Quantico Whodunnit, Week 8: A Time of Sacrifice

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GRAHAM ROGERS, MARK PELLEGRINO
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When we last left Alex Parrish and her rogue team of supporters, Nathalie‘s tip led to the arrest of some of the crew and Ryan Booth being shot, even though Nathalie allowed Alex and Booth to escape. How will Alex and a severely wounded Booth evade the FBI search? What will become of the twins, Shelby and Simon? Let’s get into our latest recap of Quantico.

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YASMINE AL MASSRI
QUANTICO – YASMINE AL MASSRI (“Nimah Amin”) (ABC/Phillipe Bosse)

The Past: In the aftermath of the twin reveal, all of the NATS are trying to come to terms with the deception. Simon starts sharing with Raina things that stood out to him, but sadly for the lovestruck Raina, every single thing was something that Nimah had experienced. Meanwhile, Nimah rooms with Alex and tells her that in order to pull things off, she had to be adept at telling a lie. As the episode continues, we see Simon and Nimah having a natural professional chemistry, but when he approaches her for coffee later, she tells him he should go talk to Raina and leave her alone. By the end of the episode, the twin twist presents its own complications, with Raina feeling left out and she shuns Simon when he finally comes a calling.

The assignment of the week has the NATS all getting cases to figure out and it’s soon learned that all of their cases tie together. Shaw then reveals that because of this, all of the NATS will go to headquarters to present their findings, with Simon and Nimah leading the presentation. While at the headquarters, Booth tells Alex that he has credentials and while there they can search for intel on her father. She uncovers that her mother was questioned in a case and hides the file in her backpack. It’s later revealed that all of the cases the NATS have figured out are based on a real life situation and they are put into action in a faux exercise to uncover a culprit at a park ready to expose a deadly canister. Alex ultimately finds the culprit, but when she takes him into custody, she unwittingly leaves herself open and O’Connor arranges it so that the culprit had a partner who hid the canister in her own backpack. That’s not all. When she search her backpack, the file she stole is gone. When she confronts O’Connor, he reveals that he and her father had a case where they were responsible for the loss of lives and covered it up. He asks Alex to confront Shaw if she doesn’t believe him. When she does, she learns that there are bigger things at stake if she turns him in.

Elsewhere in the past, Caleb and Shelby’s hookup gets more serious and when he investigates a strange number on her phone, he unwittingly tips off the superiors to the money she’s funneled to her half-sister. Shaw intervenes and we learn that the half-sister is real and not a cover-up for something more sinister. Furious with Caleb, he eventually shares his big secret — that he was part of a “cult” as a teen and that it was his father who saved him. His record was scrubbed, but he has serious shame over the incident, never sharing it with anyone.

And in the episode’s final moments, Simon is getting a call from his bomb making buddy in which he confides that he’s not sure if he made the right decision and wonders if he can do any good there. Meanwhile, Shaw and Alex’s discussion is interrupted by a phone call that someone is on her roof. Later, Shaw is found shot upstairs as her son Charlie has seemingly fled.

The Present: Shelby, Simon and the twins are all taken into custody, but the only story we really get in this episode is what happens to Shelby. Director Clayton chastises her and questions if she got close to him because she was involved. He then approaches Caleb to erase any connection between he and Shelby on their phones. Initially Caleb balks until Clayton reveals that it will hurt his mother’s political campaign. In the midst of his search, he finds an email that seemingly would lend credence to Alex’s innocence. It’s a message from Clayton’s secretary where she reveals someone had been spotted using Alex’s badge. When Caleb confronts his dad about it, Clayton acts suspicious and dismisses the idea that anything other than everyone being in on it is a false lead. He eventually relents and tells Caleb he’ll look into it, but Caleb later finds it was erased without his doing and that his dad was lying. When he confronts him, dad reveals that the reason he deleted the email is because it tied him to a time he was with Shelby and that there’s nothing more to it than that. As the episode comes to a close, Caleb sees an email in which Shelby was seemingly breaking it off because she still loved Caleb.

As for Alex and Booth, they escape into a vacant house where Alex must perform field surgery to remove the bullet in his gut. Fearing that all is lost, it’s not long before the FBI is hacked and files Alex needs from the investigation to prove her innocence are now available. Pretty soon, the Unknown hacking group are on hand to help Booth and Alex sift through the material and eventually to escape. During the researching, Alex finds info that the Grand Central bombing was a dry run and she suspects another bomb is in play. As they reach a helicopter to take them away to safety, Alex tricks Booth into flying away while she stays behind to continue her quest. At the end of the episode, she turns herself in but warns that another bomb is out there.

