Shadow season 1, episode 4 recap: Man Down

A corrupt ex-cop and member of Max and Shadow’s old task force is freshly out of prison and looking to take revenge against the partners that ratted him out.

Colin talks to his bookie on the phone as he pulls into a driveway on Shadow. He tells his bookie that he’s done with gambling and that he’s starting a new life. Colin appears to be some kind of a repairman now and has arrived to fix the motion sensors at a fancy house.

When the security guards escort him to see the owner, however, it turns out to be someone Colin knows rather well. Colin testified against Hugo in court and helped send him to prison. Now he’s out and wants revenge.

Shadow and Max share a drink at the bar where Shadow teases him about practically being engaged to his girlfriend now that he’s met her parents. Max has to head home, which Shadow doesn’t seem pleased about but claims he’s fine.

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Shadow sits alone at the bar and gets another drink. It’s the anniversary of his parents’ death and Shadow still feels responsible for everything that happened, like he could have helped being struck by lightning.

Ash shows up for moral support and Shadow tells her that knowing it isn’t his fault doesn’t change how he feels when he sees Zola in her wheelchair.

It’s like drowning. Ash tells him to come with her, she has an idea. They go for a midnight swim at Ash’s friend’s house who is away on holiday. They have some fun and Ash tells Shadow that maybe he always feels like he’s drowning because he’s alone in the water. It doesn’t have to be like that.

They almost kiss when the lights come on inside the house. Ash’s friends are back early and she freaks out. They scramble to leave without getting caught. Does she actually even know those people?

Meanwhile, Colin is being roughed up pretty bad with his own repair tools. Colin is one of three members of the task force that sent Hugo to jail for some vaguely referenced crime that was getting people killed.

Max and a guy named Camo are the other two. Hugo knows where to find Max, he just has to track down Camo. Colin either can’t or won’t help him with a location. Eventually, Hugo gets bored and has one of his men shoot Colin. They leave him for dead, but he holds on long enough to pull out his hidden cell phone to call Max and warn him about Hugo.

For professional criminals, Hugo’s men didn’t do a very good job searching or killing Colin.

Max calls Shadow and together they plan to take down Hugo. Max requests to take leave for a family emergency, the timing of which makes the Captain suspicious but he looks the other way. Shadow gets Max a gun and they go to find their friend Camo.

Camo is one of those off the grid kind of guys. He’s hard to find and has some weird ideas. They find him at a paintball range he owns, where he ambushes them for fun. After a joyful reunion, they tell Camo what happened to Colin.

The police force lets officers buy their cars after the lease runs out and Colin was still driving his, which was equipped with GPS tracking. Max finds the location of his car in the database and together they go to infiltrate what they think is Hugo’s hideout.

Simultaneously, Hugo is infiltrating the paintball range looking for Camo. Obviously, neither group finds anyone, but Hugo’s hideout is booby-trapped with cameras and explosives.

An alarm pings his phone when the trio enters the house and shows him the camera feed. Hugo activates the explosives and the three of them jump off the balcony and into the pool, all surviving the blast. How did they know he was looking for them? Hugo scolds his henchman for not searching or killing Colin properly.

Camo takes some shrapnel in the blast and they have to take him to the hospital. He gets some stitches and painkillers, but otherwise, they’re back at Camo’s treehouse in no time. Except Camo has taken half his painkillers already and is high as hell.

Hugo calls Shadow as a sort of neutral third party, trying to get him to sell out his friends. That obviously doesn’t work, so they set up a meeting to settle their differences like men. Camo wants to come, but he’s useless. He feigns half sleep as they leave, then springs into action with some plan of his own.

Settling their differences like men looks a lot like a paintball game with real bullets. As Hugo and his men wait undercover in the woods, Shadow and Max pull into the clearing in Camo’s car and just wait. It’s perfectly obvious to the audience that this is a ploy and Hugo knows it too.

He sends in what he calls the “bullet catchers,” expendable men intended to draw enemy fire. They move in and shoot up the car, and just as predictably, Max takes them down from his own position.

Hugo sends his men in, but this is exactly what Max and Shadow wanted. Max keeps Hugo busy as Shadow takes out his men. Max runs out of bullets as he moves in on Hugo, so Hugo has Max and gunpoint by the time Shadow arrives for backup.

Hugo has them both on their knees asking for any last words when Shadow says, “You forgot about Camo.” Camo was in the trunk the whole time, and now he comes bursting out and shoots down Hugo with his favorite machine gun.

Now when exactly did they decide to take Camo along? It’s not like that whole scene of them convincing him to stay behind was for the audience’s benefit. No explanation is given for this turn of events.

When Max goes back to work the Captain welcomes him back and knowingly talks around the issue of Hugo. The Captain isn’t stupid, he knows Max’s family emergency was related to Hugo and his death, so he simply tells Max that he hopes that’s the last of his family emergencies.

Max and Shadow visit Colin’s grave and wonder if people can change. Max thinks so, but Shadow doesn’t. If they are both destined for an early grave, Max says that Shadow is going first.

Shadow premiered on Netflix on March 8.