[s19e16] Who's Brian Now? Here

Liv? he whispered, the name sounding like a prayer he’d forgotten how to say.

I’m here, Brian, she said, holstering her weapon and moving toward him, signaling the others to hold back. [S19E16] Who's Brian Now?

The case was a jagged mess. An undercover sting into a human trafficking ring had gone sideways, and Cassidy, working for a separate task force, had been identified as the primary muscle for a mid-level enforcer. The question wasn't just where he was, but who he was now. Was he still the cop playing a part, or had the part finally swallowed the cop? The case was a jagged mess

Liv, you shouldn’t be on this, Fin said, his voice a low rumble as he leaned against her desk. Conflict of interest is all over this like a bad suit. Was he still the cop playing a part,

I don't know where the lie ends anymore, he muttered, his head dropping. I did things. I stayed silent when I should have moved. I looked at the mirror this morning and didn’t see a shield. I just saw him.

He wasn’t the Brian who had clumsily tried to navigate a relationship with her years ago. He wasn’t the Brian who had barely survived his stint in Internal Affairs. This Brian wore the skin of a man who had seen too much and done too much to ever really come home.

Brian sat in a metal chair in the center of the room, his hands zip-tied—not by the suspects, but by himself, a desperate signal of surrender to his own identity. His face was a map of bruises, and his eyes were hollow.