Warning: Spoiler Alert
Walter’s sister Megan, who is battling MS, wound up in jail. Walter bails her out to discover there is a more logical game at play here. Megan’s prognosis has not improved in years. She can do the math. Soon she will lose the use of her legs and eventually worse. She just wanted to enjoy life outside the hospital while she still has the ability to.
The introduction of Megan into Scorpion, even if only for a day, is awkward for the team. They each know she exists, but she is never talked about. So naturally, this is extremely awkward. For everyone. Except Paige. During the pleasantries, Cabe calls.
The team meets up with Cabe on a military installation. Tempers and testosterone are high. Lt. Barlow does what military people do when told they will be working with civilians. Figuratively marked his territory and informed Scorpion how they will do exactly what he says. Yeah…not a good idea when the lead of this civilian group is Walter O’Brien. But hey, that’s what Paige is for. Smooth the rails.
The mission is to travel to Bosnia where a secret military jet with cloaking technology has gone down. With unrest in the region and a rogue group out to overthrow the government, retrieving the technology is critical. As well as the body of the dead pilot. In the meantime, Sylvester will need to watch over Megan for the next day and a half. One small detail. The wife of the pilot drives up and identifies herself. She wants Paige to retrieve a necklace that was supposed to be passed down to their son.
In Bosnia the truck blows a tire less than 10 miles from the crash site. Happy thinks she can patch the tire and clicks on a flashlight. Which triggers the rebel forces. A little strange that the rebels would not have noticed the big truck driving, stopping abruptly, the voices or the some 8-10 people who got out of the vehicle. But Happy’s pocket flashlight might as well have been an air horn.
Happy and Toby get separated from the group and during the fire fight, Paige falls into an immediate pit of despair. Two details complicate the next move. 1) Happy and Toby are somewhere else and there is no way (currently) to know where and 2) They need to move before the rebels regroup and pursue. Sylvester is able to find the relative location. More importantly, there is an intersection where the high ground most of them are on will converge with the ravine that Happy and Toby fell down. Cabe grabs the phone and tells them what they need to know to make it, including one little detail I’m sure Toby’s not thrilled with.
Cabe: …And Toby?
Toby: Yes?
Cabe: Happy’s in charge.
One of the Navy Seals got hit and will need some attention. Barlow jumps down Walter’s throat about this hiccup in the mission being completely Scorpion’s fault. Walter quickly and articulately explains why the only fault with any of this falls on them. Then Paige jumps in to cool tempers with a soccer mom like appeal to do what’s right.
Megan finds a box, a short and wide wooden box. She asks Sylvester about some of the items in the box. Each one seems to be a visual reminder of a pivotal point the relationships between Walter and each of the team plus one for his sister. That is until she holds up a motel key and Sylvester gets very statuesque and says, “I don’t want to talk about that”.
They arrive at the crash site. The plane is demolished and the pilot is nowhere to be seen. Paige tries frantically to find the necklace in the wreckage. It’s clear that she connects with the urgency of the other woman. Then Walter notices a piece of equipment that is way to old for this plane. Cabe finds blood 12 feet from the plane. The group deduces that the rebels saw the plane fall, stole the software and the pilot. Who is presumably still alive.
The rebels are torturing the pilot who is very much alive, for now.
Walter was able to tap into the black box and discover that the plane believed it was over Sarajevo. The plane was hacked. A few moments later, Walter thinks he has figured out what it would take to pull that off and in what direction it would have come from.
Barlow: Hey, you figuring all that out…The Seals call a professor.
Walter: Well I’ll take that as a compliment.
Barlow: It is.
Happy and Toby are making headway, but after seeing her wince one too many times, Toby insists on looking at her ankle. She resists but he wins. He jumps right in to medical doctor mode which on some level impresses Happy. She asks why he’s not a real doctor. He gives her a quick explanation about his mother and wanting to help. Then he makes a crack about the internet and paying good money to look at Happy’s feet.
Happy: Why do you do that? As soon as you become human, you switch to wise ass.
Toby: Textbook defense mechanism. To hide how I feel. Especially around you. So smart, and capable, and fun. And that personality happens to wrapped in a nice little package. So I say stupid things to hide feelings you already know I have. And we have no food or water. And have no idea where we are. So if we’re going to die, I might as well say some stuff. So there.
The Seals and most of Scorpion advance on a field. Which turns out to be a mine field. There is an explosion. A very loud explosion. Everyone is frozen in place, but that won’t last. Walter needs to figure this out or this mission could be over before it starts. Walter explains that there are random flower patches that are growing while everywhere else is dead grass. The flower patches are safe.
Happy and Toby find a house on a hill. Insert movie cliché here. There are signs that someone was there recently but it looks abandoned. They look around and find an A-Team poster, a Charles in Charge poster. They go to find food and water. Then “Igor” shows up with a sawed off shotgun. It’s hostile at first. Until Igor realizes they are American. “IGOR LOVE AMERICA”.
