Walker’s Season 3 Finale – And A Cliffhanger Ending!

It’s been a tumultuous week in the Walker fandom (and especially in the Supernatural fandom at large), with Walker renewed but Walker Independence and The Winchesters not renewed and Gotham Knights still up in the air. So I think we all needed some feel good TV, and the season finale of Walker didn’t disappoint – although, of course, that wasn’t ALL the episode gave us!

“It’s A Nice Day For A Ranger Wedding” set up the story for next season while also giving us some truly happy making moments, which felt much needed.

The episode starts at the end, a discarded bouquet of flowers, a bloody body on the floor, still alive and breathing heavy.  The room is ransacked, broken glass strewn all over.

And then it’s 36 hours before…

Well damn, Walker, that’s a beginning!

Cordell is back to running with Liam and Trey, which means he’s starting to make some progress with his PTSD perhaps, and also means we get to see the boys all run in single layers. Cordell has a brief flashback of the time he went running and got kidnapped by Grey Flag, but then Cassie runs right into him and they’re off again. Cassie wins and triumphantly puts on the hat and everyone is a good sport. (Also, we find out she was a Mathlete, which is a shoutout I’m sure to Padalecki – who really was a Mathlete!) There are a lot of shout outs in this finale, and I am here for it.

Most of the episode is devoted to planning the wedding of Captain James and Kelly, with a lot of healing going on in the process for lots of the main characters.

Abeline tells Trey she’s seen how far he’s come, highlighting that he’s in a better place and feeling less responsible for the Grey Flag mess.

Cassie gets a call from the FBI – Tessa Graves – who wants her and Walker to come join an FBI task force for the summer in Florida. They’re flattered and Cassie is tempted, though also conflicted because Austin has come to feel like home. She’s clearly in a better place too.

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Walker Heads Into Its Season Finale – And A Renewal for Season 4!

Tonight is the season finale of Walker, and the fandom is going into it in a celebratory mood – because a few days ago we got the good news that the show has been renewed for a fourth season! Yeehaw!

Last week’s episode, airing in the midst of the writer’s strike, was titled ‘It Writes Itself’ which sounds like a commentary on the importance of writers or a critique of the use of AI in writing, but is actually referring to a speech that Cordell is struggling to write and the work he has to do on himself to be able to be in a place to do that. The episode was actually a remarkably feel good episode – for the most part.

It kicks off with the Walker Rescue celebration, which featured lots of pretty horses and some of the fandom as extras, so that was fun. James confides to Cordell that he’s getting married to Kelly again and asks him to officiate the wedding – with a caveat.

James to Cordi: When in doubt, do not make a joke…

(This could just as easily have been directed to Jared Padalecki, as most fans of his infamous dad jokes know…)

Abeline and Bonham offer to have the wedding there, so that’s more reason to celebrate. Liam and Stella celebrate realizing their shared dream and cut the ribbon – but I’m sad that neither Ben nor Colton are there.

The guys plan a bachelor party (which initially they include Cassie in) – an overnight at Racer Ridge to go fishing. Cassie is not in, however, since it’s not the “usual pub crawl and debauchery”.

Cassie: I was born in Brooklyn. I draw the line at tents.

The guys head out at dawn on horseback, Trey asking ‘there aren’t any bears, right?’ which made all the Jared Padalecki fans laugh because of his well known fear of bears lol

Meanwhile, Augie is filling out online applications for joining the Army but doesn’t tell his dad.

Cordell surprises James with his son DJ coming along on the ride – which was awesome to have him back on the show even briefly.

Also awesome? Getting to see so many pretty horses in the beautiful Austin scenery.

And Cordi looking damn good in a denim jacket and black hat, Trey fishing in a tee shirt (and spraying bug spray on his bared tummy), and Liam chopping wood. This show knows its audience…

My guess is all the cast had a fabulous time riding horses and fishing and roasting marshmallows and playing football together, and who can blame them? Giddyup!

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‘Walker’ Returns with ‘Daddy Was A Bank Robber’

There’s a brand new episode of Walker tonight, so here’s our recap of everything that happened last week when the show returned from a mini hiatus – and introduced a new character!

It’s an aptly named episode that picks up after the take down of Kevin Golden and the death of Julia Johnson (and Cordell being finally found innocent), a positive outcome but there’s aftermath for everyone, Cassie and Trey especially still on shaky ground.

Cordell comes home and hangs up his hat to kick it off, the family in the kitchen with coffee and bacon and things seeming more or less back to normal.

Cordell had two weeks off and some PT, and Geri is back (and Colton went to Vegas – not for an impromptu wedding but for a culinary internship – but boo, I really like Colton so I’ll miss him, never mind Stella’s feelings…)

Cordell has made some progress, able to say it was a good thing for him too that he took some time off to spend with family after his ordeal – that he needed it. Abeline thanks him for doing it, and hugs her son – and then even gruff Bonham joins in! A hug with Mom and Dad seems like just what Cordell often needs but doesn’t often get, so the fandom was just as happy as Cordi was in that moment, I think.

(So was Jared Padalecki, who live tweeted the episode along with his watching companion, daughter Odette).

