Recap / The Pretender S 3 E 13 Pool

In Memphis, Jarod intervenes to stop a young woman named Billie (Jennifer Garner) shooting a flamboyant pool hustler named Fontenot (Tim DeKay). Learning that Fontenot is suspected of having murdered Billie's adoptive father, Marvin Dupree, Jarod promises to help uncover the truth.

Miss Parker, at her father's insistence, introduces her boyfriend Tommy to her family. Miss Parker's father marries Brigitte.

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This episode contains examples of:

• And Starring: The list of episode guest stars ends in "with Jennifer Garner".
• And This Is for...: Just before trying to shoot Fontenot, Billie says, "This is for you, Marvin."
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Things get awkward at the dinner very quickly. Lyle himself is okay with it, but it causes everyone else to just stop talking for a beat.
    Tommy: [to Lyle] What happened to your thumb?
  • During their rematch, Jarod talks about honor.
    Fontenot: What?
    Jarod: That is, after all, what you lost to Marvin Dupree, isn't it?
  • Billie forces Fontenot to confess at gunpoint and is then fully prepared to shoot him dead. Jarod, however, gets her top stop and leave Fontenot to the authorities.
    Billie: Get out of the way, Jarod. Please, please.
    Jarod: Would your father want you to do this?
• Armor-Piercing Response: During their pool games, Jarod repeatedly rattles Fontenot, such as when observing his house suspiciously had some work done (alluding to how he covered up the murder) and how Marvin got the better of him.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Averted. Jarod had assumed pool would be a snap, due to his mathematical knowledge (not to mention how he usually adapts to various tasks by reading books), but Billie disagrees. She says knowledge of math helps someone figure out the basics of how to play the game but not how to actually be a player. Jarod talks her into teaching him the ropes, mindset, and the like.
• Bathroom Search Excuse: While visiting Fontenot's house, Jarod asks to use the bathroom as an excuse to scope out the house's security system and prepare a way for him to break in later and conduct a proper search.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Subverted. Marvin beat Fontenot at a game of pool, outright hustling him for a few thousand dollars. He was murdered soon afterwards. It's noted that was a rather petty motivation, even for a well-known racist, and Jarod admits it never quite added up. He discovers that Fontenot had a very personal reason to hate Marvin for years, with the game of pool just being the last straw.
• Everyone Has Standards: Miss Parker is disgusted that Brigitte would use "the miracle of birth" just to ensure she couldn't be dumped later.
• Facepalm: In the flashback, Billie hides her face behind her hand out of embarrassment over Marvin telling everyone in the club how proud he is of her for getting the lead in the high school play.
• Fixing the Game: Fontenot has one of his goons ambush Jarod in an alley and rough him up. Jarod wakes up in Fontenot's house, being told he was saved from an attack and then invited to play a game of pool. With a sore arm, Jarod is fully aware of what really happened and recognizes that Fontenot wanted to stack the deck in his favor, but he indulges this to feel his opponent out and snoop around the house.
• Freudian Excuse: Earl says he could never quite understand why Fontenot would murder Marvin, saying it was just so hateful and petty. He looked into Fontenot's background and found out his father was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, thus explaining his attitudes about skin color.
• Hard-Work Montage: When Billie teaches Jarod how to play pool. He gets progressively better, as it goes on.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: After the awkwardness of Tommy asking Lyle what happened to his thumb, Miss Parker immediately asks who wants a drink and is first in line. She is later shown downing a glass in one sip.
• Irony: Jarod disables the alarm sensor on a window in Fontenot's kitchen using one of the fridge magnets: specifically one advertising the security company that presumably installed the alarm system.
• It's Personal: Billie's mother was to marry Fontenot, but she left him for Marvin. This left Fontenot with a bitter hatred of the man that (as Jarod notes) went beyond Fontenot's racism.
• Line-of-Sight Alias: In the nightclub, Jarod introduces himself as 'Jarod Pepper', taking the surname from a bottle of hot sauce sitting on the bar.
• Malicious Misnaming: Miss Parker makes a point of addressing Brigitte as "Bridget" as a petty way of trying to cut her down to size.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: In the backstory, Marvin (a black man) was in a relationship with Billie's mother (a white woman), but they were forced to end it due to strong opposition from her family. It comes out that Marvin was Billie's actual father, which her mother kept secret so she wouldn't face Half-Breed Discrimination, and when he took her in after her mother died all she knew was that he was a family friend.
• Meet the In-Laws: Tommy is invited to a Parker family dinner party to meet Miss Parker's father, mother-in-law-to-be, and brother. There are some rough moments, with Tommy innocently bumping into difficult subjects like why Lyle is missing a thumb, but on the whole, as Miss Parker says afterward, it went well in that nobody killed anyone else.
• Monochrome Past: Billie's flashback to a happy memory with Marvin is shown in black and white.
• No Full Name Given: The usual execution of this in regard to Brigitte and Mr Parker is highlighted during the wedding ceremony, where normally their full names would be stated during the exchange of vows. The celebrant visibly hesitates as he begins to ask Mr Parker if he takes Brigitte; Mr Parker whispers something in his ear, and he resumes: "Do you, Mr Parker, take Brigitte..." (On the other hand, he doesn't hesistate at all when addressing or referring to Brigitte as just "Brigitte", which might even mean that that's her actual full legal name.)
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: At the family dinner party, which is held at Miss Parker's house because her father says renovation work at his house is running over schedule, Brigitte makes a remark about the untrustworthiness of construction workers, apparently unaware that this includes Tommy. (Knowing Brigitte, though, it's entirely possible that she knew exactly what she was doing.)
• Parental Substitute: Billie wants justice for Marvin, considering him the closest thing to a father that she ever had. Then she learns that Marvin was her father.
• Plot Parallel: Both plot lines revolve around a father and his daughter. Billie and Miss Parker both love their fathers, but Billie's father always put her future first even when it cost him something, while Miss Parker's father puts his own desires first and it's not clear that he cares about her beyond her usefulness to him.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Fontenot is an unabashed racist whose family has ties to the Ku Klux Klan.
• Rage Breaking Point: Jarod theorizes this is what led to Fontenot killing Marvin. It turns out that Billie's mother was Fontenot's fiancée before leaving him for Marvin. It was a major sore spot for years, so Marvin hustling him at his favorite game in his own house was the breaking point.
• Secret-Keeper: As Marvin's brother, Earl was the only other one who knew the truth about Billie's parentage. Jarod later discovers Earl was keeping another secret: Billie's mother was Fontenot's fiancée.
• So Proud of You: In the flashback, Marvin is very proud of Billie getting cast as the lead in the high school play.
• Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace: When the celebrant asks the question, the camera lingers on Miss Parker, who's visibly tempted (since she has doubts about the wisdom of the match in general and Brigitte's sincerity in particular) but ultimately decides not to say anything. For full dramatic effect, it happens right at the end of the ceremony, after the vows and exchange of rings and just before "you may kiss the bride." (In real life, if it's included at all, the question is always asked much earlier, because if somebody does object there's no point doing the vows and the rest.)
• This Is Gonna Suck: Played for laughs. Miss Parker is a constant bundle of nerves ahead of the dinner.
• The Unreveal: The wedding scene includes the exchanging of the vows but still manages not to reveal Mr Parker's full name.
• Wicked Pretentious: Fontenot dresses elegantly and puts on a show of refinement, but he's a vicious brute underneath the gloss, and when he quotes Shakespeare he misidentifies the character and play the quotation is from.

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