THE FINDER: “Voodoo Undo” Recap

Isabel is on a stakeout with a partner, watching the funeral of someone with ties to a gang. Just when she and her partner think nothing is going to happen, gunfire erupts. They rush out to stop the gunmen. In the process, Isabel is shot. Luckily she was wearing a vest. When her partner turns to check on her, he’s shot in the back. She shoots and kills the man who shot him. She then holds his hand for support as they wait for help.

At Ends of the Earth, Leo wonders whether Isabel is okay with having killed. The person had shot her partner, so she’s good with her actions. A man behind the door calls out for their attention, he wants to enter but wants to make sure no one overreacts to his presence. He is a mafia kingpin, Javier Obispo, and he looks like he’s been through the wringer. He thinks someone has a voodoo doll of him, mainly because they sent him a photo of it, and he has suffered one accident after another ever since. He needs the doll found before it kills him. Walter initially turns him down, which pleases Leo because he wants nothing to do with helping a killer. Isabel insists that there are worse people who would take Javier’s place if he were gone. Walter takes the job, for Isabel.

He starts his search by visiting Javier’s restaurant. He meets his right hand guy, Benny, who is quick to draw a gun for any reason or no reason at all. He also meets his second in command, his brother Luis. Luis is in a wheelchair, and is generally surly and always wanting to kill one group or another. Walter asks for Javier’s photo of the doll, and asks how he got it. Javier found it slipped in his pocket. Back at the bar, Willa tells Walter she thinks it’s for real, it has blood on it. Isabel has compiled a huge list of Javier’s enemies, to which Walter responds that by the time they went through it Javier would be dead.

Willa accompanies Walter to his next stop, visiting a good witch she knows of. They hope to get information on who might have created the doll. She tells them there are three in Miami who could make one, and that one was definitely the work of the Scorpion Witch. Before they leave, she sells them a medallion that will supposedly protect them, the price for her information.

At the Scorpion Witch’s hangout, Walter tells Willa to stay outside, which she obeys for maybe 20 seconds. They look around the shop, and eventually find their way to a back room, full of burning candles, bloody chicken heads, and all kinds of creepy stuff. There is a container with a photo of Javier, so it seems they are on the right track. When they come across a coffin, Walter opens it and finds the Scorpion Witch, but unfortunately there is an ice pick sticking out of her head. She’s quite dead.

As the coroner takes the body away, Willa swears to Walter she saw her eyes open, but he insists it was just a muscle reaction. Isabel arrives and they tell her what happened and how they came to find the body. She tells them that they think the killer is a hired gun called Ice Pick, who has killed more people than smoking. Coincidentally, he supposedly works for Javier. Walter asks Isabel to take Willa back to the bar, he doesn’t want to have to report to Leo that he took Willa on a hunt for a sociopathic serial killer. On the drive back, Isabel and Willa talk about Isabel having killed someone, and how it felt getting shot. Willa wonders if Isabel isn’t nervous knowing that Walter is looking for Ice Pick, but Isabel thinks he’s an urban legend and isn’t sure he exists.

Ice Pick does exist, and Walter meets him, in the company of Javier. Javier did not hire him for this particular job, but he wonders why he left the body there. Ice Pick says he was told to do so as a warning. When asked who hired him, he takes his leave and departs without telling Walter. He does whisper something to Javier, but Javier starts choking, the voodoo doll strikes again. Afterwards, he tells Walter that Ice Pick told him his ex-wife, Ileana hired him. When they question her, she admits she hired him. Everyone has been talking about how the Scorpion Witch put a curse on Javier. She still cares for him, and tells him he doesn’t have to thank her. While he talks to her about how killing the witch won’t stop the doll, his jacket catches fire on a candle. Walter gets him back home, with a few new bandages. His buddy Benny is more itchy than ever to put a bullet in Walter, and this time he does.

Isabel rushes to the hospital to see Walter. He’s going to be fine, it turns out that the bullet hit the medallion the good witch sold him. It saved his life. Leo arrives, and is even more freaked out than Isabel. Leo wants to talk to her outside. He blames her for Walter taking this case, because she couldn’t admit how freaked out she was over shooting a man. Isabel turns the tables on him, he wasn’t there with Walter and Walter got shot. The end result is Isabel admits how freaked out she is over Walter getting shot, and Leo is now going to work the case with him.

