Nile Jarvis's psychopathy had its roots in his father, Martin Jarvis (played by Jonathan Banks, better known as Mike from Breaking Bad). We glimpsed Martin briefly in the last episode, as Aggie investigated Abbott's involvement in the Jarvis case: Father and son co-owned MHJ Real Estate Corp. It turns out that Martin is also Rick's (his actual name, confirmed) older half-brother. This revelation came when Rick visited Martin's palatial estate to inform him about Aggie's book. What a twisted family! A family where 8-year-old twin brothers are encouraged to literally fight over their iPad, with Martin standing by and letting them do it. "Survival of the fittest," Nile explains to Aggie during an interview, "that is my father's dogma." Martin is a tough, no-nonsense patriarch, inclined to make his children squirm. And having children he can torture is what matters to him.
While Nile is driven by the desire to impose his phallus on the New York City skyline for posterity, Martin is driven by the desire to populate the earth with little Jarvises. The most disturbing (and telling) story Nile tells about Martin involves his late mother, whose cervical stenosis led her to miscarry a dozen times before her first child. "The pregnancy nearly killed her," Nile says, and the doctor advised her not to have any more children. But Martin wouldn't hear of it, and he wouldn't have an adopted child either. So his wife miscarried five more times before Nile was born and she died of ovarian cancer. When Nile decided he wouldn't have children of his own, Martin remarried and had IVF twins with "a new Mrs. Jarvis."
This is the kind of guy we're dealing with. He makes Nile seem like Mr. Rogers. In fact, he is the only person who can make Nile seem small. Nile was putting off telling his father about the book because he knew he would react badly. In Martin's office, Nile seems genuinely scared, even stuttering. Martin can't see the advantage of indulging a journalist's scrutiny before Jarvis Yards is finished. And as if this day couldn't get any worse, Phineas - a councilman of New York and the Jarvis's puppet in City Hall - comes by to tell them that Benitez has been able to flip some votes against phase two of the construction in the housing subcommittee by "exploiting Nile's situation." Phineas, who owes his seat to Jarvis's contributions, looks on the verge of a nervous breakdown but assures them for now.
Seeing the way Nile carries himself around his father - like a bratty teenager who knows his superiority ends where his father's begins - proves that Nile has his own vulnerabilities. And seeing the way his father speaks to him makes me believe him when he tells Aggie that the reason he won't have kids is because he would love them too much. "Is that possible?" Aggie asks. "You tell me," he replies, knowing that Aggie's own intense love for her son has, in the past, gotten in her way. For example, it got in the way of her marriage.
Nina wasn't just paying lip service when she said she liked Shelley's painting - she liked it so much that she schleps to Bushwick to check out Shelley's open studio. She introduces herself as the owner of the Jacon Gallery, a place where artists get made before being scooped by Gagosian. Though at first, Shelley is suspicious that Aggie asked Nina to go there, Nina assures her that she's there on the strength of Shelley's work.
The notion that Aggie is spending her time trying to advance her career is a delusion on Shelley's part; what Aggie is really doing is reviewing Teddy Fenig's case file with Abbott. She meets him in his six-year temporary apartment, where he absconded after things with his ex "unravelled epically" in the wake of the Jarvis case. Again, she tries to convince him of Nile.
Abbott firmly believes that Nile possessed the wisdom to deactivate the device before committing the heinous deed, while Aggie is well aware of the fact that the ring activates automatically when the wearer's heart rate surpasses 90 beats per minute. Strangling someone to death, one might break a sweat, right? But if Nile truly possesses Aggie's perceived cold-bloodedness, perhaps he wouldn't have; especially if all that jogging has him in tip-top cardiovascular shape. The only way to ascertain the truth is to delve into the data, which leads Aggie to decide to steal it from Nile's computer. Initially, Abbott resists Aggie's beckoning him into the rabbit hole, but a demented twinkle gradually appears in his eye. While nothing they find—if they even find anything—would be admissible in court, he knows a digital-forensics analyst. This turn in the plot serves as a powerful PSA against wearing these data trackers. (For further reading, Andrea González-Ramírez's piece had me on edge a few months ago.)
On the other hand, Nile is curious about what possessed Rick to reveal the book's existence to Martin. Their conversation reveals crucial information, namely that Martin suffered a heart attack after the whole Nile-Madison debacle. Rick is so determined to avoid the possibility of his older brother having another episode that he took it upon himself to snoop around Aggie's office, which clears Nina's name of any collusion. The extent of Rick's motivations remains unclear. Okay, he's an ex-felon. But what does he do at Nile's house? Is he a security guard? A butler? Just a sweet, dog-loving man trapped in a scary guy's body? When Aggie asks Nile the same question later, he only shrugs that Rick "takes care of the dogs." Nile remains unfazed until Rick tells him that Aggie has been talking to Abbott. Then, he nearly loses it.
