Season 2, Episode 2: “It’s the Work I Signed Up For” – Written by Daniel Thomsen & Inda Craig-Galván
Faith Mitchell (Iantha Richardson) arrives at the prison, submitting all of her belongings to security to gain entrance. Warden Sturgill Hawley (C. Thomas Howell) greets her as she arrives to speak with Miles Highsmith, whose father was a target of an extortion scheme that seems to be coming from inside (from Season 2, Episode 1). Her partner beat her there by almost an hour. She asks the warden if he knows where he is, not loving the answer. “He’s speaking with James Ulster.”
Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) sits in a room across from serial killer James Ulster (Greg Germann), the man who murdered his mother, a man who may be Will’s biological father. James has been trying to get Will to talk to him for months, and the need to investigate the prison has forced Will to do so. Will plays a coded voice message for Ulster, asking if he understands the lingo or if he recognizes the voice. Ulster doesn’t, so Will asks about contraband phones. Will says some of the guards sell them, and nearly all of the prisoners have one.
Faith visits Miles Highsmith (Mickey Cole Jr.) in his cell in solitary confinement. Despite his seclusion, it’s very noisy, with many voices heard through the air vents. She quickly realizes that their conversation isn’t private, so she takes out a notepad, verbally talking about Miles’ father’s health while a text exchange gets to the bottom of her reason for visiting. He doesn’t know who his attackers are since they wear masks.
In the Warden’s office, Faith reviews a map of cells and air vents, with five cells connected to Miles’. They’ve planned for James Ulster to approach these individuals at lunch, watching as he approaches the first one, Ringo (Steven Lane), who is quickly determined not to be involved. The second, Mackie (Kellen Boyle), is in his cell with the door open. Mackie quickly becomes hostile towards Ulster, assaulting him. Will and Faith go to his cell as part of the response, quickly discovering the burner phone used to call the people who bombed the GBI. They ask who he made the calls for – a man named Ron Flashwood, who goes by the nickname Flash. “Please, don’t tell him I snitched,” Mackie begs.
Flash is on dialysis in the infirmary, tended to by a nurse named Edina (Tracy Wiu), when Will and Faith enter to question him. He’s a convicted murderer in need of a kidney transplant, so he’ll never get one. Will theorizes that he runs the extortion scheme to pay for his organ. “You’ve got the wrong guy,” Flash declares as Edina tends to another patient. Will tells Flash he will die in prison, and Faith pulls him aside for his outburst. She thinks he needs to go home and take time to grieve Cricket’s death from yesterday. Will refuses.
Meanwhile, Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) eats at a diner with Joey (Charlie Besso), a young addict whom she is sponsoring. He shares his excitement about his new job before leaving. Angie’s attention is then drawn to a TV with the local news announcing the GBI’s bombing. She can’t reach Will, so she goes to the GBI to look for him, bumping into Amanda Wagner (Sonja Sohn). “Physically he’s fine,” Amanda eases Angie’s worries. “Emotionally, who knows?” Angie is alarmed when she hears that Will went to speak with James Ulster, the man responsible for her medical leave of absence. But she can’t dwell on it too long because she gets a call from James, who is at a party and using. “I messed up,” he cries from a kitchen pantry, saying his new boss made him do it. Amanda overhears the conversation, using her phone to look up James’ employer, Coleman Walsh, who has a record of coercing young people into drug-filled parties. She tells Angie to get the APD involved, but she says if she does, James will get in trouble. Angie is prepared to go rescue him herself, so Amanda volunteers to accompany her.
Over at the Ormewood residence, Michael (Jake McLaughlin) tends to his “sick” son Max (Own Trumbly), who lays on the couch under a blanket and is taking the day off school. His mom Gina (Sara Antonio) tells him that he can retake today’s history test next week, but that his science fair project is due, offering to take it for him. Max comes clean that he didn’t do it, causing a small fight between his parents. Michael plans to work on it as a family, but Angie says she has an appointment and needs to go. She won’t tell him what it is.
There’s been an attack in the prison yard. Mackie is dead, his neck stabbed by something. The murder weapon is nowhere to be found, and the security camera didn’t catch the stabbing. The warden tells Will and Fatih that Flash has been placed in solitary confinement. “There’s no such thing as solitary when the vents are walkie-talkies,” Faith remarks, telling Will she wants to go check on him. Will doesn’t want to leave the prison yard, keeping watch to ensure nobody tampers with the evidence. But when Faith gets to Flash’s cell, he appears to have committed suicide, strangled by a rope tied to the sink.
Faith returns to the prison yard to share the bad news with Will. Upon closer inspection, she believes Ray was murdered by a guard based on the angle of the rope’s strangulation compared to how it hung from the sink. All of the prisoners who were in the yard when Mackie was killed are there on their knees, none of them willing to talk. Will borrows a guard’s baton and begins to tap along the tile walls and cement ledges. A syringe falls out from beneath a window. “We need to check the infirmary,” Will declares.
Combing through security footage, Will and Faith notice something unusual about Erina’s behavior. When she admitted Flash, she spent a lot of time getting him connected to the dialysis machine. But the other prisoner there merely sat in the chair, never being connected, and showed signs of being romantically involved with her. “It’s all for show,” Will realizes. The Warden enters, and when asked, he says the other man is Jack Richards (Keith Flippen), a serial killer who prayed on housewives. They ask where Edina is, he tells them she left after her shift. They ask him to call her back. The Warden seems unwell, having a dizzy spell. Faith suggests he drink some water. Will tells Faith he must talk to Ulster, who handled Jack’s legal work.
Amanda drives Angie to the party as Angie talks about how strange it feels to be sponsoring someone for a change. Faith asks how this came to be and Angie tells her she’s been bored being on medical leave, sharing that she’s not traumatizing Joey the way she did Will. “Will is the only person I’ve ever had on my side, so it’s hard to let go of that,” she shares. Angie also tells Amanda that she’s taking a physical next week to try and get back to work early. Amanda doesn’t think it’s a good idea. When they get to the party, Amanda has Angie wait in the car while she goes inside.
Will is let into James Ulster’s cell, who refuses to talk about Jake Richards due to “attorney/client privilege.” Will continues to ask questions, but James says he wants a give-and-take deal. Suddenly, the lights go out, and red emergency lights come on as the prison enters lockdown. “Let’s get to know each other,” James Ulsters says.
Just before the power was cut, the Warden returned to the security office to tell Faith that he can’t reach Edina. She thinks they need to find Jack ASAP when the lights go dark. The Warden quickly realizes that the backup power has been sabotaged and the phones were cut. The cell doors are inoperable. Faith says they need to get Will out of James’ cell. The Warden has a master key that can manually open cell doors.