The Madness – Season 1 Episode 7 “DNA” Recap & Review

DNA

Episode 7 of The Madness begins with Muncie receiving word of Quinone’s death. He heads back home to see Elena, who kisses him at the door before the pair head up to bed. I mean this really throws a spammer in the works surrounding their apparent divorce, but now it would appear that Muncie has the name of their big bad. Rodney Kraintz.

Unfortunately, Muncie’s contact, Noah, has been killed and in his stead Julia, has Muncie in her crosshairs. She’s also bugged his phone and notices messages between him and Demetrius, realizing where they’re going and deciding to interject.

Julia shows up at their place first and threatens Elena while the pair are out. She brings up Demetrius but Elena more than holds her own against the woman. She knows the FBI are after her, and holds her nerve long enough for Julia to leave.

When she does, Elena rings Demetrius and Muncie, giving them the heads up that Julia is lurking about. All of this, as we soon learn, is a ruse as Julia is listening in to their call outside. The minute Muncie reveals where he is, she heads off on the road.

Communicating with Elena, they decide to ditch the phone and switch cars too, picking things up at their designated spot, which happens to be Isiah’s pad. Muncie is done running, and in a symbolic act, he holds both Kallie and Elena’s hands; the two women he’s driven off from his life. He’s going to hit back – and hit hard.

Julia realizes there’s too much heat on her and phones Rodney, asking for help and “another option”. This is, of course, a codeword for another individual brought in as an assassin. Rodney vehemently refuses and gives her a couple of hours to resolve this.

While all this is going on, cops sniff about Isiah’s place trying to find Muncie. They find Demetrius and Elena there but no Muncie. None of them are talking, although officer Davidson tries to squeeze Demetrius for info. She rattles him pretty badly, but they don’t find anything incriminating and eventually leave.

Outside, Kallie and Muncie try to find a way to take down Julia. Kallie reassures him over Demetrius and how strong he is, but it would appear that Muncie actually has daddy issues. He’s never had a good relationship with his father and this could well tie into how he’s been with his own children.

For now, Julia takes the bait and meets with Muncie at a diner. He brings up Kraintz’s name and offers her a way out of this that doesn’t include more bloodshed. He wants them to march over to the FBI and explain the entire situation and what really went down. Julia grins through it all and eventually brings up that Kraintz is saving the world and making a difference. She used to work for various agencies, and before that she also worked for Intelligence at the Navy.

Muncie eventually leaves while they’re at a stalemate, but when he mentions that she’s next, Julia seems a bit rattled and turns it around back onto Muncie. When he leaves, it becomes clear that part of this was a ruse. The whole idea here was to actually obtain her laptop, which Kallie finds stashed in her spare tire well.

The laptop could hold what they need, and Muncie has even got a confession recorded from Julia that Kraintz is behind this, given their whole meeting was recorded. However, Muncie is unaware that Julia has turned her attention away from him and instead to Demetrius. Armed with a silencer, she looks set to pounce.

The Episode Review

So the penultimate episode sets up what should be a very dramatic finale to follow. Julia is Kraintz’s weapon and she clearly believes in his ideology. However, the way Muncie cleverly used her own ideas against her to get Kallie to grab the evidence, could well just be what they need to get out of this in one piece.

While I appreciate the heat is on Julia, I’m still not convinced that someone as paranoid and clever as her would just agree to meeting Muncie on her own and fall into his trap, but it does move the plot forward so there is that!

The show has been a compelling watch though no doubt, and it’s easy to look past the contrivances given the way this plot has been developing. Roll on the finale!