Quantico – MKTOPAZ

By starrymag | April 10, 2017

By: Emily Cross

In New York, two masked and gloved people infiltrate an apartment and stage some incriminating information. Back in Virginia, Clay (Hunter Parrish) and Maxine (Krysta Rodriguez) are engaged in some early morning shenanigans. She expresses that she hates how much he leaves her and it’s clear that the content of Clay’s work with the team is unknown to her (and she doesn’t like it). He’s called away by a text from Nimah (Yasmine Al Massri), telling him that the cache has been accessed. He texts the team and tells them to meet him at the bunker.

At the dorms, the team gets ready to head to the bunker. Owen (Blair Underwood) receives a letter informing him that Lydia is eligible to receive visitors. Harry (Russell Tovey) arrives, with only Shelby (Johanna Braddy) to greet him (I’m sensing a good friendship between these two).

Ryan (Jake McLaughlin) arrives at the bunker to see that Nimah is already there and has seemingly not slept at all. In response to his concern, Nimah tells him to leave or help. He elects to help.

At The Gold Leaf, Alex (Priyanka Chopra) says goodbye to some family who was in town. Owen, at the bar as usual, notices. They talk about how hard it is to have connections while being a clandestine agent and Alex laments that Alex her family knew no longer exists.

Once the team is assembled in the bunker (minus Dayana [Pearl Thusi] who is on a federal court case to maintain her cover), Clay gets down to business. First, he informs everyone that Sean Gregory’s Ponzi scheme has been outed and warns them that anyone who talks is jeopardizing the team and their work (looking at you, Ryan).

Moving forward, Clay briefs them on the case of the week, which they have a leg up on. Usually, they have to wait for something to happen, but this week whoever accessed the cache was sloppy and downloaded intel to their cell phone. This person was Rebecca Sherman (Donna Murphy), NYC socialite and power broker. They were able to trace it to her by the server it pinged in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Shelby offers to use an asset there, but it’s not necessary. Alex questions who Shelby’s asset is and we get a nice Season One callback: it’s Samar, the woman who conned Shelby into believing they were sisters. Alex thinks it’s a bad idea, but it doesn’t matter anyways.

Back to Rebecca, Nimah has uncovered that she has connections to both of the known collaborators. The team theorizes that she could be the key to uncovering the identities of the rest of the collaborators, but now have to figure out how to gain access to her information. Owen suggests that since Rebecca is a wedding planner, Clay should use his upcoming wedding for access. At first Clay refuses, but eventually relents on the condition that Maxine stays in the dark.

Later on, Clay confesses to Nimah that he never lies to Max and he’s uncomfortable doing it now. Nimah tells him not to focus on the lie, but to focus on what the lie gets him. It’s the same thing she did with Raina at the G20 and even though it didn’t work out in their favor, it still gets Clay to send a text to Maxine stating he has a brilliant idea.

Owen outlines the plan: Clay and Maxine will meet with Rebecca at her New York townhouse with Alex as their security detail. This time, they’re banking on the fact Rebecca will recognize Alex so that Clay can gain access to her ancient computer, which can’t be hacked remotely. Ryan and Nimah are tasked with figuring out her password and Ryan has an idea to use Sasha (Karolina Wydra), the reporter to whom he leaked the Gregory story. Nimah is automatically suspicious because nothing gets by her.

When they leave, Clay prohibits Harry from joining them. Harry is obviously not happy and makes it clear that if they leave without him, he won’t be there when they get back.

In New York, Maxine gushes over Rebecca, and vice versa. When Clay makes an attempt to excuse himself to snoop, Rebecca suggests that Maxine take a look at photographs of previous weddings she’s planned. The only problem is that those photographs are upstairs, where the computer is. Alex steps in, pretending to need to talk to Rebecca about security logistics and Maxine and Clay go upstairs.

Meanwhile, Ryan brings some coffee to Sasha to convince. She immediately picks up on the fact that he needs a favor.

While Alex and Rebecca talk, Rebecca suggests that Alex is bored working protective detail, given who she is. She launches into one of the show’s patented “Alex is special” speeches, which I’m honestly getting kind of bored of. However, Rebecca really seems to strike a chord in Alex who has always felt out of place. She also knows that Alex is keeping her busy and heads toward the stairs.

Upstairs, Maxine takes notice when Clay passes by the photographs and heads straight for Rebecca’s office. She puts the pieces together quickly, understanding that this has something to do with his new job. Clay doesn’t confirm, just asks her to give him a few minutes. When he sits down at the truly ancient looking computer, a password box pops up.

Back at Sasha’s office, Ryan persuades her to call Rebecca under the guise of confirming some information for a story another reporter is doing. Rebecca answers the call and stays downstairs. Alex hovers nearby, texting the information to Clay who uses it as possible passwords. After two strikes, he gets in with Rebecca’s mother’s maiden name, but it’s too late as Rebecca catches him red-handed. All is not lost; however, because it turns out that Rebecca wanted to be found. She needs help, before she is killed.

