Stitchers – Out Of The Shadows

By: Jessica Wolff

As Kirsten Clark (Emma Ishta) remains trapped in a stitch with her mother, Jacqueline Stinger (Molly Meyer), Cameron (Kyle Harris) suggests a full system reboot to pull her out of it.  Mitchell Blair (John Billingsley) is worried about the possibility of his golden goose dying, but Maggie (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) expresses her faith in Cameron.  Camille Engelson (Allison Scagliotti) warns Cameron that they will be reassigned no matter what happens, but Cameron says that he won’t care if Kirsten dies.  Linus (Ritesh Rajan) shuts down the system and Ayo (Sola Bamis) calls out that Kirsten’s blood pressure is dropping.  Cameron waits until the last possible moment and orders the system to be rebooted.  The system comes back on but Kirsten’s blood pressure doesn’t go back up.  Cameron is distraught and tries to talk to Kirsten.  Ayo reports that her blood pressure is back up, but she is still trapped in the memory.

Linus tells Maggie that he needs to know how his father is doing, but Maggie tells him that there’s nothing she can do.  He feels like something is wrong, and Maggie comments that the bond between parent and child is like entanglement.  Hit with a burst of inspiration, he calls everyone to the conference room and presents his theory for waking Kirsten: Quantum Disentanglement.  He suggests that their system is entangled with Daniel Stinger’s (C. Thomas Howell) system and the only way to wake Kirsten is to disentangle them.  Linus insists that the location of Stinger’s computer doesn’t matter and they need to find the trigger that caused the entanglement.  He suggests that they interview Kirsten’s half-sister, Ivy Brown (Sarah Davenport), for answers.  Blair insists that they conducted a thorough interrogation the first time and Maggie asks for Detective Quincy Fisher (Damon Dayoub) to confirm that.  Blair warns that he hasn’t been cooperative, but Maggie demands to have him brought to her or else his golden goose dies.

A guard brings in Fisher with a split lip and they ask him what happens.  He says that he should see the other guy and winks towards a guard being wheeled away on a stretcher.  After the handcuffs are removed, Maggie asks about the interrogation and Fisher confirms that the questioning wasn’t thorough.  Maggie tells Linus to talk to her and ask the right questions.  In the interrogation room, Ivy insists that she doesn’t know anything about the quantum computer or entanglement.  Linus gets frustrated and bangs his hands on the table.  Ivy asks what is wrong with him, and he admits that her withholding information is keeping him from finding out what’s going on with his own father.  He admits that they took his phone away, and Ivy gives him her watch that has a cellular connection before admitting that she knows what quantum computers and entanglement triggers are.

Maggie questions whether they can trust Ivy, but Cameron believes that she cares about her sister.  He tells Maggie and Blair that they need to hijack Kirsten’s memory of her mother in order to disentangle Kirsten from the stitch.  Blair questions the effectiveness, but Cameron points out that it’s their only option.  Camille asks Linus how his father is doing and he tells her that he died and missed the funeral while under lockdown.  Camille embraces Linus as he is overcome with grief.  Cameron leads the operation and hijacks the memory of Kirsten’s mother.  Through her, he tells her to leave.  Kirsten refuses and Camille whispers in Cameron’s ear.  Though he is hesitant, he becomes harsher and says horrible things to make Kirsten leave.  Kirsten is distraught by her mother’s words and backs away as her mother approaches her.  As she’s pressed against the door, her mother tells her that Kirsten can’t help her if she’s trapped in the stitch.

Distraught, Kirsten bounces and sobs as she steps out of the tank.   Cameron embraces her and tells her that he was the one saying those terrible things.  Kirsten is upset and slaps him across the face before fainting into Cameron’s arms.  Blair orders his guards to arrest everyone.  Kirsten wakes up in her bed and Ivy comes in to check on her.  She tells Kirsten that she slept for eighteen hours, but Kirsten is confused about why she is here since she hates her.  Ivy tells her that she was just mad at her and Kirsten asks where Cameron and the rest of the team are.  Ivy tells her that Blair arrested them and confirms that she knows about the Stitchers program and their father’s involvement in it.  Kirsten declares that Stinger is not her father since he trapped her in the memory.  Kirsten finds out that there are no guards watching her and leaves the apartment.

Outside Blair’s office, Blair finds Kirsten and is surprised to see her.  Kirsten demands to know where her team is, and he tells her that they’ve been detained and are being held for reassignment.  He tells her that he is assembling a new team for her to keep the Stitchers program running, but Kirsten insists that she won’t continue without her team.  Blair takes Kirsten to his office and tells her that he plans to reunite her with her mother.  Kirsten demands to know where she is, but he simply says that she is safe.  They talk about Project Grasshopper and its plan to speed up human evolution.  Kirsten is skeptical of it, but Blair assures her that it’s real.  Kirsten believes that the project was a failure, but Blair tells her that the project evolved her mother.  He tells her that once they perfect the stitching technology, they will stitch into her living mother and map her brain to use for the future.  After that is done, Kirsten will be able to reunite with her mother.  Kirsten insists that she won’t continue without her team, but Blair tells her that the only way to save her mother is to let them go.

