Partner Track – Season 1 Episode 2 “Meta-Strategy” Recap & Review

Meta-Strategy

Episode 2 of Partner Track starts with Ingrid continuing to juggle her family and social life with her career. With Lina staying at her place, Ingrid is conflicted over her blossoming love triangle between Jeff and Nick.

At work, Ingrid is called in to see Marty. After a pretty funny moment involving his secretary, we get down to brass tacks. Now, it turns out there’s a problem with the Sun Corp deal last episode. It turns out Lassiter’s main interest in Min Enterprises stems from their crude oil holdings in Louisiana.

The Min family own mineral rights and not the actual land. If the oil wells stop producing, those turn back to the landowner… and the Mins stopped pulling from the wells 90 days ago. The lease is terminated and Ingrid needs to look through the land lease document from the 60’s to try and rectify this and get the deal back on track.

Unfortunately, trying to do that is like finding a needle in a haystack. Or, well, a document in an office stacked high with boxes to be precise. Even worse, she also has to work with Jeff Murphy too.

When Jeff rolls his sleeves up and continues to touch Ingrid, she can’t help but flash back to their steamy moments together in the past. Jeff decides to look online and follow the people, rather than the history, and manages to narrow it down, which impresses Ingrid.

Nick shows up at the office with lunch, which is a nice surprise for Ingrid. It’s here we learn Nick actually works at his father’s equity firm, which gives him plenty of leeway to take a lunch break and see her. Jeff shows up, things are frosty again, and we get back to work.

Unfortunately when Ingrid and Jeff do find the document, it doesn’t help matters as it still says to revert back to the landowner.

Meanwhile, Tyler is working on a big deal with fashion moguls Luxe and pitches his play, especially as he’s clued up on what’s happening in the fashion industry right now. He makes the right moves and is even granted an upcoming pitch for Raymond. On Insta, a hashtag #luxesux is trending and Tyler contemplates whether this may actually be why online retailers are staying away from doing business with them. When Tyler pitches this to Raymond though, he shrugs off the idea of online trolls causing havoc with business.

Tyler takes the initiative and goes above Raymond – and gets the attention of Luxe and their CEO Tim. Unfortunately, Raymond is not happy when he finds out, pointing out tat they’re not a crisis hotline. Tyler is in the firing line and needs to get this deal done, otherwise he’s going to be in trouble.

Meanwhile, Rachel and Dan team up to tackle a case involving an old lady called Gigi. She’s made it big but there are some issues involving her inheritance for Fun Time Farm, a well-running and highly profitable theme park. Her three kids are pretty eccentric and Gigi doesn’t believe any of them are cut out to take over. In the middle of a heated discussion on the future of the park, Gigi ends up having a stroke and dying.

Ingrid has  a lightbulb moment that night, courtesy of Justin’s interjection. She realizes that a “shut-in” clause would allow the Mins to hold onto mineral rights even if they’re not producing oil by placing royalties to landowners.

Ingrid finds the document in question and manages to get on Marty’s good side. Ingrid is not happy with Jeff’s nonchalance to the whole affair though and calls him out for apologizing twice. (Hey, remember that dig early in the first episode that guys never apologize?)

As the episode closes out, Ingrid’s sexual frustration through the day explodes in a flurry of passion when she visits Nick. She immediately starts kissing him over on the sofa.

The Episode Review

The second episode of Partner Track does a decent job fleshing out the supporting characters and actually giving each of the main players something substantial to do. Rachel and Dan appear to be on course for a romance moving forward while the love triangle between Jeff, Ingrid and Nick is ultimately the romantic anchor that keeps everything tied together. There’s also Tyler too, who has a decent amount of screen-time with this drama involving Luxe.

Hopefully this split focus continues going forward as it definitely makes the show that much more enjoyable by adding extra characters and understanding what drives each of them.

This isn’t a show that’s going to ignite the small screen anytime soon, but Ingrid is really likable and easy to empathize with, making for a solid and enjoyable watch.