The seventh episode of The Irrational really tried too hard to fit many plotlines into the mix and acted like the episode was a feature film rather than a 40-minute affair. There is the Mercer and Rose Dinshaw romantic angle at play again, and it seems the behavioral scientist seems to have found his match when it comes to reading clues and solving cases. Then suddenly, there is a heavy emotional subplot between Kylie and Marisa. It became clear the makers wanted to keep these characters on screen for just a little bit, so we don’t get absorbed in the romantic plot and then find the series a little jarring seeing other characters show up in the next episode doing their things. The effect is that we neither get immersed in the case Rose and Mercer solve together, which is so convoluted it makes one’s head spin, nor do we find an ‘in’ into whatever Kylie and Marisa had going on. And also, Phoebe and Rizwan were conducting their experiments at Mercer’s behest! Here is a full recap of The Irrational Episode 7.
Spoilers Ahead
How Did Rose And Mercer Plan Their Date?
If you thought that our smooth talker, Mercer, had given up on the idea of dating, you are wrong. Here he was in full swing, making all sorts of plans for a date with Rose Dinshaw. It seems that in the previous episodes, he was a little busy and also a bit unsure as to how to approach the situation, but in The Irrational Episode 7, he had figured it out. He planned a 24-hour date with Rose, where they would only get to know each other and not try to be super intimate too soon. Rose was up for it, but their intimacy was mental and not physical, which is why Mercer liked her. They had no clue that they would get a case to solve and have an awesome date, where they would get to be ‘real’ in front of each other and also solve the case, which was based on the very idea of what is real and what is a forgery, and what each is worth. Mercer’s ‘high intensity’ dating began, and so did the case.
Why Wasn’t Henry Willing To Refund Blair?
Blair, who hired Rose Dinshaw to look into her case, was unsure if her Cezanne painting that she dearly hung on the living room wall was a forgery or the real thing. Blair was having a divorce, and the painting was being reappraised to have its real value determined, but suddenly Blair got told that the painting might not even be a real Cezanne. Mercer knew about the 1883 volcanic eruption, whose ash apparently had to be present on the paintings of that time, such as Cezanne’s ‘The Orchard’. Blair’s painting had no traces of it; hence, it seemed like a forgery. What if Blair got duped by gallery owner Henry Gibbs himself, who might’ve sold her the fake one? Rose and Mercer interrogated Gibbs, and their way of judging whether he had sold a fake or not was to ask him to refund Blair and get his painting back. The painting had in fact gone up in value, and he should have had no problem refunding the money, but he declined. Gibbs countered Mercer by putting the suspicion back on Blair, citing her divorce. He was of the opinion that perhaps Blair was keeping the real one to herself and had commissioned the forged copy, hoping to get a refund, the hypothetical motive being that Blair was in a bit of a monetary problem as her divorce wasn’t going so smoothly and Gibbs knew about it.
Why Was Kylie Upset With Marisa?
While Mercer was having an exciting time with Rose, keeping tabs on Gibbs and waiting for him to call his accomplice, if he was at all involved in selling the forgery, Marisa had been meeting Kylie and trying to go on dinner dates with her. It had something to do with Marisa’s past and her relationship with Kylie. Kylie had told Marisa that she was queer, meaning she had shown Marisa her true self, but Marisa broke off all communication after she divorced Mercer. Now she was trying to build a bridge again, but Kylie’s issue was that she was not being honest about it. She was being too formal and wasn’t willing to deal with her own feelings regarding the issue, whether it had something to do with her or with the fact that Mercer had started to date Dinshaw. Marisa grew defensive at first, and it seemed that she wasn’t ready to be vulnerable in front of Kylie, but later she realized that Kylie was correct and that she was indeed repressing her true feelings.
When Can One Pay More For A ‘Forgery’?
Someone met Gibbs, as Mercer and Rose had predicted, but this person did something unthinkable. They killed Gibbs, and the case became an even thicker mystery to solve. The working theory was that Henry had sold forgeries to someone else, who didn’t take the news very kindly and murdered Gibbs. Evan, Blair’s forgery investigator, gave a clue that Gibbs had sold a Cezanne to a shady anonymous client known simply as Mr. Z, and perhaps he could have murdered him. But Mr. Z turned out to be a missus who didn’t care if the paintings were fake. She only cared about the money it raked in. She even wanted to buy Gibbs’ last Cezanne but couldn’t because he died, and nobody had any idea where he kept the painting. So, it looked like she wasn’t the killer. Mercer called Phoebe and Rizwan to conduct an experiment: to post an ordinary item for sale online. One advertisement would have the item shown as an ordinary one. Another post would show the item as being something special, as if it had been used by someone famous. Then they had to see which got sold for a higher price. So, Rizwan put up his guitar on sale, and a man paid a higher price for Rizwan’s guitar than Phoebe’s post, which was selling the same guitar embellished with the story of how it was once played by a famous guitarist. The hypothesis was that the value of the guitar would jump up with the story attached to it, but the opposite happened. The buyer simply wanted Rizwan’s guitar, as it was the same model he had practiced on, and now he wanted his niece to practice on the same model. So, in a way, the sentimental value trumped the phony story.
Why Did Evan Kill Gibbs?
Rose was once MI6 and had access to Interpol’s list of the best art forgers in the world. After they followed the potential suspects that could have forged the Cezanne, they reached Bridgette’s house. There was only Bridgette’s father there, who told Mercer and Rose that Bridgette had died of cancer. But he told Mercer that Blair’s ex-husband Carson had commissioned ‘The Orchard’, to be bought by Henry and then sold to Carson’s ex-wife. Carson was a suspect for a while, but after Mercer found out the results of Phoebe and Rizwan’s experiment, everything became clear to him. Art’s value is highly subjective, and Mercer understood that even the forgery could be valuable to someone, even though it was just an ordinary imitation. Blair’s house had been burglarized, and neither did the burglar find Gibbs’ last Cezanne that Mr. Z had mentioned, nor could they steal ‘The Orchard’. Mercer’s inference was spot on. Someone wanted Bridgette’s forgeries so badly that when Gibbs destroyed the last Cezanne to sever his connection from selling forgeries, this ‘someone’ got furious and killed him. Clearly, this killer had a sentimental value attached to these paintings, knowing full well that they were forgeries. Mercer got him out in the open by putting the openly fake ‘The Orchard’ up for a bid and placing Phoebe and Rizwan as the bidders. The person bidding highest, even against the obscene price raises by Phoebe and Rizwan, had to be the killer. It turned out to be Evan. Evan had loved Bridgette and couldn’t stand having any of her paintings destroyed, so he’d killed Gibbs in a fit of rage.
Final Thoughts:
The Irrational Episode 7 about the theme of real vs. fake really stretched the idea to its extreme. The good part was that Mercer and Rose had found a way to be real with each other. Rose could accept the fact that she missed being in MI6, and Mercer could accept that he told lies to people about his scar, as he couldn’t accept his own inability to remember the events of the bombings clearly. The church bombing case was given a rest in this episode, as Marisa was dealing with her own issue. Perhaps she and Jace are at a point where their relationship doesn’t work anymore. How that would impact the bombing case is unclear, but if it does, it would be a question on her professionalism. Mercer couldn’t be part of the case, as Marisa had made clear in the previous episode, but perhaps Rose can help. The next episodes will shed light on this interesting development.
