The Irrational season 2, episode 3 recap and review: "Bad Blood"

Can a death during a sporting event be classed as murder? That's something for Alec to help figure out in The Irrational season 2, episode 3.

THE IRRATIONAL -- "Bad Blood" Episode 203 -- Pictured: (l-r) Karen David as Rose Dinshaw, Jesse L. Martin as Alec Mercer, Sean Yves Lessard as Zane
THE IRRATIONAL -- "Bad Blood" Episode 203 -- Pictured: (l-r) Karen David as Rose Dinshaw, Jesse L. Martin as Alec Mercer, Sean Yves Lessard as Zane

When is a death during a hockey game classed as murder? That’s something for Alec and Rose to figure out in The Irrational season 2, episode 3.

Caution: This post contains SPOILERS for The Irrational season 2, episode 3.

The new episode brings Rose back in a big way. She’s the fixer that Soph’s financial firm hires to help her when she’s accused of murder. Who did she potentially murder? Someone she had bad blood with from the past who happens to have worked at the same financial firm.

Is it murder in the middle of hockey in The Irrational?

The first question to answer is whether a death during a hockey game can be classed as murder. Accidents happen, and people take bad hits all the time. Leah just happened to die after she was cut by skates during a game.

Was it murder? Well, Alec figures out that it was, but it’s not something as simple as revenge or bad blood. I actually liked this development. It looked like it was going to be Soph for the longest time. She had a history with Leah, who had broken Soph’s collar bone years earlier leading to Soph’s hockey career ending abruptly. Soph also didn’t show much empathy for Leah’s death.

The truth is that some people just don’t know how to share their emotions. They’ve spent so long learning to repress everything or to make sure the emotions don’t show on the face, that they can look cold-hearted. However, Soph wasn’t.

A lot of shows pit women against each other. The two worked at the same financial firm. So it seemed normal to pit these women against each other. Another woman in the office even seemed to suggest that there was a rivalry between them. However, Soph later admitted that she wanted to bury the hatchet. It was time to put the past in the past, but now she can’t do that because Leah is dead. It is possible to get over grudges, especially when people didn’t actually mean to cause the major harm they did.

The Irrational - Season 2
THE IRRATIONAL -- "Bad Blood" Episode 203 -- Pictured: (l-r) Max Lloyd-Jones as Simon, Arash DeMaxi as Rizwan

Sexual harassment, embezzlement, and murder, oh my!

This episode had a bit of everything that you would expect when it comes to a storyline involving a financial firm. Of course there was going to be sexual harassment, but that wasn’t the reason for murder. The boss admitted to pushing too hard and that he backed off once HR told him to. He didn’t retaliate against Leah.

I do wish that we could see the boss accept that what he did was wrong. We need to see men hold themselves accountable when they follow the old ways. But I do love that we learned that Leah was touch enough to go to HR. She was willing to stand up for herself when nobody else was.

It wasn’t the boyfriend, either. I love how Alec and Rose started working together throughout this episode. They were supposed to be on opposite sides, but really, they were both on the sides of justice. It didn’t take Alec long to figure out that rat poison just being left haphazardly in the closet didn’t suit Leah’s boyfriend’s style. He had OCD, and he couldn’t have stood looking at that box. I can relate.

So, it had to be someone else. It was actually because of the harassment line of questioning that led to opening up more of Leah’s emails and life. She knew someone was embezzling from the firm. It didn’t take too long to figure it all out, but they needed a confession because all the other evidence was circumstantial. It meant turning to Soph again.

While Soph didn’t intentionally kill Leah, she did want to hurt her. Had it not been for someone putting rat poison in her yogurt, Soph wouldn’t have actually killed Leah. However, Leah was always likely to die from the rat poison. So, Soph’s guilt was in the wrong place, but it also made sense. I get this feeling. You know you did something wrong, but the end result was always going to be the same. You just sped up the process.

With this guilt, Soph was able to do the right thing. She got her female boss to confess to embezzlement. This boss killed Leah because Leah found out and was going to expose her. This led to her being arrested, and it was the end of the case.

The Irrational - Season 2
THE IRRATIONAL -- "Bad Blood" Episode 203 -- Pictured: (l-r) Travina Springer as Kylie , Maahra Hill as Marisa

Kylie ends up framed in The Irrational

Meanwhile, Kylie and Marissa teamed up for a case after Marissa shared that Kylie’s code had been used in a hack on an insurance company. It even had Kylie’s signature in it, and the only place that code could have come from was a coding group that she was part of.

Phoebe even got involved in the case. With Phoebe’s help, they were able to figure out what was going on. It was a pretty obvious solve in the end, with Kylie just manipulating a situation thanks to the help of Phoebe.

What I loved about this whole storyline was for Marissa and Kylie to get more time together. Marissa made it clear that she trusted Kylie to be on the right side of the law. At no point did she even question if Kylie had done the hack, because she knows her ex-sister-in-law so well. More of this please!

There was also a great conversation at the end. Kylie knows that she will lose some friends now that she’s consulting for the FBI. Marissa pointed out that she lost her best friend because of it. Sometimes, you need to lose friends to be a better person. As bad as it seems at first, it’s worth it in the long run.

Phoebe also came to Marissa for advice. We’re finally getting to the bottom of why she’s not loving her new job as much—and it’s not just the rush. Someone above her is plagiarizing. We don’t get many of the details, but what are the chances that the plagiarizer is her new boss? It seems pretty obvious, but that’s not the point of this story. This offers character growth for Phoebe, as well as showing that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side—it’s where you water it!

The ending is all about Alec and Rose. It’s clear that Rose is on the out throughout this episode, and Alec needs to talk to her about this. We get this mature and needed conversation at the end, and they really do prove why they are relationship goals. Rose thinks that she should end it before something happens and she ends up dead, while Alec has learned that he is living on borrowed time anyway thanks to surviving that fire all those years ago. Neither of them want to lose each other, and they both admit that. Now I hope that we can just see them be happy together, because they both deserve it with everything they’ve gone through, and I love Rose so much. Alec clearly does as well with the awe on his face while she sang.

The Irrational airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC. Catch up the following day on Peacock.

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