Yvonne has provided perhaps the most comprehensive recaps of all our guest bloggers, but I set the bar kinda high for her with the uber-recaps I’ve been doing with the episodes on the screener from CBS.

Not shockingly, Yvonne still managed to top me, snagging details I missed, forgot to get or didn’t know (the reporter’s name and what the Morse code meant, as examples, as well as the tangorita details in the first paragraph of her recap).

So, come back this afternoon for the Blackjack Fairgrounds blog carnival, and read on for Yvonne’s fantastic recap:

The first scene of the episode “Condor” opens with Stanley Richmond doing what Stanley does best: being thoughtful, attentive and romantic. (Remember when he made Mimi the tangorita on Thanksgiving in an attempt to produce a close facsimile of her favorite drink, the Mangorita? It was evident he was a keeper back then!)

Mimi wakes up and finds that Stanley has left a single red rose and a note saying “go outside,” complete with a smiley face, on a table at the foot of the stairs. Mimi goes out on the front porch and finds that Stanley has set up a beautiful table and prepared her a wonderful breakfast in celebration of her first day at her new job with Jennings and Rall.

“This is a big day. You get to be an accountant again. Count things, add things up. Maybe even a little subtraction, right?”

This gets Mimi started on how organized Jennings and Rall is, with their bar codes and spreadsheets and how they know where everything is, has been and where it’s going. “I’ve forgotten how beautiful order can be.”

“That’s probably the most boring story I’ve heard in months.” Mimi frowns at Stanley and looks hurt. “No, I love it. I mean, just a few weeks ago, we were sitting at this table, trying to figure out how to defend our farm from the next town over. Now, we’re sitting here, we’re about to eat pancakes with actual chocolate chips in them and you’re blabbing on about tracking packages.”

Just as Mimi leans over and kisses Stanley, a helicopter that clearly belongs to the new Cheyenne government (as evidenced by the new flag on the side) lands in front of Stanley’s house. The deputy communications director for President Tomarchio, Ken Kalley, steps out and asks Stanley if he is Stanley Richmond. Stanley confirms his identity and is told that the President wants to address the Nation (meaning the Allied States of America, under the government in Cheyenne) from the front porch of Stanley’s house.

Cut to Jake in town, overseeing the removal of cars from the street and the repairing of streetlights, in anticipation of the President’s arrival. Major Beck makes a comment about Jake’s sheriff’s uniform (or lack thereof), which consists of jeans and a T-shirt. Jake replies that he is “pacing himself” and shows Beck that at least he’s wearing the badge. Jake questions his need to be there, since the Secret Service is really handling all the details. Beck says that insider intel is always the best and then he informs Jake that “Condor” (the code name for the President, because the condor is the biggest bird in the West) will be arriving soon.

Next we see Hawkins and Chavez in the hunting cabin that belonged to Jake’s grandfather, going over a map and plotting out how Chavez can obtain the password for something (we aren’t sure for what yet). The plan is make their move while President Tomarchio is doing his 20-minute scheduled stop on Main Street in Jericho (Hawkins has set up two diversions that will take place during this time).

Next, the opening logo for Jericho appears, with the Morse code for this episode saying “J & R ran boxcar.”

Back in town, Major Beck is showing Jake around the “state of the art” command center that has been set up for the President’s arrival. Word comes in that the President will be arriving MUCH sooner than expected, so Beck sends Chavez (who is known to Major Beck as Lt. Parker) to secure the street outside for the arrival. Darcy leaves and walks over to Bailey’s where she sits down at a booth where her husband is sitting. She tells Hawkins that Chavez was sent out on patrol. “Did he get the password?” Robert asks. Darcy says she’s not sure. “If he did, he didn’t have a chance to give it to me. What if he’s not back in time?” Hawkins says he assumes he won’t be and that he’ll have to take care of it himself. “How, Robert? You’ll never get past all that security!” He tells Darcy that he needs to get his hands on one of their secure walkie talkies, a task Darcy then volunteers to do. He warns her that this is more than just eavesdropping or copying a few papers. She tells him she can handle taking a walkie talkie without being noticed. Hawkins smiles at his wife, obviously very proud of her.

