FBI – Season 5 Episode 5 “Flopped Cop” Recap & Review

Flopped Cop

Episode 5 of FBI season 5 starts with a man being gunned down in broad light as he is driving home. Once the team begins their investigation they realize the man, Frank Leon, was liquidating his assets and they become suspicious.

OA and Nina visit the wife and inform her of her husband’s death. Mrs. Leon is a bit evasive and claims she doesn’t know what her husband was into. She only knows that he had one client and didn’t like to talk about his work. OA senses that she seems scared and assures her that they can protect her and her daughters. Mrs. Leon decides to be more open with them and gives them a laptop containing information about her husband’s job.

The laptop helps them figure out who is Mr. Leon’s client and the motive behind his murder. His client is El Feo who is a well known assassin and drug syndicate. Leon was about to testify in a grand jury against his him and that is why he was killed.

They investigate the grand jurors and find the leak to be a woman named Margaret and Tiffany and Schola head over to her place to interrogate her. Unfortunately, Margaret has no tales to tell as they find her and her husband murdered in cold blood. Their investigation hits a snag as they have no evidence linking El Feo to the grand jury.

Tiffany offers to reach out to an old friend who used to be a cop and is a cousin to El Feo. Isobel likes the idea and gives her the okay to proceed.

Meanwhile,street cameras from the shooting scene help them identify a man named Marcus as one of the shooters. Tiffany and Schola head over to his place to arrest him but he opens fire and manages to escape.

Tiffany gets a message from her former cop friend, Ralphie and they visit him at his hardware store. Ralphie is angry about his brother’s death who overdosed on heroin and blames El Feo. He agrees to help them take down El Feo

Schola is uncertain if Ralphie is going to be able to do well on the sting because he is unhinged and carries a lot of anger for his cousin. Tiffany assures him that Ralphie is a good guy who needs a second chance after being flopped .

Isobel gives them a  go on their sting and Ralphie visits El Feo and successfully clones his burner phone and installs bugs in his house.

They use the information from the cloned burner to find Marcus’ location and they apprehend him. OA and Nina work him until he is ready to name the other shooter and the murder weapon. Sadly, they find the other shooter dead, someone forced him to overdose. They think El Feo found out about Marcus’ arrest and he decided to take care of lose ends . This forces them to  immediately take action and make a move to bring El Feo in.

Isobel permits them to arrest him but when they breach his house, El Feo is gone. As it turns out, Ralphie took El Feo fishing but he has more than fishing in his mind. He wants to kill El Feo and avenge the death of his brother. Tiffany tries to talk him down but he refuses to listen to her.

In the end, Tiffany is left with no choice but to shoot Ralphie and Schola shoots El Feo when he reaches for the gun. Ralphie dies from the shot and Tiffany blames herself for the way things turned out.

The Episode Review

It is heartbreaking that grief overwhelmed Ralphie and led him to decide to try and kill El Feo. Tiffany is not to blame as Ralphie was a grown man who made his own decisions.

I enjoyed this episode as it focused more on Tiffany and we once again got to see her empathetic side. Although not quite as good as what’s come before, this was still a solid chapter.