Advanced Review: THE GLADES – Third Season Premiere “Close Encounter”

The season premiere of the A&E crime drama The Glades will be back for the show’s third season this Sunday, June 3 and it’s business as usual with the FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) and Detective Jim Longworth (Matt Passmore), solving some of the most unusual crimes in the small Florida town of Palm Glade.

This time around the case that lands on Jim’s desk is a close encounter of a different kind. Two randy teenagers are making out in a car parked along a creek that is well-known in that area for sightings of the alien kind. Their romantic interlude is interrupted by strange lights, a presumed alien aircraft and the radio seemingly changing stations on its own. While the two teens climb out of the car to stare at the strange sights, they trip over a dead body that, of course, begins Jim’s trek through the world of alien abductees.

The dead man is found with strange markings all over his chest and stomach, markings that match those found in Montana abductees back in 1937, which is a stretch to Jim especially given his complete lack of belief in aliens. Carlos (Carlos Gomez) is on Jim’s side while Carlos’s assistant Daniel (Jordan Wall) and even Captain Manus (Michelle Hurd) lean the other way (well to a certain degree, anyway, for the Captain).

Despite the weird evidence that starts to build up, Jim begins to suspect a local bar owner, Richard Oberman (guest star Tate Ellington), who turns out to be the President of an organization consisting of other alleged alien abductees and a close friend of the victim.

As Jim begins to build his case, he quickly learns that the victim had a new wife, a hot young blonde named Stella (guest star Kristen Renton), who seemingly was going to lose her husband’s wealth – it turns out the victim was worth 60 million dollars; the victim left all of his money to his buddy the bar owner and the victim had a chronic pinched nerve for which he used cryogenic care to ease the pain.

This last lead paves the way for Jim to determine just how and why the rich man was killed and by whom. I won’t ruin that bit of the puzzle, as it is worth seeing for yourself how Jim works the close encounter case out with the help of his team.

Meanwhile, Jim and Callie (Kiele Sanchez) are clearly a couple (which will be much to the delight of the fans of the show) even though Callie is keeping their relationship under wraps to her teenage son Jeff (recurring cast Uriah Shelton) all the while dealing with the aftermath of the hospital closing. Despite countless efforts she cannot seem to land a new nursing position so Jim quietly asks Carlos if there is anything he can do to help.

Needless to say, she is contacted by a nearby hospital for a job in the ER and the reason behind Jim wanting to help her and her irritation with him for over-stepping his bounds is reasoned out so charmingly that you need to see the exchange between Callie and Jim for yourself. And the ending is priceless in that Jim just might question his belief that there is no one else out there – watch the ending closely.

“Close Encounters” is the season premiere of The Glades, which will air on A&E this Sunday, June 3 at 9 PM.