Last week, Liam O’Connor had convinced Alex Parrish that her best course of action to catch the second bomber was to admit to the crime, expecting the perpetrator to slip up with the idea that she was in custody. Meanwhile, a worse for wear Ryan appeared to be in need of immediate medical attention. So what happened on this week’s Quantico? Let’s get into it.
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YASMINE AL MASSRI
The Past: To quote Thompson Twins, “Lies, Lies, Lies, yeah!” It seems everyone’s got something to hide, which is not a good thing when this week’s assignment is doing background checks. The NATS are assigned the task of researching the incoming Quantico class, but you know their curious nature is going to lead someone off the beaten path. During a sparring exercise, Alex spots Nathalie’s fake scar. When she questions her about it, Nathalie gets defensive. But Alex won’t let it go and has Ryan investigate.
Meanwhile, Caleb is getting more phone calls from his dad about Shelby’s so-called half sister. He tries to secretly investigate, but the blonde catches him snooping on her computer.
And Nimah, still steamed that Simon turned in the professor from last week, takes it upon herself to use the exercise to hunt down someone from the prior class to learn what they found out about Simon during his background check.
All three of these things come together right as O’Connor reveals that a review board has something serious to investigate. It turns out, Nathalie’s scar secret has caught the attention. The real story is that she was in an abusive relationship and used the fake scar to drum up a judge’s support for a restraining order against her ex and to gain control of her daughter. Nimah, upset that Simon isn’t the one under review, uses the platform to bring his past to light. Simon was a translator for the IDF, but it’s learned that he initially was doing his job until one day he was asked to get close to the women in order to get them to interrogation. But to his horror, he later found out his platoon leader had snapped and gone rogue and was committing the war crimes Nimah accused him of. While the board is out deliberating on Nathalie, Ryan breaks up the madness, revealing his own secret about being undercover and gives a great speech about Nathalie and Simon’s secrets being what will make them great agents. Sadly, he mentions the altercation he had with Simon a few weeks back and that catches the ear of Miranda. She reveals that Nathalie has been allowed to continue, but calls in Simon stating that his altercation with Ryan is grounds for dismissal. Disillusioned and feeling he’s in the right, he leaves, but as we saw earlier in the episode, he had blueprints for something he was hiding.
As for Caleb and Shelby, they decide to put a plan into action hoping that Shelby’s half-sister is the real deal. Sadly, she’s not. She’s been taking her for money for years.
The Present: Alex is rushed out of the courthouse after her confession. Meanwhile Shaw and the fellow NATS have been freed. Soon, Alex joins them and it’s revealed that the core group will investigate the whole class and that they have 24 hours, fearing that the Democratic National Convention is the next target. O’Connor, Shaw and Alex are left in the surveillance room, but they want to have visuals on the rest of the core group as well. During this period, we see Caleb and Shelby having a spat of Clayton, Shelby later calling Clayton, Simon leaving the building and Raina at the hospital kissing the injured head of the terror cell they infiltrated on the head. At one point, Nimah re-enters the room and spots the footage of Raina before it’s shut down, but doesn’t let on. She later confronts Raina, who feels that the head is misunderstood and doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but Nimah surprises her by saying that he does and that she learned this while sleeping with him for the mission.
Simon goes to meet with the bomb maker, who Alex recognizes from their past meeting. They have a quick conversation, then escape as agents close in. Eventually, Nimah returns to the surveillance room, calling out Alex, Shaw and O’Connor. The other agents hear this and return, clearly ticked off at Alex because their conversations will all now be part of the record. Simon enters the room and reveals he’s the only one who truly knows what’s going on and admits that he planned Grand Central … but didn’t execute it.
While having everyone turned against him and getting booted from Quantico, he was disillusioned. He decided to stage a political act, planting bombs under a mosque and a temple, but neither were designed to go off. They had flaws on them and the discovery of the bombs was supposed to unite the two. He admits when he investigated further with the bomb maker, the Grand Central attack mirrored what he had initially planned, but someone had figured out the flaws. After this revelation, everyone returns to hating on Alex for spying on them. As they leave, Caleb and Shelby have it out and Caleb reveals that his mom knows about the affair because he wanted to protect her. The episode ends with Alex tracking down Simon at home and asking for his help and to believe in her. He reveals that it’s too late. As Alex leaves, he enters his dark house and is promptly chloroformed by Elias.
