On Call – Season 1 Episode 8 Recap, Review & Ending Explained

Episode 8

Episode 8 of On Call begins with Diaz, Harmon, Koyama, and Koyama’s team in an armoured truck. They ambush a house and question the man inside, one of the men in charge of delivering drugs at the docks. They threaten him with trafficking charges so that he’ll give up the details of the next drop — 50 kilos of fentanyl that Smokey is getting delivered from China.

Meanwhile, the news shows how over 40 people were arrested during the police’s gang sweep. Lieutenant Bishop talks about how these are violent offenders while a parent describes how her son was dragged away like an animal.

Diaz and Harmon then talk about how the next day is his performance review. Koyama soon arrives and pulls Harmon aside. He tells her that his commander has signed off on having Harmon join his team. Harmon is thrilled to be joining him. Lasman then comes by and Koyama and Harmon tell him they plan to use the fentanyl drop to flush out Smokey and arrest him.

Koyama then briefs his team on the plan. They wait for the delivery guy to pick up the drugs and make the exchange with Smokey, after that, they go in. When Diaz asks about the murder charges on Smokey, Koyama realises he has a personal vendetta to get Smokey. Koyama warns Diaz to focus.

Later, Diaz complains to Harmon, calling Koyama and his team bullies with badges. Harmon tells Diaz the truth about her transfer to Koyama’s team. The team then follows the delivery guy to a truck stop, where the man puts two bags inside the back of a drug. But it’s not Smokey who comes to pick it up. It’s his daughter and another woman.

Suddenly, another car full of men drives up. They attack the women and a gunfight breaks out, with the police joining in as well. Leona begins to run and Diaz throws caution to the wind, running behind her despite Harmon’s orders to stay behind. He ends up face-to-face with Smokey but ends up getting shot by none other than Leona. Before she can kill Diaz, Koyama shoots her dead. He begins to stem Diaz’s wounds while Harmon goes after Smokey.

She finds him bleeding out inside a diner, having been shot by Diaz. She takes his gun and tells him to put pressure on his wounds while they wait for the paramedics. He muses about how all this started because Maniac killed Delgado. He says he and Harmon were the only ones holding things down back in the day.

Later on, Harmon meets Diaz in the hospital. He says he knows he messed up but she hugs him in response. Koyama comes in and tells Harmon that her transfer was denied, blaming it on one of the bosses who intentionally held her back.  

Harmon assumes this is Lasman and goes to his office ready for a fight. But Lasman says it wasn’t him who kept her from joining Koyama’s drug team. In fact, he had footage of her threatening a civilian but buried it to protect her and Diaz. The two of them decide to trust each other and work together from now on.

Diaz’s review takes place and in his personal statement, he praises Harmon and says she’s helped him become a better man. In a turn of events, Harmon says that Diaz is fearless but keeps ignoring orders and running into dangerous situations. She recommends he restart his probation.

After Diaz leaves, Harmon asks Lieutenant Bishop if she was the one who stopped Harmon’s transfer to the drug team. Bishop says it’s because she also disobeyed orders by going after Maniac and went off-book in the process of getting him. She said any other lieutenant would have fired her.

Harmon heads out and Diaz says he feels blindsided by her decision. She says she wrestled with it but made the right call. He’s not ready yet. Diaz is surprised to learn that Harmon insisted Diaz be paired with her for the rest of his probation. They get in the car and Diaz gives her the get-out-of-jail-free card she had given him on his first day. They drive out on the road, on duty again at the end of On Call Episode 8.

The Episode Review

On Call Episode 8 is a pretty damn good episode. The finale brings a lot of the plot and characterisation from the previous episodes to a head. The police versus Smokey debacle reaches a climax, giving us a shootout and a noble injury for Diaz. The chaos of the entire sequence is well executed, with the twist of including Leona to add more confusion.

The second half of the episode focuses on Diaz and Harmon’s futures. It was really fascinating to watch Harmon fail Diaz’s review. I thought the series might go the standard direction but Harmon’s evaluation of Diaz is pretty on point and realistic.

The reveal of Bishop being the one standing in the way of Harmon’s promotion was also a nice twist. In fact, it parallels how similar she and Diaz really are, seeing as she is also denied her promotion for not following the rules. On the other hand, Lasman turns out to have been the one protecting Harmon. On Call cleverly used Lasman as a red herring and it worked. The final conversation they had in this episode adds so much nuance to their relationship as well.

Of course, there are still a few moments that fall short. Lasman and Harmon’s relationship had a lot more potential that the Amazon Prime series could have tapped into. Similarly, her connection with Smokey. He says they were the only ones keeping things in control but we haven’t actually seen that.

Their final scene comes across as two long-time nemeses finally reaching the end of their war but their story doesn’t match that vibe at all. We simply don’t know enough to warrant it. In the end, with a slightly more focused approach and a deeper exploration of its subject matter, On Call could have been a much better show.