We go back to the Richmond farm and see that the advance team is decorating the house for the President’s speech. Mimi is talking to Stanley about the gift registry for the wedding (standing beside them is Stanley’s sister, Bonnie! Glad she’s back, but it’s disconcerting to see her real name, Shoshannah Stern, listed as a “special guest star” rather than a regular cast member, in the opening credits). Stanley (who despite being wonderful, doesn’t always think before he opens his mouth) quips that Mimi’s friends will have to buy the expensive gifts, because he’s not making any of his friends buy an espresso maker. Stanley apparently forgot that all of Mimi’s friends and relatives are probably dead, due to fact one of the nuclear bombs went off in Mimi’s hometown of Washington, D.C. This fact isn’t lost on Bonnie though, who smacks Stanley on the shoulder (after Mimi excuses herself to go check on the progress of the decorating) and reminds him that she doesn’t have anyone to invite.

Meanwhile at the Command Center, Beck is running facial recognition software on everyone in town to find out who has a criminal past and may be a threat to the President during his visit. (We see the face of Dan Shotz, one of Jericho’s producers, come up on the computer screen). Beck explains to Jake what they are doing and why and tells Jake to let him know if there is anyone he can think of that should be added to the list of people restricted from secure areas today. Jake comments to Beck that he might be in the system, to which Beck replies, “You’re not.” Jake then asks Beck if he’s seen his file and Beck replies simply that “a lot of files come across my desk.”

Cut over to Mayor Gray Anderson’s office, where Eric Green and Emily are bringing a new history textbook, ordered for the school by Jennings & Rall, to his attention. The cover of the book shows the new flag of the “Allied States of America” and is entitled “A New America: A Comprehensive History.” Eric points out to Gray that the book talks about how the Cuban Missile crisis failed because we didn’t attack Russia and how we pulled out the Vietnam War too early. “At what point is this a country we don’t recognize?” Eric asks Gray. Gray is unfazed and says that the new government has saved Jericho and that this therefore entitles them to their own point of view.

Back at Command Center, where the facial recognition software is still doing its thing, it suddenly stops on Emily’s picture and flags her. A stranger walks up to Jake and says “Those terrorists just keep getting better looking, don’t they?” Jake asks if he can help him and the man introduces himself as Alex Utley. Jake makes a comment about the press credentials he’s wearing: “The Modesto Bee, eh?” Utley responds with, “We’re the second-largest paper in California now, though we had a lot of help.” Jake asks if that’s supposed to be a joke. “I guess not,” is Alex’s reply. He asks if the girl that has been flagged is a friend of his. Jake says she is and tells him that she’s a school teacher and has been flagged due to the fact that her father runs a road gang in the area. “I don’t know why that makes HER a threat,” Jake comments. Alex responds, saying “Well I think they’d say there’s no such thing as being too careful.” Jake asks if he’s reporting on the government or for them. “Yes,” is the reply.

Jake glances up and sees Darcy put something in her purse. She leaves and Jake gets up to follow her. Darcy manages to make it across the street, but Jake is cut off by the arrival of the Presidential motorcade. President Tomarchio arrives and steps out of his car and proceeds to glad hand and back slap various people in the crowd, as well as the taking time for the required photo ops with the kids in town. Darcy heads into Bailey’s where she tells Hawkins that she’s secured the walkie talkie. He tells her he needs for her to buy him as much time as she can and she leaves to go over to Town Hall. Jake walks into Bailey’s where he attempts to have a word with Hawkins. He asks him what’s going on, telling him that he saw Darcy take the walkie talkie. A secret service agent walks in and calls out to Jake, and Hawkins takes that opportunity to slip out. The agent asks if Jake has the missing walkie talkie and he proceeds to frisk Jake and then Alex Utley, who were both in the command center at the time. Jake tries to leave and follow Hawkins, but is told he has to stay put.

