Stanley (Jeff Perry) briefs the newsroom about the opening weekend of the state fair this weekend. Claire (Meredith Holzman) offers to cover the pig races, Juna (Ami Park) is all over food and snacks. Eileen (Hilary Swank) walks into the meeting, makes a snide comment, and Stanley advises her to get back to work. Gabriel (Pablo Castelblanco) gets his first assignment at the fair.
Eileen tries to convince Roz (Grace Dove) to work the weekend but is turned down. Stanley informs the two that their story on Chief Durkin is very popular and that Durkin has been suspended from his job, thanks to the story. Roz leaves, and Stanley asks if Eileen would like to cover the fair. She opts to keep working. (The face Eileen makes at Stanley is priceless. I have made that facial expression many times in my life. Well done Hilary Swank. There should be an Emmy for body language.)
Before leaving, Gabriel brings Eileen a package that was left at the front desk. Inside is a note that says, ‘Go Home’ and a bullet. While Eileen is not shaken by the gift Claire and Bob (Matt Malloy) tell her to inform Stanley so that the police and lawyers can be notified.
Eileen is riding with Gabriel, and while she is in a pensive mood, Gabriel is jubilant about his first assignment. At her hotel, Eileen gets a phone call from her stalker who vows to not let her ruin the state. The call ends with another threat on Eileen’s life.
With the weekend to herself, Eileen attempts to get back to her book about the Secretary of Defense, but the missing notices of dozens of indigenous women taped to her wall keeps her occupied. The news team is taking in every avenue of the state fair. Claire is on every ride, and Juna is sampling and talking to everyone who are gorging on the snakes. As judge of the jam competition, Bob is very busy.
The cabbage competition forces Gabriel to meet the winner, a teenager named Erica Block. He shares his nerves, and they easily start to connect. Eileen can’t look away from the wall of missing women. Gabriel calls thinking his story is boring, and Eileen recommends that he go deeper by traveling to the farm and getting more information.
Roz, who has managed to avoid the fair, is playing in a basketball tournament, and after winning goes out for drinks with her friends. Grilled on her working partnership with Eileen, Roz compares Eileen to the geese that come up every summer. They make a lot of noise and act like they run the place. (This describes Eileen perfectly.)
Claire is having a great time at the fair, and when Juna joins her with two large bags of popcorn, it would seem Juna is having a great time too. (I wish I could spend my days covering the food at a state fair.)
Gabriel goes to Erica Block’s farm and after explaining why he is following up, her father (Jason Jones) comes out and invites Gabriel in. (Jason Jones plays this role with a strong hint of scary creepiness. Something is up at this farm.)
Mr. Block asks Gabriel to hand over his cell phone, because as he explains the farm is a no cell phone home. Gabriel is highly inquisitive and while he asks insightful questions, Mr. Block lets him be so that his interview with Erica can continue.
Eileen is going for a jog, but her ride down the elevator is bringing up some anxiety. Or maybe it was the message from her editor in New York. Eileen rushes outside and collapses. An ambulance is called, and the paper’s publisher Aaron Pritchard (Shane McRae) is there when she wakes up. Eileen lets her guard down and tells the EMT that she had a panic attack.
Gabriel’s tour of the farm is quite wonderful. He and Erica bond. The Block family has a complicated history. At the hospital, Eileen is her charming self with the doctor, and is informed that she can’t leave for a few hours. Aaron comes in with coffee and tells her he won’t leave her alone. (It would be nice to think that Aaron is a good guy.) The conversation between the two is less than cordial, with Eileen insulting Aaron about his control of the paper. She does apologize saying that she has a terrible personality when she unravels. (It’s moments like these that really make me like Eileen.)
As Gabriel learns more about Erica and her dad, Eileen is admitted to the hospital. Getting back his cell phone, Gabriel decides to investigate a locked barn at the farm, only to find a large amount of fertilizer. Mr. Block confronts him and thankfully Gabriel gets out alive. Calling Eileen, Gabriel needs help. She will only help if he picks her up at the hospital. Aaron returns to the room, surprised at seeing Eileen gone, and calls Stanley.
Looking to meet with Gabriel, Stanley calls concerned, because Aaron told him about the panic attack. In the car with Gabriel, he tells Eileen about touring the farm and the odd amount of fertilizer that is stored there. The next day at church, Gabriel meets for a few moments alone. She shares with him a manifesto that her dad got from his friend group.
Back in the newsroom, Stanley and Bob agree this is a major story, but with Eileen, Gabriel is told to go back to the fair and to get a comment from Mr. Block, and his association with the Genesis group which wrote the manifesto. With Eileen backing him up, Gabriel is very precise in his questioning. Confronting him with the manifesto, Gabriel is assisted by Erica, when she admits to supplying the document.
Eileen and Gabriel return and Stanley is unwilling to publish. Gabriel is fuming over having his story cut, and Eileen has a lead on the Gloria Nanmac case. Stanley takes Gabriel out for a beer and tries to offer some support. He also tells the rookie that he is now a full-time reporter.
Eileen and Roz meet with the former chief of police in Meade. Their meeting is a success, and the two reporters are given an unredacted copy of the police report about the death of Gloria Nanmac.
Bill’s Perspective:
Alaska Daily is fantastic. I haven’t been excited for network dramas in a long time, and this show is growing with every new episode. Hilary Swank is the lead, and I love Eileen, but the rest of the cast continues to support and show the depth of the world that we are introduced to.
I was not expecting Pablo Castelblanco to get a whole episode, and this was a great story to tell. In journalism, one never knows where a story can lead. The fact that he was assigned to the giant cabbage competition which leads to uncovering a radical extremist in the town’s midst, seems like a stretch, but is handled perfectly.
Alaska Daily is a mystery that has many layers, but it’s the story of the people who work at the paper that makes this show so compelling, and a must see each week.