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Recap / Sue Thomas FB Eye S 2 E 13 The Holocaust Survivor

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At Seniors' Game Night for the local deaf club, Sue meets a new friend, Helga, and finds a new case — Helga insists she saw an especially cruel guard from the concentration camp where she was sent, but Sue doesn't have much evidence with which to work. Meanwhile, Myles, Bobby, and Dmitrius have a much more comedic game of cat and mouse on their hands when Randy denies some of their work expenses.

This episode includes examples of the following tropes:

  • Actually Pretty Funny: After being deluged with expense vouchers, Randy suggests a truce; he'll authorize immediate reimbursement for the car and the boots if the agents stop. When they agree, he smugly has one of his workers wheel in jars of unsorted coins. Bobby finds the joke on them pretty amusing; Myles declares war.
  • Bothering by the Book: Obstructive Bureaucrat Randy denies Myles' and Bobby's expense reimbursements for a rental car and work boots. The group decides to get back at him by drowning him in expense vouchers for cheap, mundane things that they bought out of pocket, each on a separate form.
    Sue: I used three sheets of a yellow pad at home last night for FBI business. That should be three vouchers.
  • Close to Home: Sue is shaken by the case given that Helga is also deaf. It reminds her that, had she lived back in Nazi-run Germany, she would have been rounded up as imperfect too.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: According to Helga, her sister was starved and ultimately died in her arms.
  • Evil Old Folks: The guard, Otto, aka Hans Schaeffer, is still as bad as he was back when Helga knew him. He's currently in league with a white supremacist group to unleash anthrax.
  • Good Cop/Bad Cop: Dmitrius plays up his status as a minority, getting rough and confrontational with a white supremacist. Myles "tries" to stop him, apologizes for him, and suggests that he can give said supremacist information that would let him win a suit against the FBI. It helps that they're doing it in the field, making it look more natural and causing the guy to fall for it.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: Otto escaped when the guards were being taken into custody after World War II and lived free by hiding for quite some time. However, Helga's insistence that she saw him and his involvement with a white supremacist group end up bringing him down by the end of the episode.
  • Near-Villain Victory: The villains weaponize the anthrax and smuggle it into their target building before the FBI arrives. The agents just manage to catch up in time; Otto's age slows the villains down a bit, and he refuses to give his younger partner the anthrax to deploy, saying that he's waited too long for this moment.
  • Obstructive Bureaucrat: Randy refuses to authorize Bobby and Myles' forms for reimbursement, saying that the rules declare they should have gotten those expenses authorized before buying them.
  • Operation: [Blank]: The agents come up with something entitled "Operation Papercut" to punish Randy for denying them reimbursement: they'll give him so many reimbursement forms that it'll choke him.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain: Dan Peters, a young lawyer and supremacist sympathizer, happily gives Sue directions and even offers to walk her to the particular building she requested...before he finds out that Levi is Sue's hearing ear dog, not her pet. Afterwards, he tells her she'll have to walk herself.
  • Shower of Angst: To help the case, Myles pretends he's somewhat sympathetic to a white supremacist they're interrogating. The guy claps him on the arm and says he's glad they have friends in high places. After he's gone, Myles looks disgustedly at the spot and comments that he needs a shower.
  • The Social Darwinist: The Nazis' thoughts on purity regarding people with disabilities comes into play during the episode. Helga wasn't allowed to marry because the Nazis didn't want any additional deaf people being born. They eventually took her and her family to a concentration camp for a more final solution.
  • Sole Survivor: Helga's family was put in the camp with her, but she was the only one who made it out.
  • Vengeance Feels Empty: Helga has been waiting for years for justice against Otto, who helped imprison her and kill her family. However, when she eventually gets it, she's confused that she doesn't feel any different inside. Sue tells her that help from God and other people will eventually help her heal.

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