Nile calls Aggie and demands that she meet him at Jarvis Yards. Abbott advises her not to go, but Nile leaves her no choice; so they all end up going, Abbott included. He gives Aggie a burner phone number and tells her he'll wait nearby. The ensuing sequence is the most tense in the show so far. Nile takes Aggie over 20 floors up in the half-constructed building onto a ledge with an insane view of Manhattan and no protection against the steep drop. He asks her if she's been talking to Abbott. She tells him yes; he's one of her sources. For two years before Madison went missing, he investigated Jarvis for financial crimes. The man is obsessed, and a crucial part of the story. Besides, Nile has no right to meddle with her process. When Nile suggests that the book might not be such a good idea, you can feel Aggie getting bigger. If he won't talk to her, she'll write the unauthorized version of the book, one that relies mainly on the accounts of people like Abbott, who are dead set on his guilt. It seems Nile has forgotten that, however brittle she may seem, Aggie is not scared of him. He can't threaten her into having "editorial control." Ultimately, she agrees to let him read the first hundred pages in secret and to attend Nile's twin brothers' birthday party the next day.
Aggie is shaking like a leaf by the time she gets back to Abbott's car, but at least they laugh about the fact that the Jarvises are renting an elephant for the party. Moreover, Abbott has started speaking in the first person plural: Her going to the party is "an opening for us." As laser-focused as she is on her own aims, Aggie can't see how harmful this could all be for Abbott. The only person who has that perspective is Erika, who calls him just as he's about to break into Nile's house the next afternoon. He calls in sick to work and lies to Erika about the extent of his involvement. It seems unwise for him not to give her the time of day; she has her own stuff going on—directing Frank to their daughter's EpiPen through the phone, for example—and might not always be there to cover his ass.
But consider this: if people were reasonable, we wouldn't have television. Aggie waits patiently, her eyes scanning the exit of Nile and Nina, until she gets the green light to drive to the party solo. Abbott executes a masterful reconnaissance, throwing roofied treats to the Shepherds and disabling the security cameras before sneaking into the house like Inspector Gadget. It's a feat of dedication on Aggie's part to crack Nile's password—Abbott navigates the computer, downloading crucial information onto a trusty thumb drive. The scene is a testament to the enduring power of thumb drives in even the most advanced of plots; in the future, we'll be watching TV behind our eyelids, but crime stories will still involve a thumb drive. As the information downloads, Abbott is transported back to a traumatic memory of Madison confronting him during Nile's arrest.
The party for the twins rages on, with a theme that leans more towards "British people in Africa" than "safari," given that the kids are playing cricket and dressed as characters from Tarzan. The sight of them reminds Aggie of her own yelling at Cooper as they were getting ready to go somewhere, and the memory jars her so much that she retreats behind a wall for a cigarette. A woman at the party tries to tell her she can't smoke, but Nile arrives in time to save her from further reprimand. When she tells him that she hasn't been around kids since Cooper died, Nile seems genuinely affected, trying to lift her mood with a humorous anecdote about his own childhood prank.
Nile introduces Aggie to Martin, but he is not in a good mood. His demeanor darkens further when Phineas approaches, revealing that he's flipping his vote against the Jarvis Yards development in an attempt to save his seat in the upcoming elections. "We've lost the PR war," Phineas manages to get out, visibly stressed. After Martin reminds Phineas of their decade-long funding of his campaigns, Nile instructs him to get off their property. When Nile comes to pick up Nina, she tells Aggie that she has offered Shelley a show at her gallery. Nina is surprised that Aggie is not happy with this news—we know there's something deeper going on—jealousy, resentment—but Aggie isn't wrong when she says that Shelley working with Nina presents a slight conflict of interest for the book: It can't look like the Jarvises are trying to positively influence Shelley's perception of them. Nina's expression here is the most malicious she's ever had. And she won't forget it: When they get home, she tells Nile that they need to talk about Aggie.
Their conversation is interrupted, however, by the sound of barking dogs in the backyard. They are barking at Abbott, who just managed to jump over the wall after getting his leg destroyed by one of the Shepherds in his escape. While I know the dog's actions are violent, it was still sad when Abbott punched him. Maybe he could have avoided both getting bitten and having to punch a dog if he had left when Aggie told him to, which was as soon as Nile and Nina left the party. (By the way, does she think it'd be a good idea to maybe change Abbott's name on her phone?) But by the time he got her call, the download was still at 72 percent. He waited for the 100 percent. It cost him a piece of his thigh, but he made it out with the thumb drive.
