While watching the Notorious winter finale, I couldn’t help but think that this was the last one they were ever going to get. Why? Well, there’s a few reasons actually.

The show is mediocre, at its best. There’s really no drive for me to watch it every Thursday other than it fills a void where Scandal used to be. In fact, Notorious may have failed because it tried WAY too hard to be the next Scandal. Take this kidnapping storyline for example. Shonda Rhimes tried it last season in a more intricate and believable way… and it still flopped.

Not only was the Mexico storyline a stretch, even for Notorious, it was also a lesser version of something we’d already seen. I know Julie George will do anything for a story but I just don’t think she’s an idiot. And if she is as dumb as to accept an offer from the most notorious drug lord in Mexico, then she’d never make it out alive.

The episode continued where we left off last week – Julie was kidnapped from her hotel room by El Toro’s people. When he realized that they grabbed Julie instead of Louise, someone paid the price with a bullet to his head. However, it was kind of a blessing in disguise because Louise would NEVER survive trying to outsmart El Toro. Julie however stood a chance and even talked herself out of lock up with another reporter who they thought was dead by tricking the drug lord into thinking she had information he wanted.

Meanwhile, Louise realized that the Mexican government wasn’t doing much to help get Julia back because they didn’t want to get involved, she called up the station. They’ve been told NOT to report on Julia’s disappearance because they have to do it by the books, which just means, payout.

Megan, who has taken on the coveted role of executive producer decides that she’s going to get the story out there by simply “remembering” who Julia was. That way, every other news outlet will pick up the story and they’ll have to run with it. It was a brilliant idea, you can definitely tell she’s Julia’s apprentice, but it did get Darin fired. There’s a brief father-son bonding moment but really, did you care about it?

That’s the other problem with this show – I can watch it passively. I’m not invested in what happens with the characters because I don’t really care about them. I don’t care about them any more than I did in the first episode and that ultimately plays a huge factor in why people didn’t get hooked on the show and why it won’t get a second season…. trust me, it won’t.

While all of this is happening, Louise decides to do a live broadcast from that Mexican bar/hotel with the help of a local affiliate. Right as they’re about to go on air, El Toro’s people roll up for a shooting spree. Miraculously, no one was injured.

When Jake Gregorian gets wind of what’s happening and realizes that Julia’s “boyfriend” and state’s attorney Max knew about her trip to Mexico, he flips out. It doesn’t help that he tipped off the cops who weren’t so “undercover” and is really the reason why she’s in this mess. Seriously, the cops can never actually handle anything.

That’s why Jake takes it upon himself to head out to Mexico with a huge bag of cash and negotiate. Smart right? His team Bradley and Ella try to find him some leverage and learn that El Toro has a nephew he tried to pull out of a Mexican jail earlier in the month. Max decides to be of some use and grants them visitation rights and they find out, the nephew isn’t the bad guy. In fact, he’s also on the run from his uncle, who wants to have him killed. Oy family drama.

Jake arrives in Mexico and somehow, knows exactly where to find Louise. It’s like he’s done this before. Bradley calls Jake to tell him to halt the exchange with El Toro’s mistress and gives him the correct coordinates to kingpin’s hideout. On their way in, they are ambushed by the kingpin’s people and bring him and Louise right to the compound where Julia is. In fact, she’s been holding on by a thread – she just conducted an interview with El Toro and only asked the “approved” questions so he could spew his revolutionist propaganda. It made her sick, you could tell, but anything to survive right?

Long story short, Louise gets caught within seconds trying to set up El Toro, Julia convinces his brother to turn on him and promises to free his nephew in exchange for their freedom. El Toro’s brother was never his biggest fan and didn’t like how he treated his son and when push came to shove, he shot a bullet in his head.

So everyone escaped, Julia got a great story out of it, Louise returned to work and replaced that god-awful Avery, who almost got Julia killed with her “we’re going to crush you El Toro” commentary, might I add.