Cassie knocks on Trey’s door and invites him out for a beer (and not a talk about our feelings all the time) and he says yes, which seems like a big step in the right direction for the two.

Geri returns to the Side Step – but she’s not alone, she’s got someone she wants the rest of the gang to meet.

That someone is Hoyt’s daughter Sadie (surprise!), who does not exactly endear herself to Liam and Cordell by trying to scam some tickets to the free fundraiser that’s happening that night for Walker Rescues. Saylor Bell joins the cast and does a wonderful job in this episode of portraying Sadie’s contradictions, and eventually the grief she tries to bravado over.

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Walker ‘False Flag Part 2’ Brings the Big Reveal

Part 2 of the dramatic two part ‘False Flag’ resolved a lot of the mysteries we’ve been pondering all season on ‘Walker’ and left Cordell absolutely reeling – and many of us too! (Suspecting that a character you kinda sorta liked is about to turn bad guy with a tragic backstory isn’t the same as watching it happen onscreen!)

In the aftermath of the explosion (and Julia’s death, which I am NOT over even if others are), Cordell is the prime suspect thanks to Kevin’s careful set up.

The not-very-empathic Agent Tessa Graves is determined to prove Cordell is guilty, with a single-minded focus on him that doesn’t allow her to see the holes in that narrative. She shows up at the Walker ranch to search everything, much to the family’s understandable protest. Kevin, it turns out, even (very obviously) planted some C4 in the room where Walker already had those photos of the men he served with, all with the X’s through them – which, if you recall, I always thought was a totally weird thing for him and Julia to do.

But made for a great set up!

Cordell, much the worse for wear both physically and psychologically, flees from the scene of the explosion and siphons some gas from a (very nice) woman’s trunk. I can’t imagine that was a fun scene to do, even if that, of course, wasn’t really gasoline that Padalecki had to suck up and spit out.

Ewww.

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(Disheveled Cordell somehow manages to look kinda hot even doing this though…)

At that moment, Cassie pulls up to the gas station with a deadpan ‘I need a coffee’ and seriously, she is an awesome partner and always has Walker’s back.

Trey is back in Ranger uniform (and looking amazing in that hat, truly) but just as angry as Captain James and the Walker family are that Cordell is being blamed. Graves insists innocent people don’t run, but James points out that if they’re being framed, they would. And he’s right! I’m not sure Tessa is the best at her job thinking that the way Grey Flag tortured Cordell “turned” him, because that makes no sense to me, but she’s sticking to that.

Walker realizes he asked Julia to meet him at the safe house, so of course it looks like he set her up to be murdered – Kevin did a brilliantly (evil) job with the set up. I would imagine that also adds to Cordell’s guilt that he accidentally got Julia killed, even if he was totally being manipulated and so was she. (Julia….sob….)

He also has a concussion, staggering around and bumping into walls in the little gas station where he and Cassie go to buy some burner phones. Nobody does hurt better than Jared Padalecki, so you feel every bit of that pain and disorientation.

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Walker Confronts The Man Who Was His Brother in “The Deserters”

Many of the separate threads that have been woven this season came together in this pivotal episode – some in the way I feared, and some with a twist that I didn’t see coming. In the feel good portion of this episode, the Walker family works on building new stables for the horse rescue, taking time out for Augie to try some comedy and everyone to find out that Mawline used to be in a comedy troupe!

Is there nothing Abeline cannot do?

Bonham grouses that Cordell is too busy to come help with the stable building, but Kevin shows up to pitch in. Abeline sees through his earnest just wanna help speech to being all about retaining the mayor’s biggest donor, but Kevin is nothing if not a complex character. He really does seem to want to help, at least part of him does.

Kevin thanks Liam for saving his life when he was hit with the nerve agent, calling him a real hero – which is nice to hear because Liam doesn’t hear that often enough. Of course Kevin wants to use that in his speech because Kevin always has an angle. We find out he’s an amateur pilot when he hammers his hand by accident, which maybe will be important at some point.

Kevin runs into Cassie at Cordell’s house, and they’re sort of adorably awkward together. I can’t help but kinda like the two of them, though I’m guessing when he says that he can promise that next time he sees her, it will be different, that means something much more ominous than mere awkwardness. (Spoiler alert now that I’ve seen the whole episode: It does.)

August sees Kevin as a mentor, and asks Mawline to be nice to him. I hope Augie isn’t gonna get hurt in all this… (More spoiler alert: uh oh…)

That’s the feel good portion, such as it is. The rest of the episode is emotional, taut with suspense, and not exactly the feel good part.

Most of the episode is devoted to the mystery of Cordell’s old mentor, Coop, and where the hell he’s been for two decades. Cassie and Captain James speculate – has he been hiding all these years? Was he captured and turned? Cordell and Julia have been busy too, using Walker’s knowledge of Coop’s use of aliases in the past to track his movements and money.

(We’re treated to some flashbacks with Colin Ford as young Cordell – I love that he’s become a recurring part of the show).

Neither James nor Cassie are sure that Cordell is actually going to be able to take Coop down if it comes to that.

James: Cordi, this guy was your mentor. If you do find him, are you sure you’re gonna be able to slap the cuffs on him, or worse?

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