PRIYANKA CHOPRA
The Suspect List
14. Alex Parrish – At this point, we’ve established her as a reliable narrator and her tenacity in attempting to find the truth makes her the least likely suspect.
13. Brandon Fletcher – Once again, Brandon’s in the background. He spars with Shelby. He’s show a photo of Nathalie’s daughter after the big revelation. And he’s still not present in present day. It’s almost like getting an “incomplete” in class to suspect he’s the mastermind at this point. Until more is revealed, he’s just a background character.
12. Ryan Booth – He’s more heroic with each episode. He’s primarily out of the present day timeline, being tended to after his gunshot and last week’s torture techniques. It’s hard to fathom him being able to pull off anything further in his current condition.
11. Miranda Shaw – Aside from she and Liam having a spat over her arrest and his dedicating so many resources to arresting Alex, there was little for Shaw in this episode. There’s still the question of the true nature of her relationship with her son, who she claimed stabbed her last episode despite evidence that suggests he was kidnapped.
10. Nathalie Vazquez – Her backstory has finally been revealed and it appears as though the tenacity she’s held throughout has been altruistic. She’s not the most likable character, but seems to be less shady than some of her fellow recruits at this point.
9. Liam O’Connor – Did we ever think we’d see him this low in the rankings? He seemed guilty of everything early in the season. But now it appears as though he’s just been trying to cover his ass for past actions and is on the up and up.
8. Simon Asher – It was a bad, bad week for Simon, both in the past and present. Turns out he’s a big ol’ softie who wants to do good, but gets disillusioned enough to plot out a “political action” only to have his plans stolen and used for evil. To make matters worse, he’s chloroformed, just like Alex was before she was placed at the scene of the first bombing.
7. Clayton Haas – He was absent from this episode, and it appears as though his actions in covering certain things up pertain more to his wife’s campaign and his own job than it does to any nefarious plan to bomb a country he’s served.
6. Caleb Haas – The blinders are off young Haas. In present day, he appears to be a capable and determined agent, not in need of anyone’s approval and doing his best to not let his own emotions keep him from what needs to be done despite what his ex and his father have been up to. We’re still a little curious about his cult past and his adopting of an alternate personality, but guessing he’s trying to infiltrate a cult rather than rejoining.
5. Nimah Amin – She’s always seemed the more clear-headed of the twins. It’s telling this week that she questions her sister who makes the odd decision to show affection to the terrorist cell leader. She seems less likely to lose the script, though her ferociousness attacking Simon shows that she can let emotion cloud her judgment.
4. Shelby Wyatt – She just has her hands in way too many things. A fake sister, an affair with a political figure, playing on the emotions of two men in the same family. What if it was all by design? And perhaps the bomb wiring planted in Alex’s apartment that came from her family’s company was not just a frame up but something she truly had a hand in.
3. Raina Amin – She was swayed by Simon. She appears to have been swayed by the terrorist cell leader. She seems a little easily turned. Has she become sympathetic to those she’s infiltrated?
2. Charlie Shaw – What happened to young Charlie? He was absent from this episode, but his violent past, his association with a cult — could we see Charlie return in a big way next week? We doubt he’s the mastermind, but he could definitely be a pawn.
1. Elias Harper – The onetime analyst returned last episode as Alex’s legal representation. He only makes one appearance in this episode, but it’s a memorable one as he chloroforms Simon. That’s the same mode of operation that happened to Alex when she was placed at a bomb site and left to take the fall. It’s also worth noting that Elias left a message on Simon’s door similar to a message reaching out to Charlie from his past cult. And as stated in the past, was his dogged investigation into Simon’s true nature about sniffing out a threat or basically throwing one of the most astute agents off of looking into him. There’s one final episode left before Quantico goes on break, and while it seems like Elias is guilty of something, there are twists and turns each week. What’s the real story? Tune in at 10PM ET/PT on ABC next Sunday to find out.
RICK COSNETT
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