The Finder (15) Home Ents Review

We got our first glimpse of Walter Sherman (Stults) when he helped out Booth and Brennan in an episode of Bones. He now appears in his own spin-off crime drama, The Finder.

Set in the Florida Keys, the season sees reclusive war veteran Walter Sherman using his reputation as a man that can find anything and anyone. This was a skill he was highly noted for in the army, even more so when on one unlucky day an explosive event resulted in severe brain damage; that today, triggers the ability to see connections between things that no one else can.

Joined by his “legal adviser” and bar owner Leo Knox (Duncan), Deputy U.S Marshal Isabel Zambada (Masohn) and a troubled gypsy teen Willa Monday (Hasson), Sherman is hired to find people and things with little or no evidence to go on but his instinct.

Walter is full of quick wit, has a case of paranoia (among other mental idiosyncrasies), is able to read people and their actions to find what he needs and always comes through in the end. He takes to role play to work out situations, for example laying on a plane runway and pretending to be an airplane, putting on high heel shoes to literally walk in someone else’s footsteps and taking off his shirt and slithering across the floor like a snake. He also uses toy airplanes and dolls to recreate scenarios, with his crazy creations appearing like a Mouse Trap game.

Stults plays this character extremely well, leaving an audience entertained as he tap dances across a burned stage and gets tasered; as well as curious as his dreams play out the scenario he is currently working on. The bond between Stults and his co-star Michael Clarke Duncan appears extremely strong on screen. Duncan will always be remembered for his roles in Armageddon and The Green Mile among many others and his strong, deep voice when projecting lines such as “I don’t appreciate the ocean, I tend to sink,” will always result in a small smile to slide across your face.

There are a few familiar faces that tend to appear across episodes including Bones regulars Doctor Lance Sweets (John Francis Daley) who comes to evaluate Sherman to see if he should be liaising on FBI cases; and entomologist Doctor Jack Hodgins (T. J. Thyne), a conspiracy theorist who wants Sherman to look into a UFO case. There is also Jonathan Slavin and Patrick Fischler who play different roles than they played in Bones and cameos by Mitch Pileggi and 50 Cent among others.

Along with all the drama there are countless comical moments such as Walter insisting tin foil hats be worn to stop them being knocked out by aliens and Knox squeezing into the motorbike side car. However, there are also some more serious and quite sad issues dealt with such as Knox’s family history and Willa in an arranged gypsy marriage.

One of the stranger episodes is “Little Green Men” when Walter researches into UFO footage filmed by an American shuttle on their descent back to Earth. With his brain damage and an “alien” moving cars and knocking him out, this episode really gets the mind working in over time. As the series draws to a close the final episode is quite an emotional one for everyone involved. Walter’s brother shows up to take him to see his dying father whose final wish is for the brothers to find their mother while Willa is faced with a ‘shall I marry or not’ decision.

The Finder is the perfect combination of crime solving with plenty of laughs along the way. It is just a shame however that the show was not renewed for a second season.

Review by Michelle Moore

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The Finder is out now on DVD.