Soldier's Heart

The consequence of a riot

is the dismantling of the leadership structure

within the inmates.

We need a pecking order inside...

so we have control on the outside.

I have an idea.

What if I could get you

everyone that's at war?

I need them to pick new leaders.

You're being placed under arrest

for possession of firearms. When there's peace,

charges against you will be dropped.

Ice cold, Mike.

You talk about restoring order.

Your SWAT buddy kills with impunity.

And the one guy who calls him out

winds up dead.

You're not the man to me, Mike.

I don't work for you.

I'm going today. You the boss now.

You feel me?

They scored an arsenal.

They cleaned out the whole shop.

He's on life support, buddy.

Robert dies and everything changes.

If it's a war they want... it's a war they're gonna get.

I hear my bonds have found their way into police custody.

What's in it for me?

Your girl.

First day back is fun, yeah? I'm Tati.

I'm going to wear you out.

I didn't know where else to go.

You disappoint me, Mike.

Oh, my God. Oh, shit.

I shot her, Mike.

There are your bonds.

See how easy this could've been?

Did everything go okay?

Everything went fine.

I'm on my way back.

My brother came to see me

pretty regular when I was inside.

Mitch, not Kyle.

Mom thought Kyle was too young to process

what had happened,

where I was,

what I had done.

She was right.

Mariam usually was.

Mitch would come every Wednesday like clockwork.

Something to look forward to.

Something to sustain.

He became my anchor and, for months,

that was all I had.

First time he visited, he saw I'd been fighting,

my face fucked up,

and I could see the worry in him,

as much as he tried to grin past it.

That fucking grin.

Mitch told me, "In the world,

five percent of people are truly good.

Five percent are evil."

The rest of us, we wrestle between the two.

Who we are,

what we are,

what we're willing to do.

Bow your heads and pray for God's blessing.

As months went by, then years,

I could see Mitch trying

to figure out which side I'd land on.

You are attentive to the prayers of the humble.

Eternal rest grant unto Mariam, oh, Lord.

May her soul and the souls of all the faithful...

He told me, "When evil cuts down the good...

...rest in peace...

...it's like the universe shifts, the scales topple."

...the Son and the Holy...

When that happens...

there has to be a reckoning.

There has to be retribution.

Balance must be restored.

Mitch said I'd end up on one of those extremes.

That what I choose

would determine how the scales would be balanced.

Which side I was on.

Who I would be.

It was in the trash bin. As close

to the goddamn fucking cars as possible.

Goddamn cowards knew it'd do the most damage.

- Miracle no one fucking died. Piece of shit

was homemade. They blew it remotely.

No fucking timer.

- Who we looking at? Doesn't matter.

After Robert, this, are you fucking kidding me?

Scorched earth--

- we go after fucking everybody. - No, no, no.

What do you mean, no? Mike, this can't go unanswered.

- It's not gonna go unanswered. - We got to fucking take-take it

to the streets. It's a goddamn cluster bomb.

You're already taking it to the fucking streets, Ian.

And this shit still happens.

No one's leaving their goddamn home.

Tell us another way then, Mike.

Got to be surgical.

- What the fuck is "surgical"? - We need to be fucking smart.

Jesus Christ, Mike, look where we're at.

There's no smart in any of this.

I know exactly where the fuck we are, Ian.

All right.

There's definitely no surgical in it.

So what are you thinking, Mike?

I need an hour.

- Mike, what are you gonna do? We need a bull's-eye.

Okay? I'm gonna find it, I'm gonna place it.

Give us somewhere to aim.

All right? Just give me an hour.

You know, it's always been a war zone.

But this shit right here, Mike?

Shit is next-level.

You get the flowers?

Yeah.

You hear what happened?

Yeah, I heard.

It's fucking wrong.

The disrespect.

- Yeah. - Mm-mm.

You know anything?

Why?

Oh, man. I know them crackers ain't trying

to put that shit on me, man.

Well, they put everything else on you, so...

That is your moms, Mike.

You know better than I'd fuck with family.

Yeah, I know.

I'll let that be known.

I know.

Good.

So...

...go be with your family, man.

- Fuck you doing here? - Yeah, well,

you got to give me something, Bunny.

Got to get the target off you.

Why's it on me for? What?

Offer the olive branch? Come on, man.

They want to come after you for Robert. What do you think?

My hands is clean on that, man.

Yeah. It's good faith, Bunny.

I got to get them on someone not you.

Who?

Does it fucking matter?

Nah.

What the fuck I got that's

gonna appease these motherfuckers, man?

Bunny...

All right,

the guns.

He's gonna give back all the guns

that he stole from the shop.

- All of 'em. Fucking kind

of Crip math is that, Mike?

Steve, does that even make goddamn sense?

It's a gesture.

- Definite gesture. - Fuck, no, this

- is the fucking gesture. - You see?

No, no, no.

He's not Citizen of the Year.

This is...

Holy fuck, it's Quasimodo.

What the fuck are we doing here?

Come on in. - Huh?

- The fuck are we doing? What the fuck

are you doing?

More than you assholes, clearly.

You were on a ventilator, like,

- two weeks ago. Yeah. And?

This shit doesn't fucking stand.

Yeah. - So we need a body count.

So who the fuck are we taking this fight to?

Well, it wasn't Bunny who came after you.

And he didn't do today, either.

How do you know that?

Because Bunny who tipped me off about your number being punched.

That's why.

No Bunny,

we're coming back from your fucking funeral.

And bombs are not in his vocabulary, so...

Mikey, he could've Rosetta Stoned

- that shit. - No, come on.

He made a gesture. Listen to them.

What fucking gesture?

- Giving back the guns he stole. - Oh,

- he gets a gold star for that? Fucking what I said.

So who we gonna hit, the fucking Mexicali?

No. The Aryans, all right?

They came after me.

- Gunner got hit inside. Yeah.

Fucking cockroach gets stabbed,

like, 20 times and he survived that shit.

They got a lot of reason to come after me,

come after us,