Quantico – FALLENORACLE

By starrymag | February 19, 2017

By: Emily Cross

 

The episode begins in the terrorist crisis. Alex (Priyanka Chopra) tells the hostages that the FBI’s hostage rescue team will soon be there, but they will assume that every hostage is a terrorist in disguise. She lies, telling them that the hostage rescue team’s goal is to shoot on sight. If they surrender themselves, not only do they have a chance of dying, they run the risk of letting the terrorists (CLF and AIC) get away. Will (Jay Armstrong Johnson) tells everyone that he helped find the AIC and he won’t let them get away with what they’ve done. Alex then convinces everyone to take the service tunnel exit.

Eight months ago at The Farm, Alex and Owen (Blair Underwood) are meticulously going through Lydia’s (Tracy Ifeachor) emails to find any information about the AIC. They find information on who Lydia recruited and why, but still don’t know who she is communicating with. While they discuss the AIC’s recruits, we get a small update on where they are and what they’re doing. Leon (Aaron Diaz) meets with Nimah (Yasmine Al Massri), who admonishes him for sabotaging the AIC’s mission in Munich. He ignores a call from Jane, telling Nimah that it’s over. Dayana (Pearl Thusi) takes a call from Lydia, who tells her that she will be the one to handle the problem that is Leon. Harry (Russell Tovey) and Sebastian (David Lim) were not recruited and aren’t even talking right now. Owen pushes Alex to find out more concrete information about the AIC – who they’re working for and what they are working towards. He seems ready to push forward, but Alex questions if he’s ready to take down his own daughter.

On a walk around campus, Alex tells Ryan (Jake McLaughlin) that she and Owen are going after the AIC on behalf of the CIA. She encourages Ryan to get out while he still can so he doesn’t go down with the AIC. Ryan doesn’t take this well and seems perturbed that Alex is still digging.

In class, Owen introduces the recruits to their lesson of the week: misdirection or making people look one way while you do something behind their backs. They are going to do this by breaking into an NSA data collection facility without anyone knowing they were there. Alex pretends to consult Owen about her briefing, but really asks him why he told her the lesson was something different earlier. He tells her that he found something else in Lydia’s emails, that the AIC wants something from inside the NSA. His plan is to help them get it and then catch them in the act.

In the terrorist crisis, the hostages are all in the tunnels. Harry talks to Will, questioning why he painted a target on his back, because he knows how dangerous the AIC can be. Will says that he’s counting on the AIC coming after him. Alex approaches Harry and Will to keep moving, confiding that they will keep walking until the AIC shows themselves.

Harry realizes that Will is goading the AIC into action so they reveal themselves, which he thinks to be a mistake. Will responds that he’s made a lot of mistakes, including sleeping with Harry, but this isn’t one of them.

Back in the classroom, Owen has Harry demonstrate his pocket-picking skills. Picking someone’s pocket is misdirection in action, so Harry teaches his secrets to the class. That night, the recruits put their lessons to the test in the Gold Leaf (as usual). They are tasked with pickpocketing other Gold Leaf patrons, using Harry’s techniques of misdirection. All the recruits do well, including Alex. Sebastian takes this as another opportunity to meet up with Carly (Paige Patterson) and swipes her wallet, which Harry takes later on.

In class the next day, Lydia arrives to help Owen brief them on their specific mission, which is to infiltrate the NSA facility and remove their digital footprints. Alex offers Harry quid pro quo: if he helps her keep an eye on the AIC recruits during the mission, she will give him anything he wants. This turns out to be all the information the NSA has on Sir Laurence Bishop. He doesn’t tell Alex why he needs this information, but she’ll find out soon enough. Lydia also briefs the AIC recruits on their mission of the week: tapping the NSA, giving them access to any phone call and email sent or received on the eastern seaboard.

In the terrorist crisis, Alex and co discover that two hostages have disappeared. They soon find them, dead. Will confirms that one of them was a member of the CLF and they realize that the situation has flipped: now the AIC is hunting the CLF.

The recruits begin their op at the NSA data bank. Each recruit has a different job to ensure that Alex can get into the server room to erase the data. Several things are going on in the background here, so let’s break them down one by one.

On their way into the facility, Harry gives Carly’s wallet back to Sebastian, who gets angry at Harry’s interference once again. After they part ways, Sebastian jams the security feed so the recruits can move around freely. He runs into a slight issue with a security officer, but manages to get himself out of the situation with no help from the others.

Alex uses her celebrity to secure a visitor pass, which gets her in the building. Ryan hacks into the system and grants her temporary access to secure floors. Harry gives her the new access card and promises to keep an eye on Ryan. When Alex is in the server room she not only erases the recruits’ information, but downloads the information Harry requested.

