Graceland “Goodbye High” – Is Briggs really dirty?

Season 1, episode 7

I am super tempted to do weekly reviews for Graceland as it’s turning out not to be the low key little show I imagined it to be.

Last week’s episode, Hair of the Dog ended with Briggs’ revelation that he was a heroin addict. After the way he supported Charlie and kept her away from the other housemates, I figured he had a close and personal relationship with drugs. But this week’s reveal just blew me away.

For the uninitiated Graceland is about a bunch of undercover agents from the FBI, DEA and US Customs who live together in a big beach house the DEA seized from an Elvis obsessed drug lord. They work cases together trying to take down the bad guys and lines seem to get a bit blurry when they are deep undercover. It’s chock full of drama and some weeks there is even some action.

The reason I’m blogging about it this week is because, I didn’t see the recent plot twist coming, and I’m impressed.

In the pilot episode we were introduced to the housemates and their rules for living together. However, one little agent is not like the others. Mike Warren (Aaron Tveit) is a newly commissioned agent who is sent to Graceland to investigate his Handler Agent Paul Briggs (Daniel Sunjata). This task is made harder when Briggs saves’ Mike’s life.

For the first five episodes I was thinking that the FBI had it all wrong and that Briggs wasn’t skimming drugs or anything like that but it was obvious there was something up with him. When Charlie shot herself up with heroin, it dawned that he was an addict.

In this week’s episode, Goodbye High  it’s revealed that he is the elusive Odin Rossi. I was like damn! I did not see that coming, Graceland just got a little bit more interesting and my bad guy radar is clearly on the fritz.

Briggs story about how the cartel kidnapped him and got him hooked on heroin almost had me tearing up for him which made the revelation even more shocking.

Despite the words coming directly from Briggs’ mouth, some part of me still hopes that he is the good guy and is just trying to lure Bello (Gbenga Akinnagbe) into a big trap, granted it’s not a sanctioned trap but you know…He’s Briggs, he does things differently and I’m making excuses for him so I’ll just shut up now.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this unravels. How about you? Did you always think Briggs was a bad guy or were you as shocked as me?