On last night's episode of Quantico, Alex's mother comes into the picture as the FBI tries to extract information from her and convince her to go the press. Sita, Alex's mother, is taken in by the FBI when they break into her house in Oakland fully armed, startling her. Even for television FBI standards, this is pretty unbelievable considering that Oakland is nearly 3,000 miles away from NYC, and Sita is not a dangerous threat.
Nonetheless, she is then taken to the control center in New York, and she refuses to cooperate until the end. Sita know both Liam and Miranda, presumably because of how her husband, Michael, was a special agent. The mystery of what happened with Liam, Michael, Miranda, and Miranda's son is one of the more interesting plotlines, and hopefully the payout is fulfilling. Miranda hastily gives Sita advice to not give up and betray her own blood, drawing from her own experiences with her son. She finally caves in after seeing Alex "holding Simon at gunpoint", and she tells Liam that for a year in India, they didn't know where Alex was. Alex's mother then speaks on national television urging Alex to turn herself in for the greater good.
Alex pays Simon a visit in order to get help figuring out who launched the terrorist attack. It is revealed that Simon was seemingly kicked out at Quantico, and something happened involving him and a bomb. Simon scans the fingerprint on the C4, and they realize that the fingerprints belonged to Alex but was from all the way back when Alex joined. It means that whoever is framing Alex had been doing it from the very start. Simon alerts the authorities by triggering the alarm, but he actually was trying to help Alex to escape without implicating himself. Right when Alex begins to trust Simon, it is revealed that Simon is actually working for Deputy Director Clayton of the FBI.
At Quantico, the recruits are assigned to analyze each other to compile comprehensive psychological profiles on each other. What they didn't know was that the actual purpose of the assignment was to expose what they thought of each other. When the recruits see what their fellow peers really thought of them, it immediately causes them to turn on each other. Miranda informs them that they will have to vote three of each other out of the program, Survivor-style, which certainly does not help relations. Alex leads a united front against this practice even though Miranda says she would cut 10 instead of 3 if that happened. Simon cracks by voting, but this backfires when Miranda reveals that there was never going to be a cut because it was a test of character and teamwork.
Nimah and her sister's relationship was also strained by the judgement because Raina is frustrated that she is perceived as "average and aggressive" when it really describes her under performing sister. She is constrained to her sister's best which holds her back from reaching her true potential. When Raina regrets her decision of even coming to Quantico, Nimah brings up the hard hitting fact that Quantico is their only opportunity for them to break out of their societal bounds. At the end Nimah leaves her sister in order to allow her to reach her full potential.
Alex finally gets the information about her father in a file supplied by Liam. She didn't find what she was looking for because she discovers the man she killed was a hero that saved hundreds of people. Honestly, I believe there has to be much more in her father's past, so it isn't so clear yet. Alex opens up and pours out her guilt to Ryan after her only hope that her actions were somewhat justified if her father was not the great man she knew.
After two entertaining and slightly messy episodes, Quantico still hasn't found a way to slow down and find its footing. It's still keeping my attention, but it's becoming increasingly a convoluted mess that we know won't end well, but we can't take our eyes off of it. I felt like all the plotlines going on at once is beginning to stretch the show thin, and that causes a lot of dropped or meaningless storylines. There still a lot of potential, but so far, the only plotlines that really resounded with me were the twins and the mystery behind Alex's father and other agents. It's hard to become attached to the characters when the show is constantly overstuffing plot twists. I did like the last five minutes when I actually felt like the show was trying to keep itself emotionally grounded. All the twists coming in so quickly is making them insignificant. Like in this episode, Simon got kicked out of Quantico for something. No, wait never mind, he's actually still working with the FBI! Simon is helping Alex! He's randomly turning her in! But wait, he's helping Alex, but wouldn't it have been easier to tell her beforehand what he was doing! He's doing something behind her back! Another nitpick is that the recruits' reactions to the excercise were stretching it. Do they really care that much about what others think of them?
Random Observations, Theories, and Stuff
- I wonder if Quantico will stick to the "Exercise of the Week" for the entire season. If they are, they'll probably run out of ideas and come up with ridiculous tasks.
- Vasquez has a child whose father won't let her see him or her? That probably adds to why she's so moody and passive/aggressive.
- Pick of the Week: Simon- My theory is that he could have been the one framing Alex from the very start under the orders of Clayton. So when he had to be banned because of what he did, Clayton still needed him.