Slower, smaller, and less satisfying: The incredible shrinking Believe.

So at the end of last episode, Bo magically released Tate from his GPS anklet and said, “You can go now.” This week, they added, “you can go home now,” which is what he does: a bee-line to Hudson, a small fishing community in some northeastern state, where Tate was framed for the two murders that put him in federal prison. Moments after he splits, Bo tells Winter “he wanted to go home,” and they go after him. No surprise they hook up in Hudson almost immediately, mutually trapped there by an FBI/Cop cordon.

We see Skouras in front of the government, in a ridiculously huge War Room like something out of Strangelove, and are told that there’s some sort of urgent short-term deadline for weaponizing Bo. We see Skouras try to push around a couple of his other mentally disturbed psychics, and see that Joshua, last week’s failed supervillain, is apparently brain-dead (because of Bo? Because of the overuse of his power? Not clear), but Skouras uses him as a motivator to get another psycho-psychic, Sean, into the fold.

Going through a scene-by-scene breakdown in Tate’s home town adventure isn’t necessary; maybe it’s the presence of veteran director Roxanne Dawson – yes, B’Alanna Torres herself – but the story does make a certain amount of meandering sense. Tate comes to town to see who set him up, confronts his no-good palooka of a Dad who turns out to have a heart of gold. He stumbles around town, finds his former best friend and other buddies, and one of them even gives him fifty grand to get out of town. Which he doesn’t. Turns out the best friend was a stooge for the Fifty Grand Bartender, who killed the two people that Tate was supposed to have killed because they wouldn’t ‘get in line’ for his illegal fishing activities, and they all conspired to get Tate convicted.

Then Bo makes Tate make a promise…

Bo makes Tate promise, promise, he won’t hurt anybody. Instead, tate confronts all the conspirators, conveniently together on a teeny fishing boat just offshore, and convinces his former best friend to “do the right thing,” which in this case means shooting his other three co-conspirators at point-blank range. We then see the boat blow up big-time from shore, unclear (to this day) who triggered the explosion or even if his old-new best buddy even survived. And I guess helping you best friend shoot three guys and blow up a boat isn’t directly “hurting people,” so…it’s okay. (Just like Winter saying “we don’t use guns,” over and over, but allowing Channing to carry one, wave it around, and threaten to shoot people. That doesn’t count.)

Skouras finally talks his new disturbed tool Sean into killing what remains of his old disturbed tool Joshua. This is supposed to be a big thing – Skouras has a new super-weapon in this timid little guy who killed an already comatose braid-dead guy with his mind. He’s the new field agent? As Count Floyd would say “oooh, skeeeery”.

And at the end, for no particular reason, Bo ‘forces’ Winter to finally tell Tate that Tate himself is her Daddy.  Which is, in fact, the only thing that moves the story along at all. Consider:

• Though they keep talking about the cops and the FBI closing off the town, and we see them questioning Tate’s Dad and another woman, they never even get close to Tate or Winter or Bo (even though he’s introducing her around town). In fact, it’s been weeks since we’ve the “task force” has done much of anything but straggle in after the good stuff’s done and forget to cover rear entrances. But they’re still chasing ‘em.
• Since Tate killed virtually all of the co-conspirators, he has no real chance of exonerating himself for the murders for which he’s convicted. Which means he’s now a permanent fugitive, but  doesn’t really seem to care. So Tate’s still a wanted man and Bo is still Miss Amber Alert 2014.
• Winter’s team seems to have been whittled down to just Winter himself and Channing. No sign of other friends, resources, or money. So they’re not any more help than they’ve been so far. (And speaking of money…Tate was given a satchel with $50,000 in it halfway through. He took it. And it’s never mentioned again. Wonder if it will show up?)
• It is a relief that Tate finally knows his Bo’s father, but once’s it’s tearfully revealed, Tate doesn’t ask the only question that remains: why didn’t you tell me earlier? Why is his fatherhood such a secret and – as they call it repeatedly – a burden? And why tell him now, as opposed to at the beginning or any other time along this wandering way? And though there’s some mention that his presence my “amplify” or “protect” Bo, there’s been no real evidence of that, since there’s nothing to compare it to: she’s been with Tate since the beginning.
• One last thing. The implication for five weeks has been that Bo is at the center of some vast governmental/corporate conspiracy, and has been all her life – ever since her pregnant Mom was discovered by Skouras. She is being bred to be the ultimate weapon (though Skouras has done a piss-poor job training or even holding on to her). But now we found out Tate’s murder-frame had nothing to do with that; it was the result of a small-town corruption scam.  That’s both puzzling and a disappointment. A bad end to one story-thread.

At the core of this disappointment, however, is the sheer, contrived inconsistency of the whole concept if Believe. All its tension is based on Bo’s completely (conveniently) unreliable super-powers, that only work or only don’t work when it shoves that week’s plot along. There are no rules, and consequently no real risk. How can she read minds and tell the future but she doesn’t know Tate’s her Dad? How is it she knows Tate’s in trouble and drags all the other good guys to the water’s edge to watch the boat blow up but doesn’t know he survives? How is it she’s never heard of a milkshake in Episode Three but she blithely orders a Shirley Temple at a bar (a bar?) in Episode Six? Because…you know, it’s Bo. So…you know. Bo.

Next week: Bo gets sick! Is it back to Orchestra for more whining and snarling? Prob’ly, yeah.