Warning: Spoiler Alert
Toby begins the episode assuming Walter’s role filling the “leadership void”. Happy is already anticipating the disillusion of Scorpion. Sylvester is holding out hope that Scorpion will persevere without Cabe or Paige. Not a very likely outcome.
Cabe in Cabe fashion told Merrick to shove his new assignment. Merrick of course enjoying the destruction of Scorpion a little too much. Toby can’t get a hold of anyone when Sylvester scurries over. Walter missed his weekly visit with Megan. Something he has never done. Even Ralph attempts to get a hold of Walter to no avail.
Happy calls Paige and that conversation does not go well. Paige thought maybe Happy was Walter. Then Happy deliberately blames everything that lead to this predicament on Paige. Neither one of them is completely right, but my personal opinion, Happy is more right than Paige in this specific instance. Paige is letting one detail overpower everything.
Toby and Sylvester make their way to Elliot’s Headquarters (the rich tycoon who offered Walter a job and loaned him his Ferrari) in the hopes of getting the vin number to his Ferrari or catching Walter in the act of transitioning to work for this high brow think tank.
Toby: You know what this place doesn’t have? Us. ‘Tobes’ and the ‘Sly-Dog’, and that’s what’s going to keep Walter with Scorpion. Where he belongs.
Sylvester: That guy’s going down the hall on a hover-board.
Toby: Hey! Don’t look, don’t be seduced. Happy should be in position now.
Happy lands on Elliot’s conference table in the middle of a meeting. She gives him the cold shoulder and insinuates that Elliot attempted to poach their boss. With the VIN number they are able to trace the coordinates to find his location. They get out of the truck and see no Ferrari. They call his phone again, this time they at least can hear a faint ring. They race to the edge of the road where the hillside drops off. They’ve found Walter, who is as of now not awake, but is still in the Ferrari on the side of a steep cliff.
Toby duct tapes a cell phone to Sylvester’s old wooden bird/drone thing that he was unaware Happy was fixing for his birthday. The camera/drone gives them some critical information they didn’t already have. Most notably, Walter has been slightly impaled by a portion of a metal guard rail, thus pinning him to the seat.
Toby: The wound is dangerously close to his spleen.
Happy: I thought we didn’t need the spleen?
Toby: We don’t. But it’s basically a giant sack of blood. Never good to lose a giant sack of blood.
Toby called for fire and rescue and instead gets two squad cars. They are used to the immediate cooperation that comes with having the full weight and support of Homeland security. Both Happy and Toby give this officer ‘the business’, he in turn arrests them.
Sylvester gets to Cabe who arrives shortly thereafter. No longer working for Homeland Security, Cabe flashing his scuba diving license, barks some orders, and gets the local police moving in a better direction. This has to come back to bite him, but we’ll hold on to that for a moment.
In a matter of minutes, Walter goes from being completely indignant with Cabe’s presence on scene to desperately needing to speak to Paige and Ralph before his time runs out. In this moment of clarity embracing a demise that is not ideal, Walter tells a story to Cabe that did not know and would bring any parent (especially one who has experienced loss) to tears.
Walter: Cabe you told me that when your daughter passed away, you’d visit her grave every Sunday?
Cabe: Yes…without fail.
Walter: The grass on her plot…was always green and healthy? And the others were brown. I hacked the sprinkler system. I, uh, watered it twice a day. The others were once…a…week.
Cabe: I always thought that was the groundskeeper, taking pity on me because I was there alone.
Walter: No it was me.
Cabe: Fifteen years ago you were so mad at me about Baghdad. Why would you do that for me?
Walter: That’s not the point. The point is I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us.
At the peak of the emotional moment Toby notices the engine has begun to smoke. There are flames and an imminent danger to any suitable end to this predicament. Meanwhile, Paige is trying to convince Ralph that leaving for the weekend is a good thing. Ralph knows something is wrong and Paige is content to stay angry at that situation. They depart the apartment and take the stairs. Half a second later the cops sent to retrieve Paige and Ralph arrive by way of the elevator.
Smoke is billowing into the passenger area of the car. They are going spray from the fire hose a ‘dart’ which seems to be a fist full of syringes in the hopes of draining the car’s oil and preventing a complete blow out. Naturally, it works beautifully. But now the car is shifting. Walter leans the seat back to counter balance the weight distribution which jolts him. He is no long impaled, but now the clotted blood that was helping the injury situation has now been ripped out. He may have as few as 4 minutes. However there is about 37 minutes left in the episode.
