We start out with snippets of the interviews for the Quantico recruits. The recruits are asked an important question: "Why do you want to be in the FBI Academy?" Simon's answer was that "things are not always what they seem". Shelby's answer is her parents. Natalie's answer was that she could do more as a FBI agent then being a cop. Nimah's (or Raina's) answer is that this is her way of expressing gratitude to the country. Alex's answer is that she will do whatever it takes to protect the country. In this show, the recruits' answers are likely not the real reason why they are there which is a large part of explaining the motives of the characters and the potential terrorist. Simon is right though; at Quantico, nothing is what it seems. Shelby's mysterious Arab contact who she speaks with in Arabic certainly has some backstory behind it. Throughout, it's clear that Quantico is setting up Natalie as Alex's rival, a sort of anti-Alex. Natalie tries to one-up Alex in all the training exercise/s, and they even share the same romantic interest in Ryan Booth. This rivalry continues in the future storyline where Natalie tries to capture Alex in a Bourne-type situation.
The "Exercise of the Week" involves the recruits preventing hypothetical terrorist attacks with evidence based on previous prevented attacks. Alex is the only one who solves the puzzle based on her gut instincts. Alex is rightfully suspicious and cold towards Ryan, and Ryan has to try and win Alex's favor and respect. He does eventually gain some ground by admitting some personal details about him, some of which were truthful, and some of which were lies. He gets frustrated with being in the dark about his assignment, but Liam still does not disclose the information. In the future. he does believe Alex, and he helps Alex by buying her some time.
Nimah and Raina were beginning to show their differences which allowed Liam to find out about them. I'm curious as to what the FBI experiment with the twins is about. This causes Miranda to tell the two to step up their game. Simon becomes increasingly suspicious when his interest in Nimah seems romantic, and his cold response to flirting from the gay analyst. There was also suspicious circumstances surrounding his stay in Gaza, and the whole thing with how he wore fake glasses. Caleb returns this week as a arrogant as ever but as an analyst. Caleb says that he chose to be an analyst, but no one actually believes him. Caleb once again softens up to Shelby about his failure to his family at not succeeding as an agent.
Overall, I thought the episode was pretty good, but it still had some of the same problems like the piling by trying to condense as much plot as possible into the episode. Natalie's character so far is very generic, and I would like to see some development past being just Alex's rival. The cat and mouse chase between Alex and the FBI was very enjoyable and exciting. The show slows down a little bit, but the pace is still really fast while the show tries to highlight a lot of storylines.
Random Observations, Theories, and Stuff
- Nothing to do with the actual episode, but I'm happy that Quantico's doing well with a great hold of its 1.9 premiere
- Even "Golden Boy" has a different side to him and another name
- Raina and Simon are getting closer and closer
- New question introduced about Miranda and her son, was her son the one up for parole?
- The FBI are just incompetent in pretty much every TV show
- Pick of the Week: Shelby - The weird telephone call and deleting the contact made her seem very suspicious, and Simon's secrets don't seem relevant to the terrorist attack.