It turns out that Rebecca facilitated connections that led to the formation of the collaborators, but completely by accident. She’s been blackmailed the whole time and after the G20 she started looking for a way out. So, the team will help her escape with her family in exchange for identities of the collaborators. However, Rebecca only knows one collaborator for sure: Thomas Roth (Gary Hilborn), a bigwig New York attorney who is referred to as the “101st Senator.” His role as a collaborator is to write and shape laws that allow the collaborators to build their long-term agenda. Rebecca reached out to Roth and told him she was compromised so he would agree to a meeting in Central Park the following day.

The next day, the team is stationed all around Bethesda Fountain and Clay and Alex are in the van monitoring everything through comms and visuals. Alex and Rebecca talk before the mission begins and Alex confides that although she’s achieved so much, she can’t help but see what it’s cost her. Rebecca tells Alex that the world needs her more than she needs the people around her.

After Rebecca leaves to get in position, Harry shows up at the van, going for broke. He tells Clay that he is a good agent and deserves to be on the team, despite his occasional outburst. Clay agrees and gives him a station.

At the fountain, Roth approaches Rebecca asking her who is looking into them. She is cagey and tells him that they can give the names of other collaborators to save themselves. Before the team hears anything further, the comms go dead. Soon after, a gunshot rings out and Roth is shot dead. Chaos erupts and Rebecca starts running for cover, but she gets shot too.

Clay quickly gets the comms online again and instructs the team to find the shooter ASAP. Owen, who was near Rebecca when she was shot, wants to help her but Clay instructs him not to. They can’t risk exposing their involvement. Rebecca is also wearing a comm device and it’s important that the cops don’t find it. However, Alex risks the clock and talks to Rebecca during her last moments. She reassures Rebecca that help is on the way and that she isn’t alone, but Rebecca still dies. After she dies Owen sneaks her comms off of her body and leaves, moments before the cops arrive.

None of the agents find the gunman so Clay instructs them to all fall back to the van. Harry, spotting a man casually walking away (instead of running like everyone else), ignores the order and follows his suspect. The team realizes that Harry cut his comms and decides to leave without him. It turns out that the man Harry is following is Sebastian (David Lim)!

Back at the Bunker, there is no contingency for a dead collaborator, let alone two. However, they do have two other names up on the board (Rebecca and Roth). The team worries about what’s next. If the collaborators killed their own, it’s unlikely that they will resurface. If they weren’t behind it, the team is up against something they know nothing about. Either way, it spells bad news for the task force.

In an outburst, Clay reveals that Maxine is no longer speaking to him. Shelby encourages him to reach out to her and tells him that Maxine knows him and knows he’s not a bad person. It doesn’t help and Clay is worried that Max will never really trust him again.

Meanwhile, Alex and Owen share a drink and lament the unfortunate circumstances. Alex wonders who will get a call when she dies, still stuck on her lack of personal relationships. Owen reminds her that she made the choice to be this person, time and again. She in turn encourages him to go see Lydia. She is still his daughter, regardless of the choices she has made.

Nimah accuses Ryan of leaking the information about Sean Gregory to Sasha and he doesn’t deny it. He tells her that he was protecting the team. Nimah is upset and says he should leave the team, even if she doesn’t want him to. It’s nice to see their friendship openly acknowledged because they’ve had one of the best relationships this season. She advises him to find something on Sasha. Compromise her and Ryan is no longer compromised. In return, he tells her to call Raina. One day she’ll answer.

Speaking of Raina, she gets home to find her apartment littered with incriminating information (the one from the beginning of the episode). Looking around, she ignores a call from Nimah. Soon, the two people make themselves known and Raina puts up a fight, but cannot take both of them at once. They kidnap her and we are left to wonder if she will suffer the same fate as Leon.

Shelby visits Maxine and advises her to push back against Clay’s pulling away. Because of her experiences with her parents, Shelby knows what it’s like to be lied to. She tells Maxine that she needs to make sure that Clay is the same person after this job, because he is one of the good ones.

Ryan and Sasha are on their date, in her office. When he asks, she tells him why she left Russia. When Communism fell, the new “democracy” wasn’t quite what was promised. The only way to fight against the oppression was with the truth, and Sasha couldn’t tell the truth, so she left.

In the Bunker, Alex comes upon Nimah and Shelby (original trio reunites!) doing some work. She encourages them to make connections with the people they’ve fallen out of touch with (Shelby with Samar and Nimah with Raina) because this job is lonely.

In our typical end-of-episode montage, Maxine and Clay reunite, Owen goes to visit Lydia in jail, Shelby Skypes with Samar, Ryan leaves a flash drive in Sasha’s computer, Nimah packs to go visit Raina and Alex receives a call from Harry saying he can’t be a part of the team. In the last moments, it is revealed that Sebastian had a gun to Harry’s head so he’s clearly not resigning of his own volition.