Back to the President, who is offering his condolences to Eric on the loss of his father, stating that he would have liked to have known him. He then asks Mayor Anderson if he’d like to represent the area at the new Constitutional Convention. “Constitutional Convention?” Eric asks. President Tomarchio responds, “We have the opportunity to write the next chapter in American history — the triumph of Democracy over the forces of evil. Think about it; we’ll need good men like you to keep this country strong.” Gray says he’d be honored to participate. Suddenly, a bunch of Secret Service agents come rushing in shouting, “Crash Condor.” They rush President Tomarchio to a secure room, as the missing walkie talkie is viewed as a serious security threat. Darcy, looking extremely nervous, tries to leave the sheriff’s office, but is stopped by Beck who tells her that everyone is on lockdown until the walkie talkie is recovered.

Meanwhile, back at Bailey’s, Jake asks Alex why he isn’t reporting about the “Crash Condor.” Alex tells him that the government doesn’t like incidents like this being reported on “and they control my credentials.” Jake then questions what kind of reporter he is, not wanting to make any waves. “A working one,” is the reply. Alex asks Jake if he’s heard of the Hudson River Virus and Jake says he heard about it on the news and that they were reporting they were able to stop the virus before it crossed the Mississippi River. Alex says that the truth is that it has crossed the “Blue Line” (the code name for the Mississippi which is heavily guarded by UN Peace Keepers). Jake responds by saying since no one is reporting the real news, he guesses that gets Alex off the hook as well. Alex tells him that before this he worked for the L.A. Times and won two Pulitzer prizes, “so I’ve got a pretty good idea about what it means to be a journalist and they don’t exist anymore.”

We go back to Gray and Eric; Gray’s asking Eric if his mom will be at the speech today. Eric tells him Gail went to stay with relatives in Cedar Brook. Gray responds that it’s probably too hard for her to be around here right now. Eric says, “You should be glad she’s not here. She would have thrown that new history book right in the Presidents face!” (Oh HECK yeah she would have and that would have been NOTHING compared to what Margie and Edna would have done if they had known about all this!) Eric asks, “How does a government no one voted for change the Constitution? We found time to have an election. Of all people, I think you would remember that.” Gray looks troubled by that statement. (As he darn well should! This is serious business.)

At Bailey’s, Jake says, “So you’re a real reporter, huh?” and says the news is reporting that the nukes were North Korean and financed by Iran. “Is that the whole story?” Alex responds by saying there are a lot of theories. Jake comes back, asking what if our government blew up two countries that had nothing to do with the attacks? Alex retorts by saying that he wrote a story about the holes in port security three years before the nuclear attacks and that the story lacked the “zazz” to make the headlines and was buried on page C18. “People get the news they deserve.” “No,” Jake responds, “people get the news they’re given; it just takes someone willing to give it to them.” Alex says he remembers when “two men with a typewriter took down the White House because people listened. They got angry and they acted.” (He’s referencing Woodward and Bernstein of the Washington Post breaking the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration.) “If I thought anyone was willing to listen anymore, believe me, I’d be talking.”

Back to Darcy, who definitely isn’t the most composed person under pressure! (I have a feeling she’s going to get better and better at this as time goes on though!) A Secret Service man has approached her and tells her he wants to look inside her purse. Major Beck steps up and asks him if that’s really necessary. He is told that it is and Darcy hands him her purse. Meanwhile, we see the files Hawkins is still downloading files and that the download is only a little over 50% complete. Yikes! Interestingly though, Major Beck looks across the room and sees the walkie talkie on a shelf. “You searched the entire office, huh?” Beck asks the Secret Service guy as he points it out to him. Boy, does the agent look embarrassed! I don’t see how Darcy could have pulled that off, but she did! (Woohoo, go Darcy!) The Secret Service agent radios that the missing walkie talkie has been found and is secure.

As Jake hears this come across he realizes that Hawkins is responsible for the whole thing. Hawkins, in the meantime, has almost completed the download. Just as he’s getting ready to leave, he hears someone coming and hides behind the door. He manages to knock the first guy through the door out and Chavez is coming up behind them and takes several others out. Beck orders Jake and his other men to stop Chavez and Chavez then proceeds to attack Jake. As he’s laying on top of him, he tells Jake to “find Hawkins” before he’s pulled off and hauled away.

