Episode 5 of Nemesis features another fantastic face-to-face between its criminal and cop co-nemeses. As Coltrane visits the gravesite of his father Tilmon Wilder, reflective and with journal in hand, Stiles appears, and gloats over Deon’s Episode 4 death keeping attention – and the issue of search warrants – on the crew. Stiles says his mom and late brother Josiah are buried nearby, and with knowledge of their lives on the Baldwin Hills-View Park LA neighborhood axis, he and Trane could almost be cousins. This cop has been chasing this criminal for years, “and you were right across Stocker this whole motherfucking time.” Nemesis is great at delineating how similar these men are. But Coltrane sees a deeper, more dangerous meaning. It must be from a page in his journal.

He cuts off Isaiah’s overconfident speech. “Stop. You may act like a cop, quack like a cop, you may do cop shit, but you’re not.” Trane says he sees that his adversary is cutthroat, just like him, underneath the LAPD shield, “because killers recognize killers.” But Stiles is too hyped on what Deon’s destructive episode and the resulting searches of Trane’s home and real estate offices could reveal. He says there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for Wilder, but it’s not a life of wealth built on crimes and death. It’s a train coming down the track. He calls Coltrane’s double life “Black history.”     

Isaiah’s obsession has curdled into overconfidence. The holes cops punched in the walls of the Wilders’ nursery? The searches of Wilder Holdings’ files and transactions? They turn up nothing nefarious, leaving the detective cowed in a meeting at RHD with Captain Stiles, Malik the DA, and Deputy Chief Holmes (Chris Bauer). They haven’t uncovered anything of use, Malik will not arrest Wilder, and when Breckenridge Peters (David Warshofsky) shows up, with the white shoe law firm cache to match that twenty-dollar name, he calls Stiles’ case against Coltrane compromised. The LAPD brass agree with the attorney, and Malik. Detective Stiles is out of control.

Which is pretty rich coming from the DA, because later that same day he romances Isaiah’s wife. Candace has agreed to meet Malik for coffee, and at Saffy’s on Fountain, she describes how Isaiah has been in a two-year doom loop over Manny Shaw’s death and the elusive criminal crew. All true. But Malik immediately starts talking about replacing her husband. He offers to be the positive Black role model Noah Stiles requires, a man who is consistent in the boy’s life. He leans in to kiss Candace, and she doesn’t pull back. But at the same time, while her issues with Isaiah are real, she is still being played. This is the coffee date encouraged by Ebony. And nearby, she takes spy photos of Malik kissing Candace. Blackmail material, secured.    

Underneath his bravado about the case, and all the obsessive overconfidence, Isaiah knows he’s running his personal life ragged. (Matthew Law is also great at expressing this, mostly with his eyes.) In an attempt toward amends with Amos, he appears at the Inglewood house unannounced, and apologizes for kicking his dad out of Thanksgiving. They embrace, and Amos thanks his son for speaking from his heart. But their breakthrough is dashed by present circumstances. Noah is inside the house, smoking blunts and drinking with Amos’s Crip pals, and Isaiah angrily leaves with his son in tow. He tears the necklace from his father’s throat, “J” for Josiah, the Stiles brother lost to gang violence. And he ends his financial support of Amos.

With Stro and Choi, Trane toasts to their fallen friend. They have learned it was Andrei, as a criminal informant, who exposed Deon to the cops. And Coltrane tells his remaining guys it is now wartime. His new plan will fuck over Andrei for fucking over them, with the added benefit of further destroying Detective Stiles. With Andrei’s secret location in hand, the crew gears up for a kill mission, but make a stop at Amos’s house first. “Real money right now,” Trane tells the OG, who he used to know as a convict back in Lancaster. And Amos joins them as their new wheelman. Little does he know about the ulterior motive, just like Ebony taking photos of Candace. The crew will kill Andrei with a gun full of Amos’s fingerprints, and make Stiles arrest his own father for the murder.

Can you feel the tension burning at a higher temperature? As the crew, with Amos, carries out their violent plan, Detective Stiles has reached out to Miguel Álvarez, the cartel leader with the armored Sprinter. That favor the criminal owes the cop, for saving his daughter from certain death in Episode 1? It comes due with Álvarez dropping a pin on Andrei’s Century City safe house. The crew departs the scene, with the Armenian gangster dead by Amos’s gun, and they are richer by sixteen million ways thanks to Andrei’s loose cash. But outside, stuck in Los Angeles gridlock, they roll up right next to the police convoy en route to arrest them. Stro does not hesitate. At point blank range, he opens up on Detective Viggiano in the car right next to them. Trane, and the Nemesis train, keeps a-rollin’.

Cops & Robbers for Episode 5 of Nemesis (“Business. Never Personal.“):

• Fred Again, “Jungle,” Wild East Radio, “Wilder Than Who,” Cutie Pie, “One Way”: the needle drops in Nemesis are freshly selected, and perfect for your next mix.

• “You gotta handle your shit yourself – I’m not going down with you.” Detective Yvette Cruz has requested to switch partners. Stiles going off book with illegal searches, taking a camera-enabled necklace from evidence and giving it to Candace; she’s had enough of his overconfidence and obsessive behavior. Which is why Viggiano and his partner, Detective Nicolette Harper (Stephanie Sigman), roll with Stiles to the Century City arrest.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.