So, before I even start, gonna take a stab and say that this episode will give us the ticking clock I was looking for in the last one, but who knows? I could definitely be wrong, not all my predictions come true. Just, like, a lot of them.

Henry and Vicki show up to a hotel with a secret third friend, who has hired them to retrieve an antique bowl that he sold to someone named Benoit. He shipped the bowl, but never received payment, was unable to contact the guy, et voila, call in Vicki to retrieve it. Henry is complaining because he’s hungry, but then stops them: he smells something, pain and hate and fear. Vicki quips that it’s “a no-tell motel”, and first of all, Vicki, there was a legit maid in a uniform and a gorgeous wooden front desk fully staffed after dark, so what? and she adds that basically nothing bad could possibly be happening there, so secondly, which is it? Cheap motel, where bad shit happens constantly, or happy fun place?

They all start booking it, following Henry, whom secret third friend calls a bloodhound. Henry says there are hundreds of presences in the hotel, and then there’s black things coming in through a window and Vicki’s tattoos are glowing and

she wakes up on her couch. The clock reads 5:55.

This opening fuckin SLAPS. I know, I get lost in details, but, like, it just hooks you, gives you everything you need to know in a few lines of dialogue, and then comes at you with danger and the entire premise of the episode. It’s a time loop or a premonition or a countdown, but you know you’re going on a RIDE. Well done!

Vicki relates the dream to Coreen, who has woken her from a short nap. She says she died in the dream, after feeling every part of the entity go through her. Coreen makes a quip about chips after dinner, but then Secret Third Friend walks in to hire Vicki to retrieve his fuckin bowl!!!!!!!!

His name is Jacob Keller, and he starts the opening credits. He needs to get paid for this bowl, or he’s out of business. Vicki is extra bitchy about him doing business with people who only disclose their PO boxes, but I suppose that’s a little more understandable after her dream.

So! We are off! Vicki calls the PO box place and sweet talks the real address out of the clerk on the phone. She collects Henry and Jacob, and of course they walk in to a crime scene, Mike and Kate hovering over a dead body. It’s Benoit, of course, single stab wound to the belly, place has been trashed. Vicki’s annoyed: first normal case she’s had in weeks and of course the guy is dead. There’s a weird digression about Mike’s “lucky” tie being about “getting lucky”, but Mike says that no, he and Kate were out celebrating closing another case, one that Vicki had worked before her eye condition made her leave the force.

So obviously, Vicki has to be a bitch about it, and is bitchy about Kate being the one who broke the case. Now, this i will buy as related to her disability, but jesus, Vick.

Vicki spies a note on Benoit’s desk – “Empire Hotel, midnight” – says nothing about it to Mike, and leaves with a parting shot about Kate.

So we get the same scene from the opening: hotel front desk, maid in uniform walks by, Vicki and Henry walk in, and – wait. Jacob isn’t with them, and as they start wandering the halls, Vicki is asking Henry what Mike’s lucky tie might mean, and they walk right by Jacob sitting in an alcove.

Neither Henry nor Vicki manage to notice him until he walks up and interrupts their conversation to ask where his bowl is, and then they catch up to the rest of the open – Henry’s hungry, a lady drops a room service tray (at a no-tell motel?) and Vicki says she’s done this before. But instead of just a fluttering curtain, they see a man with a case. Vicki says that’s their guy, Henry attacks him, he drops the case. Jacob steps forward to get his bowl, but Vicki stops him as her tattoos flare, Henry goes to her, and the guy with the case opens it and lets out a bunch of spirit-looking things. He seems to be injured? by the case opening? and Vicki tackles him

just before waking up on her couch, at 5:55.

Jacob walks in and Vicki is ready. She tells him all his business and then reads him for filth for lying to her. She knows he’s after a box, not a Roman glass bowl, and she wants some fuckin answers, because she’s already died twice for this thing and it’s still only 5:55! So tell her!

Jacob says it’s got powers, it’ll give you eternal life. “It’s a lot more than that,” says Vicki, and they’re off, grabbing Henry as he walks into the office.

They go to Benoit’s office, hoping to prevent his murder. Almost make it, too – Benoit dies just after they show up.

When Mike arrives, Vicki gives him shit about the tie and Kate, and he says he feels like he walked into a fight he didn’t know he was having, and like, Mike. Michael.

Do you not feel like this every time you’re with Vicki? Because I do, and I’m not even on the show!

She gives Mike a rundown of the scene and leaves, and poor Mike. He is not cut out for dealing with Vicki’s paranonsense.

Back in the hallway! Vicki wants to end it “right here”, but there’s still 20 minutes left, you might have one more go-round on this one. Guy comes around the corner, Henry attacks, case falls to the ground. Vicki wants answers from case guy, but of course Jacob opens the box, tattoos, spirits, bam!

5:55!

She tells Coreen to keep Jacob there, meets Henry at the car, makes it to Benoit’s office before he’s dead. He denies knowing anything about a box, but they hustle him out the door. He complains that he’s been looking for it for 25 years, and how could anything so beautiful be dangerous? No dice, but Vicki makes a crack about getting there “too soon”, because even in a time loop….

They bring Benoit to the office, where Coreen has stalled Jacob successfully. Vicki charges Henry with keeping everyone in one place, and heads over to the hotel, calling Mike in for backup on her way.

Box guy is dead when they show up. No sign of the box, but Vicki remembers a janitor from Benoit’s office who seemed shifty. They find him in the lobby with the box, and he tells Vicki not to open it or look at it, but she does! AND THEN BAM, 5:55!!!!!!!

Vicki draws a symbol she saw and has Coreen research it before getting Mike, preventing Benoit’s murder, and catching the janitor guy before he gets to the hotel. Henry and Coreen keep Jacob corralled until Vicki calls; she wants Henry to bring him to the precinct and asks about the symbol.

It’s for the Knights of Babylon, a secret society that was started in the 1500s when they came into possession of Pandora’s Box. Legend is, no human can withstand the temptation to open it, something Vicki seems to already know intimately.

Mike can’t really hold anyone for anything, so he and Henry go to the hotel with Vicki to get the box. But this time Box Guy has a gun, and Mike gets shot in the chest and dies.

Vicki wants to open the box, to go back again, to save Mike. Henry refuses. Some things can’t be changed, they have the box, that’s the thing that counts….

But of course, it isn’t. Henry sees that she would die for Mike, and he opens the box for her… and it’s 5:55.

Vicki calls Mike, gives Coreen the night off, takes Benoit to Henry, and goes to get the box alone. Or thinks she’s alone: janitor has followed her. Turns out both guys are Knights of Babylon, but Box Guy is stealing the box and Janitor is recovering it. Janitor has a gun on Vicki, but Henry shows up just in time to take his weapon and the box – because Henry isn’t tempted to open it.

Henry takes the case to seal it up in the walls of his apartment, and Vicki thanks him for ending the world for her. He drinks from her in the elevator, and then she wakes up…

at 5:56.