If something doesn’t seem right, Mercer is on it and will uncover the truth come rain or come shine.
If there’s anything The Irrational has proved in the two episodes it has aired, it’s not dull as far as the cases it tackles are concerned.
One can expect an exciting premise for every case, and the investigation until a solution is found is also quite interesting.
The show doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to flesh out most of its characters, but as long as they keep delivering these kinds of cases, it is worth dedicating someone’s 10 p.m. on Sundays to see what new they have cooked up.
Spoilers for The Irrational Season 1 Episode 3 tease another case-centric episode as a tragedy comes from the sky, but nothing is what it seems.
Plane crashes are usually fatal, which is why most people are afraid of going on planes. Even with Mercer presenting that cars are more dangerous than planes in The Irrational Season 1 Episode 1, our irrational minds can’t comprehend that.
People are irrational. But predictably so. They’re more afraid of flying than driving, and the fact is, driving is much more dangerous. We know we should eat healthy food, but then we give in to temptation. Buy things we will never, ever use. We assume people are making rational decisions, weighing the pros and cons. For most of the time, we’re not. Instead, we rely on instincts, which are almost always wrong. Sometimes, dangerously wrong. One error in judgment leads to another.
Mercer
The episode sees something peculiar happen when a passenger plane crashes into the Potomac River.
Mercer is actually closer to the case than he usually is because one of his students is an eyewitness to the crash.
While on driving, Rizwan sees the plane descending very fast, and in no time, it crashes.
He is one of the first people on the scene, and once responders arrive, he gives first-hand account witness statements to the police.
Remember how Mercer arrives on the scene when something doesn’t seem right?
Preliminary investigations suspect the pilot of sabotaging the plane. Even more peculiar is that while passengers survived, the pilot did not.
The pilot is suspected of being suicidal, but it doesn’t make sense why he crashed the plane in a way that would let the passengers survive.
Mercer is brought in to try and piece together the scant clues in the hopes of finding information that would explain this bizarre phenomenon.
So far, we have seen the extent of Mercer’s collaboration with the police be limited to working with his ex-wife, but due to the nature and scope of the tragedy, a lot more cops than his ex-wife are brought in, and this episode will mark the first time he works with a new cop.
Brian King will play the role of Jace Richards, an FBI colleague of Marisa.
Dr. Mercer doesn’t operate conventionally, and there are police officers who do not like that. Jace is one such officer and is not thrilled to see Mercer on the scene. But is that the only reason?
To find the reason behind the pilot’s suspected actions, Team Mercer gets down to work by focusing on one angle while the police chase down other leads and work the case from another angle.
As is protocol, the police go through the pilot’s belongings to try and find any leads.
But Mercer thinks there is nothing the pilot’s belongings would reveal because there was a better way to go about it.
If you want to understand a dead man, try to learn how they lived.
What are the places they frequented? What did they eat and drink? Who were their friends? How much money did they make?
These questions will reveal who a person was and why they did what they are suspected to have done.
Mercer thinks the only way to know who the pilot was is through inspecting certain aspects of his life.
Cops don’t like regular citizens telling them what to do, so you can bet Jace will not be thrilled with having to do what Mercer asks.
This might present a challenging working environment for Mercer or be comical. We know Mercer has some jokes in him.
So, Mercer, Phoebe, and Rizwan hop on the case, and Mercer has an interesting theory.
He presents an idea called “Retrospective Framing.”
What is that you ask? Your guess is as good as mine, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make one.
Maybe it wasn’t the pilot’s wish to crash the plane. What if someone else wanted to do that for whatever reason but needed a scapegoat?
What if the pilot died way before the plane crashed?
The episode’s title describes a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, yet which are, in fact, vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.
Maybe the pilot internalized the wrong information, leading to his actions.
There are so many case scenarios, but we will get to the truth with Mercer on it.
All cases present a learning opportunity for Mercer’s teaching assistants, so there will also be some lessons in this one.
On The Irrational Season 1 Episode 2, the show gave Phoebe a little bit of history by revealing that her mother passed away, and they had a fraught relationship before she passed.
We might also get backstory into him based on how central Rizwan is to this episode.
The show seems to be taking a slow approach to developing the characters, and the hope is that they won’t be too slow.
The season’s central storyline is about Mercer and the man responsible for his burns.
It was also explored a little in the past episodes, and if they keep it up, this episode will offer some developments on that front.
There will be some if you are a fan of Kylie and Mercer’s dynamic.
Are you excited to dive into this case with Mercer and the team?
Catch the episode live this Monday at 10 p.m. on NBC and stream the next day on Peacock.
Check out our review right after the episode airs.
You may check out the above embedded YouTube video for a sneak peak into the episode.
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Denis Kimathi is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. He has watched more dramas and comedies than he cares to remember. Catch him on social media obsessing over [excellent] past, current, and upcoming shows or going off about the politics of representation on TV. Follow him on X.
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