Walter and Leo meet with Javier and his goons at Ends of the Earth, and Benny apologizes. He promises not to do it again, and vows to defend Walter as though he were Javier from now on. Javier sweetens the deal with a $50,000 offer, but Leo doesn’t want blood money. They will find the doll for free. They have the box that Walter had found at the Scorpion Witch’s shop, containing a lot of Javier’s personal items. Some of the items implicate Luis, Javier’s brother. During a discussion with Luis, Walter learns that he was shot at a meeting with a Dominican, a meeting Javier sent him to. When Luis and Javier argue, Luis blames Walter and turns towards him with a gun. During the commotion, blood suddenly covers Walter’s chest and he passes out. No one shot him, but a large hematoma from his previous injury burst. He wakes up in the hospital, and Willa puts the good luck medallion back around his neck, he needs it. There is obviously a voodoo doll of Walter out there too, and she thinks he needs to forget Javier’s doll and find his own.

Walter sets up an elaborate model, or game, to reveal the identity of the voodoo doll creator. He calls it a motive machine. He has models of everyone involved, drops a ball in the top and it falls through a number of mazes before eventually coming to rest at the model of the good witch, La Bruja. Walter has Willa search through police records and see if there is any connection between her and Obispo. They learn that her son was killed the year before, he was part of a street gang. She recalls her sons death to Walter and Isabel when they call on her, and she tells them that someone who helps a bad man is a bad man. Walter guesses that’s why she made a voodoo doll of him, too. He doesn’t care, he wants Javier’s doll. Isabel wants Walter’s doll. Isabel’s story of the young man she killed at the cemetery gets to the woman, and she hands Walter’s doll over to her. She claims she doesn’t have Javier’s, a man came to her and asked her help to make the world a better place. She didn’t know him, but he was in a wheel chair. Isabel wants to know how to get rid of Walter’s doll, and he takes it from her and rips it apart. Isabel is appalled, but follows him with the pieces.

In the car, Walter talks to her about the guy she killed. When you kill someone you give up a piece of your soul, he says. He kisses her, but then he’s back to his case. He asks her to find any real estate holdings Javier has downwind of a sewage plant. It smells bad enough there, you can’t smell the dead bodies. He tells her to give Leo 24 hours, then get a search warrant.

Walter and Leo go to the warehouse after getting information from Isabel. Walter brings a wheelchair, so he can browse from Luis’s perspective. They spend hours opening crates, examining every part of the building, when Walter realizes he has been looking at it wrong. He’s been looking down, but he needed to look up. There is an electrical panel on the wall. Inside it, the voodoo doll. Right on cue, Luis enters the building with Ice Pick. He demands the doll. Leo tosses it to him, and Walter hits him. Leo takes on Ice Pick, who has an extensive supply of picks to throw. Leo shields himself with a board until he can get close enough to knock him out. Walter takes a snapshot of Luis with the doll, then suggests he might want to make a run for it. He takes the doll and leaves Luis and Ice Pick there in the warehouse.

Javier is thrilled to have the doll returned to him. Walter gives him the box, but wants to leave before he opens it. Javier complies. Alone with Benny, Javier opens it, and they find the photo of Luis holding the doll. Javier orders Benny to get the guys together, and get more cement. Things don’t look good for Luis.

At Ends of the Earth, Walter and Leo are debating again, life is back to normal. Isabel interrupts to tell them her partner is going to make it. However, Luis Obispo is missing. Walter tells her to check the warehouse. Willa asks about the Ice Pick maniac, and Isabel suspects he’s buried in the same place. Walter hopes so, after they embarrassed him he might hold a grudge. Unbeknownst to all of them, except Leo, Ice Pick is watching them from the window. Leo says he doesn’t think he would hold a grudge, he kills for pay. Ice Pick gives Leo a little salute, and then he’s gone.

The Finder airs Fridays at 8/7c on Fox.