Quantico Season 2 Episode 3: Stescalade Recap

If you would like to read a recap of the last episode, click here. We’ve had a two weeks, because of the second presidential debate, to think about the twist at the end of the episode. Maybe it’s not really a twist? Who knows? Who will it play out? How long will the hostage/terrorist subplot last? Hopefully not too long as it’s already becoming kind of stale.

I’m going to approach these a little differently here because since the show likes to go between the past and the present like someone with ADHD, I’m going to group each timeline together.

Past:

Alex and Ryan are debriefing with Shelby and Nimah. It’s been a week and they still don’t know much about anyone. The only real mystery to them was Harry. They also mention that a new recruit unexpectedly showed up named Lee Davis (Heléne Yorke). They are told that they have one bug to use on one of the recruits, because any others would cause interference, and they had to use it before the farm got swept again for surveillance equipment so they have to figure out who to use it on and fast.

The recruits all go to bar and primarily talk about this Lee and we got a glimpse of her personality. Hall and Lydia give them a lesson about being aware of their surroundings, consisting of spotting cameras, people, and knowing the details about a particular room.

Miranda debriefs with Shelby and Nuimah and tells them that they weren’t picked because they were qualified but rather because they were friends with Alex and Ryan. She pushes them to be good handlers by encouraging them to push their subjects whenever necessary.

The recruits have an assessment test where they must spot all the details about the bar. Others were spun around while blindfolded and had to guess where they were. Of course some got it right while a lot of them got it wrong. Lydia calls an old friends from the CIA and tells them that she wants to be back in the field but they tell her that she is better suited where she was now.

Hall gives the recruits a test involving pairing up and going into a building, getting into an office on a specific floor, and stealing a red envelope from a desk without getting caught. They all get blindfolded and are sent in a van which dropped them off in the middle of a forest. The main teams were Dayana and Sebastian Chen (David Lim), Harry and Ryan, and Alex and Léon. Dayana and Sebastian weren’t getting along, leading them to go their separate ways. Harry won’t stop asking Ryan questions about him and Alex and their past, inluding where Will Olsen (back from Season 1) was. Alex and Léon are defensive at first but he starts to open up to her.

Léon decides to make a compass out of a branch and some rocks to figure out which direction to go. Ryan leaves Harry and finds Dayanna where he confronts her about acting like a lost person when other people are around. She claims to be afraid of heights but she fashions a tree to walk over in order to cross a gap between cliffs. Léon gets defensive when Alex asks him why he went to prison.

Hall and Lydia are watching the recruits back at the farm and Lydia is feeling a little down because she misses being in the field so Hall gives her a pep talk. Hall also misses the field. Harry meets Lee and wants them to work together. Alex apologizes for prying but Léon reveals that he wanted to see what it was like on the inside so he got himself arrested. His compass also works. The recruits are back at the farm by the deadline but they still failed because they took much longer than they needed to because they missed many important details while also missing all the cameras and drones.

Alex and Ryan can’t decide who to bug. Alex says Harry but Ryan says Léon. Shelby confronts Alex about her judgement, saying that she’s a sucker for good-looking guys with sad stories (which is kind of true). Nimah confronts Ryan about abandoning his own instincts when he’s around Alex. Lydia shows up and confronts Hall about him pulling her off her station and making her work at the farm with him. He claimed that he just said that he wanted to see her more. She calls some mysterious person and says that she’s in, maybe alluding to the start of the conspiracy recruiting.

They decide to go for Léon which makes Alex worry about Ryan but he claims that they are still good. Miranda, Shelby, and Nimah attempt to listen in to Léon but they hear interference, implying that there was already a bug there. Will is at a bar and then Harry shows up, pretending to be someone else, and offers him a drink but Will says he’s abstaining.

Present:

The episode starts off with the hostages being rounded up and transferred into another building. Alex is talking to Miranda on a phone and asking what details she needs, entrances, exits, number of terrorists, hostages, explosives, how they are rigged, hostage locations and if bio weapons are a real threat or a bluff. Miranda wants Alex to be careful but she is still sending messages back and forth to the terrorists inside.

Shelby tells Miranda that she believes that those responsible are the CIA recruits they investigated and Miranda agrees. We also learn that their investigation was shut down six months prior. Shelby mentions that she may have helpful information in a detailed report she wrote about them. She also mentions that she didn’t offer it earlier because she was ordered not to send it. Miranda wants it and tasks Shelby to go and get it.

Alex infiltrates the building and finds a container containing terrorist gear which she then put on and joins the rest of the terrorists. We see that the other terrorists are looking for her. Shelby hands her report to Miranda but when she tries to open it, her computer gets hit with a virus.

Ryan has a plan to create a diversion so he can get to one of the terrorists and unmask them. Miranda asks Shelby to bring in her computer. Ryan sees Harry and they have an argument about what he was doing there. Harry doesn’t really explain why he’s there but he plays along and they fight. When one of the terrorists tries to break them apart, Ryan tries to unmask them but then stops when he hears Alex’s voice.

The terrorists now know that it’s Alex and a female one escorts her away from the hostages. She wishes Alex wasn’t there which implies that they are familiar with one another. They fight a little, leading to Alex unmasking her and she ends up being Lee. They fight a little longer, leading to Alex choking her to death.

Shelby and Miranda have their computers checked and they’re okay but the report was deleted. Miranda is briefed about Shelby’s computer, they say whoever did it wanted to make sure everything was destroyed. Something looks shady between one of the technicians and Miranda. Shelby reveals that she also had a hard copy in her safe and she was now distributing it to everybody and Miranda looks thrilled.

Raina is looking for Ryan but one of them claims that Alex is dead and that Ryan would be next. The body of a terrorist drops through the ceiling and startles everybody. The camera pans up to show that Alex was the one who did. She puts her mask back on and then goes on.

Overall, this was another good episode that did not really address the twist from the previous episode but does advance the plot, albeit slightly, while showing us more of the recruits and also answering some lingering questions and raising a few new ones. The show needs to give us a reason to watch it anyway.

Score: 8/10

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