I was at a Supernatural convention when last week’s episode of Walker aired, glad to have the opportunity of telling Jared Padalecki in person how much I’m enjoying his new show, so I didn’t get to watch live. When I returned, I watched on the CW app and decided to just enjoy the ride instead of taking notes for this review – and I was so glad I did! The second episode of Season 2, The One That Got Away, was full of excitement and fight scenes and close calls, but it was also a poignant episode with an amazing performance by Lindsey Morgan. I’m not always a fan of episodes that switch back and forth among multiple story lines, which Walker sometimes does thanks to its large ensemble cast, but this episode was tightly focused on just two story arcs – the culmination of Micki’s undercover work and the Walker-Davidson ‘feud’. I loved being able to just sink into a story line and let it play out, almost in real time.
This episode had a significant Supernatural connection since it reunited star Jared Padalecki with his Supernatural costar and frequent director Richard Speight, Jr., whose distinctive touch gave the episode some striking scenes.
Let’s talk about the family feud arc first. Last week explored the origin of the bad feelings between the Davidsons and the Walkers, focusing on the older generations and their complicated history. This week the focus was on the younger generation, especially Stella and Colton, as they try to figure out how much of that history will color their own relationship. As I told Jared last weekend, I always like watching Walker for the deeper themes as well as the kicking ass, and this season’s focus on long-standing and difficult to disentangle tensions and resentments seems like a frighteningly relevant theme to tackle. Stella and Colton inherited the animosity between their families, which is something that happens in all facets of life every day, from families to politics to fandoms. Can they even get to know each other as individual humans with all that baggage?
With a little help from Coach Trey (who is perhaps trying to keep his mind off constant worry about Micki), they make a start on that in this episode. He engineers escape rooms for the two pairs of kids, who must start to communicate before they can find the literal key to get out of the rooms and out of detention. August apologizes for the Ruby debacle, and that facilitates the boys’ escape to a congratulatory Coach Trey.
Stella admits she wrongly accused Colton (Jalen Thomas Brooks) and he apologizes for his insensitivity, complaining about his divorcing parents when Stella has actually lost one of her parents. It was a little too convenient, sure, but I liked the message behind it – and I was rooting for them by the time Stella stopped the car to tell Colton to hop in.