Kirsten brings Ivy to the lab and they run into Tim (Cameron Britton).  Kirsten asks him why he hasn’t been detained and he shows her his ankle bracelet and tells her that he has been tasked to 3D print some parts for the new team before he is taken away.  The three of them use the technology to track the watch that Ivy gave Linus to the team’s location.  They find out that the team is being held in an NSA facility, and Kirsten comes up with a plan to break them out.  She makes an ID that allows her to pose as an agent from the Cairo Office and hacks into the system to finish the job.  Ivy reminds her that she needs fingerprints, and Kirsten gestures to the 3D printer, which is printing the fingerprints.

Kirsten walks into the building and hands her ID to one of the security guards (Jon Chaffin) and tells them that she’s been sent from Cairo to oversee a prisoner transport.  The ID scan works, but the guard wants to call Blair to confirm the transfer.  The number redirects to the lab, where Ivy poses as Blair’s secretary.  She routes the call to Blair and Tim poses as Blair and authorizes the transfer.  The guard hangs up and tells her to put her hand on the scanner.  The scan fails two times and Kirsten panics.  Thinking quickly, she accuses them of not cleaning the scanner and wipes it off before trying again.  The fingerprints scan works and the guard escorts her to the prisoners.

She enters the room and finds that the team is in comfortable conditions that resemble a small apartment.  Kirsten is shocked, and Maggie asks what she’s doing there.  Cameron comes out of the kitchen in the middle of making crepes and Kirsten tells them what Blair told her as well as her prison break plan.  Maggie reminds her that prisoner transfers need an armed guard and Cameron puts on the guard’s uniform.  As they walk, Kirsten gives her condolences to Linus for his father and Cameron apologizes for the things he said to get her out of the stitch.  She understands that it was necessary but is unhappy with the tainted memory of her mother.  A guard goes to check on them and finds the guard tied up with a plate of crepes on his lap.  The team nearly makes it out the front door before the alarm goes off.  The team attempts to run, but they are surrounded immediately.

Back in custody, Kirsten looks for a way out and Cameron admits that he wants to find his way back into the lab since that is where Kirsten will be.  He tells her to keep stitching without him if it helps her save her mother.  He apologizes again for what he said in the stitch and tells her that he can make new memories once she saves her mother.  Maggie interrupts the moment, telling them that they are needed back at the lab.  Back at the lab, none of the team is happy to see Blair.  He tells them that they have a new case and needs Kirsten to stitch into his own son, Nathan Blair (Blaine Kern III).  Kirsten refuses to do it and Maggie pulls Kirsten aside.  Kirsten suggests that they use this as leverage to force Blair to do what they want.  Maggie is disturbed by her lack of sensitivity.  Linus agrees with Kirsten as Blair kept him from finding out about his father for days, but Maggie tells them that they need to be bigger people.

Starting the stitch, Cameron shows concern for Kirsten.  She tells him that he’s cute when he’s worried about her.  Everyone gets into position and Cameron starts the stitch.  Kirsten sees Blair reading to his son as a kid and she notices a picture in the office.  She jumps to Blair fighting with his teenage son about a girl, and insists that all children become their parents.  He gets angry with his father and declares that not all kids become their parents.  They move to Nathan’s death and Kirsten finds out that her father killed him.  He talks into the stitch and warns her that Blair wants to kill her mother and requests she rescue him.  He tells her that he loves her before Kirsten bounces.

Blair demands to know what Kirsten saw, but she lies and says that she didn’t see anything.  Desperate, he points a gun at Camille and demands that Kirsten tell him the truth.  Camille tells her not to tell him anything, but Kirsten tells him what happened.  He denies Stinger’s claim that he wants to kill her mother and declares vengeance on Stinger for killing his son.  Blair orders the team to be detained, but Kirsten refuses to continue working for him.  He threatens Ivy and she agrees to stay.  Later, Kirsten admits how much she’s grown to love this lab.  She tells Ivy that she has something on Blair and has a plan to get her team back.

Posing as the Cairo agent, Kirsten gets a meeting with Admiral Decker (Richard Lawson).  She reveals her identity and uses his knowledge of the Stitchers program to convince him to listen.  She threatens to go public about the program and his knowledge and wants to make a deal to get her team back in exchange for not going public.  The team comes back and Maggie is unsure of what she did to make it work.  Kirsten doesn’t answer and congratulates her on her promotion.  Cameron congratulates Kirsten on her work and she asks about his girlfriend.  He shows her a break-up note and admits that he wasn’t in love with her.  She asks him how long he would have waited for her in the memory and he admits he would have waited forever.  She tells him that things make sense with him before they kiss.  She asks him what he meant in the stitch when we said that she couldn’t help him if she stayed in the stitch.  He says he didn’t say that and she questions who did say it.