Ryan taps one of the connections running out of the building (whenever I imagined tapping, I never imagined it to be so physical!) to get the information the AIC needs. Harry notices this and tells Alex, who drops off the grid and taps the AIC’s tap.  Now she and Owen will get every piece of information the AIC does and be able to trace where it’s going.

Dayana and Leon secure two exits and Dayana, acting on Lydia’s orders, sabotages Leon’s exit. This him stranded and caught by a security guard while everyone else gets out safely.

Behind the scenes, Owen and Lydia monitor the op from The Farm. Owen asks Lydia why she came back and she tells him that she was in town. He admits that he was not strong enough for the truth about why he was benched and he misses her.

In the hostage crisis, Carly notices that Alex is leading them in circles. The lights go out, causing panic, and Alex realizes her gun has been taken.

After the recruits get back to The Farm, Alex confronts Harry. She did some digging and she knows that the UK and the US share intelligence so the information Harry needed wasn’t for MI6. So, she did a bit of Googling and found out that Sir Laurence Bishop had a son named Elliot who died in 2008. Harry refuses to confirm or deny that this was his Elliot.

When class begins, Owen reveals that Leon was forced to present his endorsement card to the NSA and was therefore kicked out of The Farm. Meanwhile, Alex went from the second-to-last position on the murder board to all the way to the top.

Sebastian confronts Harry about the op, claiming that Harry could have helped him. Harry agrees, but pivots the conversation to Elliot. In a very emotional scene (that Russell Tovey should win an Emmy for), he finally reveals Elliot’s full story: His father (Sir Laurence Bishop) was a staunch conservative and considered Elliot’s homosexuality inappropriate at best. About a year and a half after Harry stopped fighting their forced breakup, Elliot showed up at Harry’s house – engaged and drunk, wanting to know if Harry still love him. That was the night he killed himself with a kitchen knife, right in front of Harry. Harry emotionally laments that he tried to save Elliot, but ultimately failed. He implores Sebastian to be true to himself and to tell Carly.

In the hostage crisis, the lights come back on and Carly has Harry at gunpoint. She reveals herself as a member of the AIC and tells Alex that she won’t let Will live while he knows how to find them. Either Alex gives Will up or Harry dies. Sebastian pleads with Carly, who tells him that it once again comes down to her or Harry. Sebastian pulls his gun on her, but doesn’t make a decision easily. Carly shoots him in the shoulder, which makes him shoot her – presumably killing her.

As he packs to leave The Farm, Leon confronts Dayana knowing she was the one who sabotaged him. He’s glad to go because he doesn’t want to kill anyone ever again. He points out that she is being brainwashed by the AIC, but she doesn’t believe him.

When she sees Ryan in the hall, Alex tells him that she knows about his tap. She questions his loyalty, wondering how he can live with the fact that he is doing whatever the AIC wants – no matter who might get hurt. He justifies it because the FBI is playing the long game, but Alex doesn’t buy it.

Lydia tells Owen that she’s leaving and admonishes him for using a suicide attempt to get her attention. She also questions his reasoning for sending the recruits into the NSA and Owen sees the true, angry Lydia.

In the hostage crisis, the hostages finally make it outside only to realize Will is gone. Carly was a misdirection, sacrificing herself so that the AIC could capture him. They soon are confronted with the FBI’s hostage rescue team.

Harry listens to the recordings that Alex gave him, but finds nothing.

Alex and Owen follow the tracer to where Lydia’s team sent the NSA information. Harry calls and yells at her for not getting the information he wanted.

Ryan meets with Lydia, demanding to know what is going on or he walks. Lydia tells him that the information they intercepted helped save lives in Syrian refugee camps and the president signed off on it. She also reveals that the man he helped kill is still alive and it was all just a test to see how far the recruits would go.

While she and Nimah pack up the apartment, Shelby (Johanna Braddy) confesses that she developed real feelings for Leon and is sorry to have to leave. Nimah comforts her saying that now she will finally get to go home.

Sebastian tells Harry that he told Carly everything and that she is going to help him stay strong. He blames Harry for making him feel like this and nearly chokes the life out of Harry. Dayana bursts in, saving Harry’s life.

Alex and Owen arrive at a storage unit and find a room with surveillance pictures of them and all the recruits on the wall. They determine that it can’t be Lydia’s doing because she is in some of the pictures. They smell a gas leak and get out of the building quickly.

Ryan calls Alex and tells her that the AIC isn’t evil and is fact a sanctioned black ops program. Before he can tell her anything else, the storage unit blows up killing an innocent bystander and knocking Alex and Owen to their feet.

In the hostage crisis, Alex asks an FBI agent to speak to someone in charge. That someone? Lydia. She tells Alex that after she hid the drives in a safe place a terrorist has found them. The same terrorist kidnapped Will Olsen and Lydia wants Alex to go back in to get the drives and Will. One more twist: the terrorist in question is Dayana. Could this be a trap? We’ll find out next week!