There was also a brief “moment” between Julia and Jake. These two definitely have chemistry but the show tried really hard to keep them as “just friends” and I appreciate that. Anything more would ruin it and I guess it’s nice to know a guy and a girl can be strictly platonic and still care for each other the way these two do. That’s not saying any of my guy, or girl for that matter, friends would book a trip to Mexico to save me but hey, a gentleman is a gentleman right? And a lawyer has money… and private jets… and such.

Still, that’s not enough to save the show and I’m sorry about that Notorious fans. There’s just so many missing and moving pieces. I can’t even remeber where we left off on the Oscar Keaton story. Do we still care about him? And Maya Hartman, remember her? She meant a great deal to Julia and try as I might, I can’t even remember much about her story except that her mother slept with her boyfriend and she was framed for his murder. Anyways, Julia promised her they’d “get through this” but then she got kidnapped and in the end, Maya jumped off a bridge and left behind an “i’m sorry” note for Julia asking her to “take care of her mother.”

If there was a second half of the season, what do you think would happen?

Now that was a good episode of Notorious. Up until now, I felt like the storyline was moving at a glacial pace and there was nothing that really allowed me to connect with the characters. Jake was just a dude covering up for criminals and Julia was the person manipulating the news just to get good TV. All of that changed this week.

After witnessing Levi Young blow his brains out, Julia wasn’t her usual self although she really pretended to be. She went to the DA and gave her statement, scoring him for that night’s show. The both of them seemed to hit it off really well but it came to a screeching halt when Julia blindsided him with the footage that Levi sent her the night of the murder. In her defense, blindsiding people is what she does best to get “honest” reactions but this was cold, especially because she didn’t want to do it. She didn’t want to throw a man who just killed himself under the bus fully knowing that he was innocent because his big secret was the he was in love with Oscar Keaton. But she did it anyways and the DA was not pleased. “You’re just Gregorian’s mouthpiece” he told her.

Sure, that tape definitely did help Jake, who used Levi’s death as an asset to freeing Oscar. Unfortunately, it didn’t work because there was no sufficient evidence that Levi had motive to kill Sarah. But the DA does know someone who had motive – Jake. Someone sent him that picture that Levi took of Sarah sleeping with Jake the night of her murder. He threatens him with it and when he’s ambushed on LHL, he plants the photo in Oscar’s cell to see if he was aware of the affair.

When Oscar sees the picture, he demands Jake comes down to the prison. “You were sleeping with my wife,” he yells before punching him in the face and firing. While it may not be the best move for Oscar, it’s definitely even worse for Jake because ALL of his secrets are about to be exposed and honestly, he does look kind of guilty at this point, although I’m sure he’s not.

Julia finally had a mental breakdown as she washed Levi’s shoes off the bottom of her probably really expensive shoes and the next day, she walked into the DA’s office and apologized to him. This moment was really important because up until now, we hadn’t really seen who Julia is as a person, when she’s not motivated and driven by producing a hit news show. While she’s making amends, she also apologizes to her assistant Megan and Louise for being the raging B at work this week and as a reward, they invited the DA so Julia can properly apologize with some alcohol. We all need some good friends don’t we?

While I’m smitten with Julia’s forming relationship with the DA, it will definitely complicate things between her and Jake. The DA isn’t really a fan of Jake and now he’s trying to prove that he killed Sara… not a good way to start a friendship with your new girls partner in crime.

The side story this week was also very intriguing. Jake accepted a case from a young surrogate mother who couldn’t find the baby’s biological parents. The manager of the facility refused to disclose the parent’s information because of a doctor-patient confidentially, which would mean that when Penny had the baby, she didn’t have parental rights to give it up for adoption. She either had to keep it or give it up to foster care. Jake got very emotionally invested in the case because we find out he too was in foster care for several years.

The case takes an even crazier twist revealing how messed up the laws governing surrogacy really are. Penny goes on LHL looking for the parents and her water breaks. A couple shows up at Jake’s office saying that they are the people that were supposed to adopt Penny’s baby. They paid out $200K, although Penny only received $50K of it. But still, without the biological parents, Penny could not legally give this couple the baby and it was taken away by Child Protective Services.