GRAHAM ROGERS
QUANTICO – Graham Rogers (“Caleb”)(ABC/Phillipe Bosse)

The Suspects

13. Elias Harper – Have we seen the last of the analyst? After failing a courage test last week, he left the program and was nowhere to be seen in this episode. However, his intuitive nature where Simon was concerned was either a little too dead on or a great offense to throw off suspicion. For now, he’s seemingly the least likely suspect.

12. Brandon Fletcher – He’s new to the suspect list because he’s new to the show. He was introduced as a good looking NAT that made Caleb jealous a few episodes back. It’s been revealed that he hooked up with Nathalie and he was a key part of last week’s exercise which put the entire NATS group under pressure. He’s not been seen as of yet in present day and his backstory has not been fully fleshed out as of yet, but his growing inclusion in the story line gets him added to the list.

11. Alex Parrish – She’s the show’s moral compass, seemingly the sharpest tool in every scene she’s in and the subject of the frame-up. She’s gone to all extremes to prove her innocence and even turned herself in this week, seemingly for the greater good. If she’s guilty, it’s been a great faulty narrator device so far and her end game must be something pretty multi-faceted to lead her to do anything but flee at this point.

10. Raina Amin – She seems to be the less adept of the two sisters and seemed genuinely surprised when the rogue NATS approached her about her involvement in the bombing. Plus, given her relationship with her sister, it’s unlikely that she would turn on her. Any situation where one is guilty would almost have to involve the other in some way.

9. Ryan Booth – He’s been shot “twice.” He’s defended Alex every step of the way. He has been the puppet of Liam O’Connor for a good portion. So far, he appears to be the “good soldier,” and there’s little shown to reveal he has deeper motives.

8. Nathalie Vazquez – We still know relatively little about Nathalie, but one quote in this week’s episode move her up the list. When she warns Shelby that moving too fast could lead her to find out something about her mate that should would never wish on anyone, it makes us question even more why she has a fake scar, why she’s unable to see her child and if she’s somehow compromised. Twice she’s allowed Alex to escape, but it may be more her love for Booth than any loyalty to Alex that has led her to do so.

7. Shelby Wyatt – More and more, it’s looking as though Shelby has been a pawn in the father-son love triangle. Her family has a questionable background and it’s probably no coincidence that the igniter found at Alex’s apartment came from her family’s company. It appears as though someone has Shelby pegged as a backup in case Alex is proven innocent.

6. Miranda Shaw – She’s alive in present day, but shot in the past. So she’s seemingly made a swift recovery. She has involvement in O’Connor’s wrong doings later in her life. At present, it feels as though Miranda is working in the name of justice by freeing Alex in the opening episode, regardless of how it blows back on her. But what really happened with Charlie? And does that play into present day?

5. Simon Asher – What exactly was Simon’s overseas mission? There’s what he says, but as we’ve seen, he weaves a tangled web that even had Elias never truly sure of his motives. Does his flirtation and falling out with the twins have anything to do with his big picture plan? While sketchy as hell, he’s gone above and beyond to help clear Alex so far.

4. Nimah Amin – As she emerges as the more confident and polished agent, she also shows her ability to sell a lie. How close did she really get with the cell leader? Is it possible she turned? She was the twin that was actually at Grand Central. She’s currently in custody and has already revealed that there may be another target. Could she be playing both sides?

3. Liam O’Connor – Did Liam actually just tell the truth about something? He’s guilty as hell of past infractions, which if he’s revealed it will have far-reaching ramifications for other highly-placed officials. He was seemingly very interested in Alex early on, having her surveilled by Booth. Did he set Alex up before she entered Quantico or is he closely monitoring her for some other reason?

2. Caleb Haas – At present, he seems to be determined to make good on his current appointment, but faces some hard choices where his father and his ex are concerned. He’s shown his worth by staying on top of every possibility. But his confession to Shelby that he was once part of a cult is a little troubling, especially knowing that Shaw’s son was reportedly recruited by a cult and knowing that Elias once left a message for Simon that mirrored what one of Charlie’s former cult acquaintances messaged him online. Is he truly free from his past demons?

1. Deputy Director Clayton Haas – He’s looking more and more guilty as things play out, but is it his affair he’s trying to hide or something more sinister. Caleb tells Shelby that she has no idea of the things he’s capable of. When will learn what he’s done in the past? We know he’s part of the operation where Booth took the blame for his and O’Connor’s mess up.

Tune in next Sunday at 10PM ET/PT on ABC for the next episode of Quantico and share your theories in the Comments section below.

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