We loved how Episode 6 of Nemesis was like Google Maps set on high anxiety. Where in Los Angeles would the violence, vendettas, and desperate searches for culprits take us next? The grid-canvassing aerials featured in the series since it started connected the action, from the Century City shootout to a gang hang in Inglewood, a trip deep inside the blacklit environs of a strip club, from Amos’s house, to Ebony’s OB/GYN, to an airplane hangar, empty but for Charlie’s personal Gulfstream, and finally to Isaiah and Candace’s house. 

And while we know he’s a bad dude who just shot a bunch of cops, as the typical format of Nemesis tumbles right into Episode 7 (“Repercussions”), we hate to see Amos Stiles go down. His fractured relationship with Isaiah, where love was forever still visible between the cracks, and his sincerity with his grandson Noah – Amos, and Moe Irvin playing Amos, has been our favorite character in this series. But it all ends by Coltrane Wilder’s gun. 

“Take solace in the fact that this was never gonna go any other way,” Trane tells Amos, who pleads for his life in the garage cottage while Noah watches terrified from the closet. Bang. Bang. And Nightmare falls. This is just as Isaiah arrives home, only to discover his father dead on the floor. And quickly behind Stiles comes Captain Seales, Detective Cruz, and Candace, who walk in to discover the body, Isaiah, and Noah standing stunned, holding Amos’s pistol. “This is a crime scene,” Cruz declares, and the next part of Detective Stiles’ ongoing nightmare begins. The anxiety is now his.

While Isaiah and Noah are placed in separate interview rooms down at RHD, Ebony gathers the wives and girlfriends of Coltrane’s crew. (Or, in the case of the late Deon Davis, his wife and his girlfriend.) Charlie has jetted, but Ebony stayed in LA, because as she told Coltrane, “You had your chance to figure this shit out – we do it my way now.” With the women’s agreement to stay on protocol – and envelopes of cash for each of them – Ebony enacts an escape plan of a type, but right out in the open. As long as everyone in their criminal and friendly lawyer orbit is on the same page, they will use influence, legal threats, and alibi sleight of hand to clear any suspicion of Coltrane and heap blame and trouble on Isaiah Stiles. 

At police headquarters, it is a shit show. Deputy Chief Bauer has no problem doing his own heaping on Stiles – he wants to hang the Century City shootout around the detective’s neck, as well as the murder of his father. It can be difficult for cop shows to make interview room scenes unique or compelling, and Episode 7 of Nemesis doesn’t. Maybe it’s because we’ve known both sides of the story all season long. But its midsection becomes a real slog, with Noah being yelled at by cops who aren’t listening to his obvious truth, Stiles handcuffed to a chair, his protestations over Coltrane’s involvement going nowhere, and Harper continuing to work angles for Charlie on the inside. Was she really going to try to silence Noah right there in the cop shop? It’s a leap.

Fortunately, things pick back up once Captain Seales finally realizes he got played. One thing that got through during Isaiah’s questioning was the location of his confiscated service weapon. Remember, he turned it in to the captain after he was suspended in Episode 6. “So how did I get the gun, Yvette?” Isaiah asked Cruz. How could he have arrived at his house, shot Amos with the weapon, then tossed it in the bushes, all in the few seconds before they showed – when it was supposed to be with Jimmy that entire time?

It all dawns on the captain at once. “There were only three people who knew [the gun] was in the glove compartment,” he says to Cruz. “You, me, and…” Detective Nicolette Harper, who’d been with them all along, from Century City, to the strip club, to Amos’s place in Inglewood. But by the time this revelation drops in the cops’ laps, Harper is long gone. Knowing she’d be cornered, Harper took off, and discarded her own shield and service weapon. The last time we see the dirty cop in this episode, Harper has gone full bad. “I don’t get paid until Noah Stiles is dead.” Loose ends being tied up always.

Cops & Robbers for Episode 7 of Nemesis (“Repercussions”): 

• “I think Ebony Wilder knows that Coltrane is guilty. But she’s not gonna talk because she doesn’t trust any of you.” This argument with Cruz is when Candace has her own revelation. She wears the necklace bugged for sound and visuals to the Wilder home on a spontaneous undercover mission to save her family. “She does trust me…”

• At RHD, amid all the questioning and accusations, Malik did seem to waver toward bringing charges on Coltrane. But then he got the blackmail text. Him kissing Candace at the coffee shop. The DA clammed up about any charges. Malik is willing to let Wilder walk to keep his career track rising.

• And hey, we know they’re career – lifetime – criminals. But Ebony and Coltrane Wilder also really, really know how to dress. 

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.