Jake didn’t rest until he hunted down the clinic owner, who admitted to really, human trafficking in exchange for dough. He finds out the baby didn’t have biological parents because it was conceived from a donated egg and sperm in Prague. She then told the parents waiting to adopt that Penny miscarried so that she could RE-SELL the baby and make even more money. Seriously, what kind of disgusting person do you have to be?

But since the donors surrendered parental rights, Penny was legally the babies mother and in the end, she was able to give the couple the baby they’ve always wanted. And that lady, yeah she’s going to rot in jail.

Now that you have a deeper grasp on the characters and where the storyline is going, did you enjoy this weeks episode of Notorious?

A whole bunch of nothing’s happened this week on Notorious except for the fact that America has a huge rape problem. And not only a rape problem but a “cover up the rape problem.”

We are no closer to finding a suspect for Sara’s death although her brother, who finally agreed to go on LHL, made it a point to pinpoint Oscar Keaton. LHL released those incriminating photos and well, it wasn’t good for him. Oscar admitted to hitting Sara but a long time ago. He also admitted he was chatting to some chick name SweetVicky, which just SCREAMS bad news.

Jake goes to investigate this secret online friend and finds out that SweetVicky, the real one, has never actually talked to Oscar. Turns out, it’s a case of the common catfish.

Thankfully, Ryan has been on top of his game being creepy and stalker-ish in order to prove himself to Julia, and found evidence that Oscar’s BFF and business partner Levi is the one who sent in the pics. Of course, we later find out Levi has been posing as SweetVicky and we can assume 1 of 2 things – either Levi was in love with Sara or Levi has been plotting to destroy Oscar!

Speaking of Ryan, he doesn’t heed Julia’s warnings at all and continues getting dirt illegally. He even sucks in Ella, the girl working for Jake who he initially used to get dirt the first time around. This relationship will definitely blow up to smithereens… or they’ll be like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which might be interesting.

The real story for me, which didn’t focus at all on the core issues at hand, was Julia’s latest “breaking news.” A famous rockstar, think Bono, goes into a coma. While all the news publications are praising him as a “Saint,” Julia’s team gets video of him drugging and raping girls backstage. Always willing to do everything for the show, Julia decides to air the video but finds that upsetting people who have invested in this rockstar could cost her a job.

It really speaks to Julia as a journalist and as a human – will she publicly apologize for BREAKING real and honest news just because it could hurt profits? Will she go against ethics? Will she really call a woman who was raped a liar and set THAT precedent? Of course not, she’s Julia. Good call Notorious!

Instead, after the rape victim says she will not come forward on live television, she finds several other victims who will. Her boss isn’t pleased but he promises to turn the other cheek when the parent companies call fuming.

There is a twist however, the woman who cried “rape” admitted to drugging the rockstar with the SAME concoction that he used to drug her the night he took advantage. Now, we do feel bad for the woman because she felt so helpless she felt her only option was to kill this man. But at the same time, that’s 100% wrong yet Jake promises to take her case. I guess bending the line is okay sometimes huh?

We also dig a little deeper into Louise’s character to find out why she’s such a party animal. Julia is given an exclusive video a soldier being beheaded but Louise begs her not to air it in the segment. Julia agrees but when they’re running out of time, agrees to air the video, surprising Louise.

Louise is surprised but continues on with poise and professionalism. Off set she yells, “You self-centered little bitch, don’t you ever do that to me again.” Turns out, when she was a reporter in Afghanistan, she fell for an interpreter named Pascal… and you guessed it, he was beheaded. The video brought back horrid memories she tried to long to repress by liquor and rotating men. In front of the men, she acts like she’s fine but the action has driven a wedge between Julia and Louise’s friendship. While I’d like to say this made me like Louise more, I can’t really connect still.

Thoughts? Who do you think killed Sara?