Hawkins has managed to escape during the chaos and makes it back to the farmhouse. Jake walks in and is almost shot by Hawkins, who is startled. Jake is furious with Hawkins for not telling him that he had Chavez planted in the military. Hawkins asks Jake to check his pockets and Jake pulls out a piece of paper Chavez put there during their scuffle. It’s the password. Hawkins explains to Jake that the reports that are being shown say that the fuel for the nuclear bombs came from North Korea. The real info is on the files that Hawkins has downloaded, somewhere. He tries the password and it works. He finds the information, which says that the fuel officially came from a former Soviet territory. Hawkins says the information they have just found is only the paper trail and that the weapon he is holding is the hard evidence. The problem now, however, is that this information has to get to Texas in order to prevent them from joining the Cheyenne government. Hawkins explains to Jake that Chavez was the one with the contacts down there and that he’s about to be put into a maximum security prison in Colorado. Jake suggests using the reporter. Hawkins doesn’t like the idea but Jake tells him that he’s spent all this time trusting him. “Now it’s time for you to trust me.”

Jake takes the story to the Alex, who wants to break it. Jake warns him that he cannot call this story in, the Cheyenne government will hear if he tries to call it in on a government issued phone. He tells Alex to to leave the press pool and drive straight to Modesto. He references the “two men with the typewriter,” meaning that Jake and Alex are now the two men breaking the government conspiracy wide open.

We go back to Stanley’s farm, where Trish is helping to set up. Trish, it turns out, speaks sign language. Bonnie asks Trish to do her a favor. She explains that Stanley is getting ready to marry Mimi. Trish tells Bonnie that Mimi scares her. “Me too, but it just so happens I like her,” Bonnie responds.

Meanwhile, Beck is questioning Chavez, asking him what he was after that was so important. Chavez doesn’t say anything and won’t tell Beck who he really is. “I’m a dead man,” is all Chavez will say. Beck tells his men to run send Chavez’s fingerprints and other identification to Camp Laramie, so they can find out who he really is.

Meanwhile, Jake is out on the street and some men come walking out of Bailey’s with a body bag to load into a hearse. They are saying that some guy had a heart attack and died. Jake stops them before they load the body and unzips the bag. It’s the reporter, Alex Utley. [Ed note: Now Yvonne’s just showing off, saying his whole name again, given that I forgot to write his name down! LOL]

Back at the farm, the President is speaking, honoring the men and women that died in the battle that took place here between Jericho and New Bern.

We go back to Jake and Hawkins at the cabin, where Hawkins is unable to open one of the files with the password he has. Jake tells Hawkins that the reporter is dead and throws his badge down on the table in defeat.

Back to the President, who has taken the flag that has been folded from the Honor Guard. The President then hands the flag to Mayor Anderson (not to Eric, who has lost his father? Boo!). The Honor Guard then does their 21-gun salute to honor the dead.

Once again, we go back to Jake and Hawkins, who have concluded that the reporter made the mistake of calling the paper. (Apparently, he was under the false delusion that other people had this story and he needed to be the first to break it! It didn’t work out so well for him, unfortunately, and no one else had the story to begin with, so I don’t get why he didn’t listen to Jake). Jake is having a really hard time letting all this go and Hawkins makes it clear to him that he can’t afford for Jake to be his problem right now.

Meanwhile, the President is continuing his “patriotic” speech, saying that the Cheyenne government acted while the true federal government was just debating the proper response. He explains to the crowd that the new flag still has 13 stripes still representing the 13 colonies, but now they run in a new direction, “just as we must chart a new direction for ourselves. In a few short weeks, Mayor Anderson will represent you as we ratify a Constitution for this new nation that will be known to the world by a new name: The Allied States of America. And with this new name, a clean slate. Our debts have been forgiven and we are open again for business. That means jobs, stocked shelves, a return to life as we knew it. And, in the fall, we’ll have elections, where we can all take part in building a new government, as a safer stronger America. God bless you and God bless the Allied States of America.” Most of the crowd is cheering, but Eric and Gray look worried.

