‘Sheriff Country’ Episode 11 Recap – And Nothing Was the Same

I always feel bad comparing Sheriff Country to Boston Blue directly, since it doesn’t seem like a fair comparison, but they’re both procedurals airing on the same channel on the same day, and one is significantly better than the other in a way that is strikingly obvious whenever they try to adopt a similar cadence. They both did the “big” mid-season premiere thing, and both have had to respond to it. Boston Blue basically just ignored that obligation and fell into a holding pattern, but in Episode 11, “The Aftermath”, Sheriff Country directly reckons with the events of “Crucible” and unpacks how their fallout is going to impact the relationships between characters going forward.

There is a case of the week here, but it’s the least interesting thing going on. In a nice bait-and-switch, we’re introduced to Theo and Reed, two criminals breaking into the courthouse and stealing sensitive files and paperwork… at the behest of the county. See, the Sheriff’s Department siege has prompted everyone to take a look at their internal security, and this is one of the ways in which the repercussions are manifesting systemically.

When Theo ends up dead in a hit-and-run, though, the case takes something of a turn, leading Mickey and co. to a corrupt judge who has been taking kickbacks from a juvenile prison to which she was radically over-sentencing young offenders. But even this has a personal contour to it, since this was the judge who sentenced Cassidy’s sister, who was even sent to the same facility. Her life was never the same afterwards, so Cass blames the judge for most of her woes, prompting her to be a little fast and loose with due process to make sure she’s taken down.

But Cass is also struggling with the life she took in the siege, and the idea that she’s being awarded a medal for doing so doesn’t sit especially well with her either. Sure, she was acting in the line of duty, but she’s young and never had to do anything like that before; the shoot was “clean”, officially, but that doesn’t make it any less traumatic.

Boone is taking things better, but he has other problems. His efforts to shield Nora from the truth of what was really happening mean that he painted a much rosier picture of the event than the reality. As soon as that reality starts to creep in, though, Nora is alarmed, both about the dishonesty – however well-meaning it might have been – and the fact that, to be Boone’s wife, she’s going to have to live with the fear of him walking into a similar situation every day. It progresses through Sheriff Country Episode 11, but the writing is on the wall. By the end, Nora has to back away from her relationship with Boone, unwilling to live as the “cop’s wife” again.

A similar thing happens with Mickey and Travis. They’re also in a nice honeymoon period, but their rekindled relationship is thrown for another loop when Skye – who’s back in the show now, quite randomly – reveals that Travis’s latest client is… Enoch Barlow. Thanks to Enoch saving Travis’s life, they seem to have “bonded”, and Travis is adamant that he deserves a fair defence, especially given the FBI’s woeful handling of his arrest and the subsequent siege. Mickey agrees, more or less, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it hasn’t put a major downer on their reunion. There still seems to be a bit more meat on the bone here than there is with Boone and Nora, but I am wondering whether the showrunners will find a relationship between Mickey and Boone too tantalising to resist.

I didn’t even know that Skye worked for Travis, so her deciding to take a job with her aunt instead didn’t move me, but a returning Wes managed to provide a perfect example of why this show works in a near-wordless scene with Mickey when he cradles her with tearful relief after seeing her for the first time since the siege. Sheriff Country might not always know what to do with all of these characters, but it certainly knows how to make their screen time count.