As Walter begins to slip away, Toby pleading to not close his eyes, Walter sees dangling wires. Walter essentially hot wires himself waking himself up quickly. Now that Toby can see the wound, Walter will have to cauterized it himself. Here comes another MacGuyver moment. Using a silver pen and a cigarette lighter. Walter does this effectively, but the pain is significant. The car shifts slightly but nothing catastrophic. During this Walter tells Toby a story about a time Toby forced Walter to go to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker and they ended up getting chased for nine blocks by men with crowbars. “That was one of the best nights of my life” said Walter.
At the airport, Paige continues to move forward with her plan to fly to Maine. Ralph makes a b-line for a television running a news report about a rescue mission on Mulholland Dr. As Paige walks up, you can hear the broadcast report audio say, “a cliff side rescue attempt to rescue Walter O’Brien, head of the genius problem solving team known as Scorpion”.
Walter continues to eulogize stories of him with this friends. This time Happy is not having it. She cuts off his story and finishes it just to say she does not accept letting him die. Then a crow lands on the hood of the car. A bird about 1-2 lbs could be the determining factor. If the bird flies away, the car will most likely fall the rest of the way down the cliff.
Racing in their car to get to Walter, Paige looks for a news story on the radio that might get them up to speed. She finds one where the voice of the report claims there is no scenario he can think of that ends with Walter O’Brien alive. Paige tells Ralph not to listen to the man. A teary eyed Ralph turns to his mother to reply.
Paige: Ralph, don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what Scorpion is capable of. Ralph?
Ralph: But he’s my friend.
Happy has an idea. She has stolen a crane attached to a truck from a nearby construction site. The plan is to lower Cabe down by way of a cable line to the car. Then hopefully if all goes well, pull them both up. Paige arrives, her and Ralph sprint to where the team is at about the same time Walter refuses to do anything further until he gets to speak to Paige.
The crow begins to shift and prepares to fly away. Cabe is being lowered to hopefully attach himself to Walter so that in the event the car plummets, Walter would be attached to Cabe and not the car. That is the moment, Paige arrives and yells out for Walter. There is a momentary sense of relief on Walter’s face. He says, “I just want to say”, then the bird flies away and everyone yells out. Commercial break.
Cabe is low enough to reach out for Walter as the car continues to shift. Cabe slowly pulls (with one arm) Walter out of the car as the car plummets to the ground, each turn and flip pan caking it more and more.
Elliot arrives at the hospital to a distinct cold shoulder from the group. Happy stands up to inform him that his car is destroyed. Toby sits comfortably and says, “it’s family only” (a shot at Elliot’s receptionists’ policy on interrupting meetings). Even Sylvester sends a jab of his own suggesting this is yet another opportunity for Elliot to try to steal Walter away. Refusing to leave well enough alone, Elliot suggests that while he has no interest in breaking up this ‘family’ he’d like them all to consider working for his think tank.
Elliot: I’d be crazy not to want a group like you to work for my think tank. Food for thought?
Toby: Nope.
Sylvester: Uh-uh.
Happy: No way.
Paige: Scorpion appreciates your offer but, um, we’re not corporate material. We’re a team. We work out of a garage. Not a tank. And we work alone.
Elliot: Fair enough.
Toby: Um, what’s this ‘we stuff’ pilgrim?
Happy: What about Maine?
Paige: I don’t know Ralphie, what about Maine?
Ralph: It’s cold and wet.
The group are invited to an after visiting hours quick visitation. Walter is very happy (comparatively for Walter, could be the drugs). They share a nice moment then the nurse informs them that its morphine time. They all disperse. Paige decides she’s going to stay back in case Walter needs anything. Paige asks Happy to watch over Ralph for a few hours. Happy then asks Toby if he’d like to “babysit with her”? The first sign of any kind that the Quin-Tis ship can be reconciled.
Paige walks back into the room, but Walter is effectively out cold. She slowly builds into what’s coming. It would be a shame if our last memory together would be of us fighting. Because…(you’re waiting for the phrase ‘I love you’) I care about you. Then she kisses him. On the lips. At least once.
