Copper Season 2 Episode 3 Recap: Children of the Battlefield
After a spotty first season, BBCA is proving that Copper may have staying power. With a show of support that includes fancy guest stars doing multi-episode arcs, Copper is getting a full-blown push into TV royalty. Episode 3 is easily the best written episode thus far, managing to propel forward the complexities of the characters’ relationships without trying too hard.
Though Copper is up against some very stiff competition on Sunday night, it’s missteps always occur when it tries to act like it’s an HBO show. It’s not. But it does have some really lovely moments coming close to hitting upon actual poignancy. But there still are false steps — the overwrought soundtrack, the often lengthy shots of characters staring pensively out windows.
Luckily, those moment are becoming fewer and fewer. Sunday’s episode hardly left time to inhale as it barrelled the story full-speed ahead.
Corky is embroiled to his eyeballs in the case of the missing boys. Coming within a hairs breadth of arresting a suspect last week, he’s a man on mission — and has absolutely no ability to focus on anything beside his goal.
Corcoran, however, has the presence of mind to realize that his personal life is suffering for his calling. His wife, Ellen, just barely returned to normal after her years-long ordeal, plays the long-suffering wife to a T. She asks for nothing, but Corky’s Irish guilt has him placating her left and right. He’s been asked to serve as Robert Morehouse’s Best Man in his marriage to Elizabeth Haverford, and promises Ellen that they’ll go dancing after his duties are done — a weak offering following his walkout last week.
Morehouse has quite a full plate himself — he wakes up on his wedding day to find his betrothed is absent. She’s gone down to the prison in secret to pay off the traitor Kennedy, buying his silence concerning her involvement in his plot to burn down New York. Her guilt in this matter is eating her alive, driving her to drug herself into oblivion with opium, barely able to make the simplest decisions. But one hurdle still stands in her way: Kennedy will only remain silent if she can convince her future husband not to testify on his behalf. Given that Morehouse disowned his own father for supporting Kennedy, it’s a tall order, and one Elizabeth is not likely to achieve.
As Corcoran closes in on his perp and Morehouse and Elizabeth prepare to take the plunge, Corky’s former best friend Francis Maguire is making long strides of his own. Having served finely in a small-time counterfeiting outfit, he’s begun his campaign to move up the ranks. To prove that he’s left his old copper self behind completely, he agrees to kill one of his former colleagues.
He carries out the stabbing of a likable young Copper, a constable in Corcoran’s own unit. It draws the attention of the entire municipal police: they will not be permitted to rest until the perpetrator is brought to justice.
Corky, hot in pursuit of his kidnapper, misses his best friends’ wedding and subsequently stands up his wife, who is forced to bring their ward Annie as her companion to the fine uptown wedding. She only smiles knowingly when Corky rolls in, hours late, having caught his man and brought him to justice, but she can’t abide his lack of self-awareness, and calls him out on always choosing his job over his relationships.
Furious, Corky escapes the house to Eva’s brothel to drink away his troubles. Eva tells him that Morehouse himself has taken up residence for the evening with one of her most popular girls. Morehouse’s day did not hit rock bottom when Corky didn’t show at his wedding, nor even when he was forced to ask his manservant to stand in as best man — it was only later, basking the glow of his hours-old nuptials that the rug was pulled out from under him. Finding Elizabeth holed up, high a a kite, in their room during their reception, he scoops her up in his arms to put her bed.
Unable to hold in her secret, Elizabeth confesses her role in Kennedy’s plot. Furious, Robert throws her over and takes off into the night, seeking solace in the arms of Eva’s ladies. But he ends the night in the company of Corcoran instead — both escaping a difficult truth they’d rather hide from than face.
The only couple on the show that seems able to overcome their troubles are Matthew and Sara Freeman. Matthew has recently taken over a medical practice in Five Points, just steps away from the lamppost where Sara’s brothers were hanged during the draft riots. She’s struggled since the incident to accept, grieve and move on, but a claims to lack the strength. She makes a Herculean stride in agreeing to move back to the city, but the sight of lamppost haunts her.
Tired of being oppressed by her terrible memories, on the evening of the Morehouse wedding, she marches out, armed with an axe, and sets about knocking the thing down. The axe proves useless, and she’s left with only her bare hands. As she tries vainly to force it to the ground, Matthew joins in, quickly aided by their neighbors, until finally the lamppost shudders and falls.
It’s a small victory, and a melodramatic one, but it shows that Sara is bound and determined to move forward. She’s been hired as dressmaker to Elizabeth Haverford and had the honor of meeting Frederick Douglass after a speech. With the horrors of her past behind her, the Freemans have some exciting possibilities ahead of them, and a deeply warranted reason to stand up as free people.