Some of the army guys under Beck’s command are escorting Chavez out so that he can be delivered to the prison in Colorado. Jake jumps him, but Beck tells him to let it go, that Chavez will get what’s coming to him. Beck returns to his office where a lieutenant gives him the information they’ve gotten back on Chavez’s identity. It turns out that Chavez stole the identity of a soldier that died in Afghanistan in 2003 and Beck realizes that Chavez is “black ops.” He tries to reach the soldiers escorting him by radio, but we flash to the jeep they were travelling in and see that Chavez has killed them all.

Back at Mayor Anderson’s office, Eric walks in to give Gray the flag he left behind at the ranch. Eric then gets on the mayor’s case for not asking the President any questions. Gray responds by saying that he wants to go to the Constitutional convention and that wouldn’t happen if he had made waves at the speech today. He then pulls out a framed “Don’t Tread on Me” flag that had hung in the office when Johnston was mayor. He had found it in storage and pulled it out. He tells Eric that he’s going to the convention to ask all those questions and that he’ll keep asking until they give him the answers. “I just don’t want them to see me coming.” He asks Eric to serve as mayor in his absence.

We go back to Beck in his office, who is having a video conference with Valente. Valente is giving Beck hell for the incident with Chavez and then asks about Sarah and how the hunt for her is going. Valente, who is not letting Beck talk, concludes the there is too much going on and that the responsibility is overwhelming for Beck. He says he going to send him some help in the form of a “private contractor who knows the area.” That will free up Beck to look for Sarah while the contractors run the day-to-day stuff.

Jake comes in and Beck, knowing that Jake is involved in all this somehow, asks Jake how he thinks Chavez got out of his handcuffs. Jake says that he was a spook and that he probably picked the lock on his handcuffs. Beck replies with, “Yeah, that’s probably it.”

Returning to Stanley’s farm, Mimi is in the process of cleaning up the mess from the speech. Stanley and Bonnie are looking at her with a pained look on their faces. They finally approach her and tell her that they had asked Jennings & Rall to look for her family (the favor that Bonnie asked of Trish). They tell her they were unable to find anything, other than the name of her father’s second cousin on a census in Indiana, but he had left the the area and a woman with the same last name in a refugee camp who turned out to be no relation to her. Stanley tells her how sorry he is, “I really wanted you to have your family at the wedding.” She tells him that she will have her family, referring to him and Bonnie and then she pulls them both into a group hug.

Hawkins meets up with Chavez and tells him that the password opened every file except for one called “Project Boxcar.” He asks Chavez if he’s heard of it and Chavez tells him no and that the password should have opened all of the files. He looks surprised by this news. (I personally don’t trust this guy and I didn’t the moment he showed up!) Chavez asks Hawkins if he remembers “when this job used to be easy?” Hawkins laughs and tells him no, and Chavez leaves.

Eric and Emily are waiting for Jake at the Green household and Eric tells him that Gray asked him to act as Mayor while he’s at the convention. “Mayor Green,” Jake says. “Nice to hear that again,” Emily adds.

Back at City Hall, Major Beck walks outside just as two Humvees drive up with “Ravenwood” printed on the doors of both vehicles.

Back at the Greens, Jake is wondering how things with Beck got so “dicey”. Eric responds by saying that they’d been through worse and they are still here. He says they can handle this and he and Eric clink their beers in a toast.

Back at City Hall, a man gets out of one of the Humvees. It’s Goetz, the bad guy from Ravenwood we were introduced to last season, first in “Rogue River” (he was stealing supplies and killing people in the hospital where Jake and Eric went to get medicine for their father) and then in “Crossroads” where he fails in his attempt to attack Jericho and take their supplies (he then turns on New Bern). He did say he would be back as a contractor of the government when all this was over to help clean things up. He’s a man of his word. This is not a good thing…

He introduces himself to Beck as a tactical operations officer and says: “I’ll take it from here.”

Thanks, Yvonne, for a really fabulous recap!!!

Photos courtesy of CBS; Mimi & Stanley image courtesy of CBS, motivator by kricka.