ends up stuck at The Ends of the Earth with all the gang. All, that is, except Isabel who is on call and has to stay near work. Those stranded at the bar keep watch on the storms wrath on TV, and hear news reports of a missing high school girl, believed to have been swept off a bridge. The story ignites Walter’s “finder” instincts, and it becomes apparent he’s going to spend the storm trying to find Melissa Welling. Only, the storm is too strong and he can’t go anywhere. He will have to figure it out from the bar, with Isabel acting as his eyes and ears on the outside.

Walter creates a replica of the girls walk home from school, complete with a spaghetti bridge. The real bridge isn’t made of spaghetti, but when you’re trapped in a hurricane you improvise. With a spray nozzle, Walter creates a storm surge, which shows that the girls retrieved backpack should have gone in the opposite direction than the location it was found. He thinks she was never on the bridge. Christina thinks Walter is unstable, and she’s not sure a bar is the best place for Willa to be living either. She keeps observing the craziness and making notes, much to Willa’s chagrin.

Walter watches more news from Melissa’s school, and gauges reaction from the onlookers. He picks out one kid in the crowd that he suspects is hiding something. He sends Isabel to find her, and she’s successful. The girls name is Claire, and she eventually admits that she saw Melissa talking to an older guy in a blue van recently. She also saw the same van that morning when they were all outside checking out the storm.

Walter needs Willa to help him navigate social media sites and find photos from the high school posted that day. It’s against the terms of Willa’s probation, so she guides Walter through it with Christina looking on. After scrolling through tons of photos, they finally see a blue van. Actually, Christina spots it, she’s being sucked into the craziness. They find another shot of Melissa talking to someone in the van, and then one of the van driving away. They fear that Melissa was abducted.

Isabel talks to Melissa’s mother. She is thankful Isabel is showing an interest, she was afraid no one was looking for her with that hurricane outside. Isabel is trying to carefully question her, maybe uncover clues as to whether Melissa may have been in a relationship with an older man, had any personality changes, etc. Her mom admits that Melissa took $300 from her wallet recently.

Leo prints the photos they found on the internet so they can get a closer look. The van had a snake painted on the side. Walter thinks maybe it’s a logo, perhaps a plumber. Willa gets online again to search for the logo and she promptly finds it, and is reminded she’s not supposed to have internet access. Christina closes her notebook, she sees that Willa is trying to help. She tells Leo maybe she just needs to be open to the way they do things around there. Of course, that’s before Timo stumbles into the bar. Willa’s trailer was blown over, he had to get out. Willa is worried that Christina’s going to put it in her report, but she thinks their energies are better spent finding Melissa.

Isabel calls in the plumber they found for questioning. He says he was only there because he does a lot of business for the school and he just wanted to see if they needed anything before the storm. He refuses to let her look in the van, but Isabel checks it out anyway and finds nothing. Walter tells Isabel to ask to see his wallet, so she asks to see his identification then grabs it. He has $300 inside, the exact amount her mom says Melissa took from her. He finally admits that he sold Melissa a gun.

Walter prints out Melissa’s entire social networking profile, enough copies for everyone. They look for anything that would suggest why the girl would buy a gun. Christina suggest that’s easy, it’s either an abuser, an angry boyfriend, or an enemy. Willa notes that there is one girl that has more than 100 friends in common with Melissa but they aren’t friends themselves, probably an indicator that they are enemies. With more digging, she finds a video that one of the networking friends had posted, of Melissa being badly beaten by another girl. The probation officer knows the other girl, Renee Francis, a very troubled youth.

Isabel tells Melissa’s mother about the gun, and the woman is in denial. Isabel presses and the mom breaks down, she thinks she’s a horrible parent for not knowing what was going on in her daughter’s life. Isabel gives her a comforting hug, something that seems sort of out of Isabel’s comfort zone, but she’s got a soft heart. She and Walter touch bases again but phone connections and power are all lost due to the worsening storm.

They light up all the lanterns and candles they can find at the bar. Walter says they will become their own human search engine, and they collectively brainstorm for solutions. A 14 year old girl buys a gun, what’s next? Go after the bully? The probation officer reveals that she has experience with this, she was abused when she was younger and she attacked him in his sleep. Melissa couldn’t have taken the gun to school because of the metal detectors, so she had to stash it somewhere. They think maybe if she planned to harm Renee she would take her to the site where Renee had beat her, it appeared to be a tunnel. Willa could hear bells in the video, they think it’s near a church. They need to contact Isabel, but there is no phone. There is, however, a ham radio and a bicycle powered generator. Walter is lucky Leo is such a good friend, and so buff. Leo cycles up enough juice for Walter to communicate with Isabel. He thinks Melissa is in a pedestrian tunnel about a half mile from the school, a place where the kids hang out. Isabel is on her way.

Isabel finds the tunnel easily enough, and soon finds a shell casing, followed by a large puddle of blood. She knows she’s on the right track, and it doesn’t look good. No one has been able to find Renee either, she fears one of them may have harmed the other. It won’t be long until the eye of the hurricane passes, they don’t have much time to locate these girls.

Walter tries to figure out where the girls are. If Renee shot Melissa, they all agree she would probably be driving to the everglades to dump the body. Melissa is a good kid, though, and has a good heart, they are uncertain what she might do. Walter thinks she would try to take Renee to a hospital, he heads out to try and find them while they are still in the eye of the storm. Isabel locates them first, trapped in a car under a fallen power line. Melissa is trying to care for Renee, but she’s also freaking out. Walter arrives on the scene also, and figures out a way to get the power line off of the car so they can pull the girls out and get them medical help.

In the aftermath of the storm, there’s a lot of cleaning up to do. Christina tells Willa she can have internet access again, with supervision of course. Isabel brings Melissa by, she wanted to meet the people who saved her life. Leo tells her that even though she did something wrong, she tried to make it right and that takes a lot of character. Her mom wants to pay them for what they did, and Walter leaves that to Leo. Leo tells them that Walter would want him to tell them “you’re welcome”, and he wishes them the best before walking away to join Walter in the bar.

This was the winter finale of The Finder. It will return on Friday night’s in April on Fox.