In From The Cold – Season 1 Episode 4 “The Family” Recap & Review

The Family

Episode 4 of In From The Cold begins with Jenny losing control of her camo-powers. While the bodies are moved and the crime scene covered up, Jenny eventually collapses on the floor, breathing heavily.

Back under the disguise of Sara, Jenny tries to keep her cool. She kisses Felipe as a way of dismissing him but all it does is lead him to offer to drive her home. Unfortunately this complicates matters considerably, as Chauncey and Chris set to work covering for her.

In the car, Jenny is incredibly suspicious and tries to awkwardly laugh her way through different questions after her grandchildren. Honestly, if this woman is supposed to be a master of disguise, she’s not doing a great job of it. Still, Chris and Chauncey manage to prep the hotel room just in time for her to arrive with Felipe.

Thanks to some quick thinking, Jenny manages to convince Felipe that nothing untoward is going on. However, Jenny is forced to sleep with Felipe to keep her cover up.

In the morning, Jenny punches the mirror in frustration while Chauncey waits for her to get dressed. Of course, the rift between Becca and Jenny does diminish a little though as the pair have a nice chat together in Jenny’s apartment.

After, Chris and Chauncey catch up about what’s really going on. Now, it seems like Felipe is actually just a puppet for someone working in the shadows higher up in the chain of command. Someone they know by the name of Gideon. Felipe is using Eduardo, his brother in law’s, murder to convince people that the Spanish prime minister is going to destroy Russia.

Chauncey believe the Calero brothers are the hook to catch bigger fish, and that could well bring them closer to Gideon. For Chauncey though, he heads out and meets his contact. Only, he’s intercepted by Ohana and her agents, who work for Europol. Now, it turns out the CIA actually fired him but Chauncey manages to convince Ohana that he’s on a covert operation and working undercover.

All of that is just a cover story. Chauncey has a history of messing up big operations, specifically something that went down in Marseille which appears to have cost lives.

Jenny gets back to her Sara persona and meets Felipe at his estate. Tensions between him and Diego continues to stir though, with the latter holding a pitchfork up to Jenny and very clearly not trusting her. When Jenny shakes hands with him, she intentionally does so to take his DNA and offer up another person she can transform into.

At dinner, Felipe opens up about Eduardo. Of course, this is the police officer we learned about earlier in the episode butt for Jenny she’s a little distracted. Ines reminds her of Faina from her past.

During the flashbacks, we see Anya talking to her superior, Svetlana, who reminds her that she serves Russia and should stop acting like a sissy. In fact, Svetlana even tries to get her taken off the case too, speaking to her superiors and backtracking on her original glowing report of Anya being an “exceptional asset”.

In response, they demand Anya be put back into the Yoraslav program. If she’s to fail, then they’ll take care of her…and Svetlana too. Svetlana has her own problems though, leading all the way back to her first job. There’s a nasty scar across her breast, which is evidence of how badly things can go when an operation goes awry.

Back in the present, we return to the ice skating drama. Things continue to go from bad to worse for Claire. Between the skeletal remains of the bird found last episode, this time someone ends up loosening her skates on the ice so she has a nasty tumble.

Meanwhile, Jenny decides to adopt Diego’s form but she begins to lose control. After telling the real Diego (who has just randomly woken up at that precise moment) to leave with his mum, she knocks him out and prepares to meet with Felipe.

Jenny (as Diego) immediately shows up and pours his heart out, allowing Felipe to begrudgingly him a second chance and play the piano for them.

In doing so, Felipe starts his meeting and discusses the plan involving the prime minister. Gideon has the prime minister’s itinerary for the next 72 hours and they intend to send Ramon to handle this. However, Jenny – still disguised as Diego of course – suggests he lead this instead. Felipe warns that if he messes this up, then he’s going to kill him just like he did Eduardo.

In the car with Andres, Jenny begins to lose control of her powers again and begins turning back into Jenny again. In doing so, she decides to head into the hotel Andres entered a moment earlier and use that as an opportunity to spy. Unfortunately, Jenny is attacked from behind and ends up fighting with the returning Jackal. While she’s distracted, Andres slips out the back.

Just as the police storm the building, Jenny loses communications with Chauncey. Losing her chance to find Gideon and left with a dead body between her legs, things don’t look good for our espionage agent.

The Episode Review

The halfway point of In From the Cold continues to under-utilize Jenny’s powers, with her acting incredibly shifty and suspicious in every disguise that she takes. If you compare this to Mystique in X-Men and X-Men 2, the differences are massive. I’m not saying that Mystique is a master of disguise but the mannerisms, dialogue and general skittish attitude displayed from Jenny on these operations is pretty poor.

However, the story is just starting to get interesting now, with the whole Gideon/Felipe political scandal looking like it’s going to kick off in a big way in the coming episodes.

It looks like Jenny is about to face the wrath of the police first though, and that poses a particularly big problem for Chris and Chauncey who may well be left to their own devices for the foreseeable future. We shall see.

Either way, these later episodes have certainly been more enjoyable but the flashbacks and the way the show edits between the two states is still a point of contention and it feels like a cheap gimmick that’s overused.