Carter - 1x04 - Prime Suspect

This is the fourth episode of the first season and has 54 pages.

<- 1x03 - Adam & Eve                                -> 1x05 & 1x06 - In the Field

Headline
After the murder of Shawn Carter, everyone is a suspect. But then the game of whodunit takes an unexpected turn...

New Characters
This episode introduces a very important character and brings back a classic one as a guest star.

Michael Warner played by Jensen Ackles

Ben Myers played by Chris Olivero

Episode Summary
In the Mitchell house, Cole gets Simmons' voice mail about an urgency to get to the Carter house as soon as possible. Sidney wakes up and tells Jay to stay on alert and hide if necessary. Grace in the mean time could have sworn she heard a male voice, but Sidney of course denies knowing what she's talking about.

Bradley and Simmons show Cole the crime scene with Shawn's body, also mentioning that every Carter was gone at the time of the crime. Everybody except for one...Kaily. She's already in the interrogation room and Russell starts to talk to her. He also asks her if she owned a knife, which she declines.

Sidney talks to some classmates at school, first noticing that she's been hanging out with the wrong crowd before she calls her dad who tells her about Shawn's murder.

Cole talks to a friend that Jack hung out with the night before, trying to confirm his alibi. However, it seems that there is some time unaccounted for.

The Carters keep getting interrogated at the FBI but no one seems to know anything interesting. Jack and Kaily are now the main suspects.

Grace comes home and finds Jay, but promises not to tell their father about it for now.

The agents find security footage that shows that Shawn was killed by a female assailin. As Kaily is also on the tape, shown in her room at the time of the crime, both Kaily and Jack are no longer suspects and are released.

Emily is at home, talking to a mysterious contact, saying that they had no choice and that Shawn had to die before revealing too much to anyone.

Sidney meets with Jack again and the conversations are getting more personal. Sidney admits that she doesn't really have anyone to talk to and that the relationship to her father isn't how she would wish it'd be. Cole is of course listening to every word in the van. At the end of the date, Jack and Sidney kiss for the first time.

Michael Warner, a very rich business man, is introduced. He welcomes back Joshua White who's appearently working for him. The two walk into a room with many monitors, showing surveillance footage from the entire city.

Critical Reception
Strongest single episode yet, as we see how this case is spreading all over the Carter family. The pacing was right, the interviews with the two main suspects work and the reveal that is was none of them wasn't the least bit disappointing, it just made things more interesting.

Notes & Trivia
Michael Warner is the most spontaniously created character in script history. His role was made up about two pages before his name was first mentioned on the page. Woltvision was in desperate need of a cliffhanger, so they made up the Warner character as someone who observes everything and could potentially be a man behind the curtain. They had zero idea of where this character was going or who he actually was.

This is the first and only episode that Sidney talks to someone in school who isn't her sister. Her clique was so irrelevant that they not only did not get cast, they didn't even get names.

This is the first of two episodes in total that Adam does not appear in.

Quote of the episode:

Russell starts to interrogate Kaily.

Russell: "My name is Agent Russell and I'm just gonna ask you some questions."

Kaily: "Can I go then?"

Russell: "That depends on the answers."