Walter gets the team almost to safety. Barlow is the last to step across. He stops short. He’s stepped on a ‘Bouncing Betty’. A pin triggered mine. Walter gets down and digs around the mine. He thinks he can deactivate the detonator. Everyone except Walter wants no part of this. The mechanism begins to speed up. With seconds to spare, Cabe runs and rolls Walter away. The mine detonates but with the lethality of a bottle rocket.
In the house on the hill, it seems Igor was forced to use the satellite he is charged with running for the government to take down the plane. Happy uses a SAT phone to call Walter. She informs him of the location of the Rebel base of operations. She wants him to avoid it. He tells her that’s exactly where they want to be. To retrieve the pilot and software. Then there is a nice moment between Walter and Jim Barlow. After saving each other a couple times, there is a shared mutual respect. Military and genius aren’t that far off when it comes to assessing a situation and removing emotion from it.
Back at HQ, Megan tries to reach Sylvester. He is clearly upset. Continuously upset but hiding it well. Or so he thinks. He reluctantly tells Megan the story of the motel key. The moral of which is that Walter was there for Sylvester and now Sylvester is not there for Walter. He lied about needing to work from Scorpion HQ and Walter knew it. But he still granted permission. What Sylvester is failing to realize is that Walter also chose Sylvester to watch his sister. The one person in the world that he is most guarded about.
The team has reached the perimeter of the compound. Barlow and Walter will go in. Cabe and the other functional Seal will secure transport. Paige and the out of commission Seal will head down to the service road where they will get picked up shortly thereafter. Paige taps Walter on the shoulder and Walter turns. The text is not very telling. But this reveals something hidden. Or at least not admitted to.
Walter: Hey.
Paige: I’d offer you a good luck charm, but I know you don’t believe in that, so…Just get back safe, ok?
Barlow and Walter enter the barn with literally no resistance. They go down below where screams can be heard. They can’t take out the rebel doing the torturing. Too risky that they could kill the pilot. Just then, the rebels leave long enough for Barlow and Walter to get the pilot free.
Completely unrelated side note. During the commercial break, Elyes Gabel (Walter O’Brien) does a quick 15 second PSA for MS. www.nationalmssociety.org if you’re curious. Solid message. It’s also a great tie in allowing them to use a story line to raise awareness. Also, good grief is Elyes Gabel REALLY British.
Back in Bosnia, they have secured the pilot. As Walter gets up to secure the tech, the rebels return. With their guns. Now they are beating on Barlow. I like to think I’m a logical person. Not on the level of these geniuses, but still. Something always jumps out at me as ridiculous in scenes like this one. The rebel is beating on Barlow and saying, “So you think you can just come here and take what you want?”. Um, yes Boris. You stole the tech and pilot. That wasn’t yours. They are merely recovering their property. So yes, I’d think they could just take what they want, considering its theirs. Just saying.
Walter set up something to download. It looks legit. At about 9%, he asks to leave. The guy in charge says they can leave when the download is complete. While the encryption has been downloading, Walter has been unscrewing a large pipe behind him. In one of those rare moments in television where the height of the moment and the dedication to realism pays off. The rebel yells out, “you erased it?” Then Walter pulls the large pipe, but instantly tosses it to Barlow who completely cleans everyone’s clock with it, except the in charge guy. They get out of there, but without the software that Walter just erased.
Cabe is not at the rendezvous point. But they get there, just a few seconds late. Everyone in the van relieved to be going home. Except Walter. They are still missing Happy and Toby. Which they find huffing it. Toby walking with Happy on his back, presumably to rest the ankle.
Happy: NONE OF YOU SAW THIS!
Upon their arrival home, all Paige wants to do is get home to see Ralph. Although she does say it with just a slight naughty flirtation in her voice. Barlow gives Walter a pin of his unit as a gift for an “Exemplary job on the mission”. Walter then gives Barlow a code written on paper for free War movies for life. Back at HQ Sylvester almost jumps into Walter’s arms and vows to be on the next mission. Then Happy walks over to Toby and shares her appreciation. And her own sense of flirtation.
Happy: For the record, you took good care of me and I appreciate it.
Toby: Thank you. I could take better care of you…
Happy: You never give up. Good.
Walter opens the box Megan was looking through earlier and drops the coin Barlow gave him in it. He casually asks Megan how his box got there (downstairs. away from his room). She played dumb and it worked well enough. Megan walks over to Sylvester and sincerely thanks him for the last couple days and gives him a kiss on the cheek.
Outside, Megan politely asks Walter to explain her bracelet she found in his box. He initially plays dumb back at her. Then he explains. When she was 12, she had a fever and it looked like the end. He took it because he wanted something to remember her by when she died. It goes against everything he believes in. But she says, “it’s ok, it’s normal”. Then charges in with that “I’m going to leave you. Soon”. A premise that Walter rejects. She decides they need to build new memories. In Walter fashion, he takes her to a beach to watch the sun rise. New memory number one.
