That’s a lot of barrels
We rejoin the story with Shepard about to buy a metric ass ton of radioactive material. She’s about to close the deal, when the shady dudes selling it to her decide they want to jack the price up last minute.
Dumb move.
She claims she’s already paid someone else to kill them and deliver the goods for less–unless they go through with the as-promised price and she calls them off. However, when she goes to pay the man, Patterson has made some quick moves to freeze the money in those accounts Nas found for them (before leaving). Violence ensues, and during a car chase where Shepard tries to beat the man driving the truck full of her radioactive material senseless. Instead, the man gets lucky and manages to kick her out of the truck and into an oncoming group of policemen.
Caged, for now
Shepard spends much of the rest of the episode trying to sympathetically sweet talk the bullied guard into getting close enough to the cell to be within grabbing range.
Meanwhile, another tattoo case comes up.
A hacker duo with a bunch of stolen government data has decided they want to retire, and they’re putting on a contest to find the right people to replace them. Patterson solves a few of their puzzles, but when it comes time to actually meet the hackers in person Jane and Weller are the ones going.
Before they leave, Reade comes into the office wanting to earn his job back. Of course Weller never told anyone that Reade had quit, so he tells him he needs to get right, see the new head shrinker, and re-qualify for field readiness. Throughout the episode, we see that he’s having some trouble with all he has experienced–especially knowing what he’s seen on the video.
Our duo, together again
The others cook up a plan to follow Jane and Weller into the meet, but they’re foiled when the hackers have cooked up a flash mob a la The Thomas Crown Affair, hiding them in a group of dressed-alikes.
Once they make it to the party and solve the first puzzle (opening a door with the most obvious answer means ignoring the puzzle and opening the door) they find out they’re not the only ones to the final party.n There’s a group of people, and the last puzzle will be a competition. After the hacker (amusingly played by Jewel Staite) makes an impression by shooting a woman she claims was MI-5, the contestants are led into separate rooms that they must escape to claim the prize.
Truth?
They have to strap themselves to lie detectors and answer questions about themselves and their partners. We learn a little about how Jane and Weller see each other (awwwwwww), and of course they dance around the truth to successfully pass.
The last bit is finding keys to unlock a little door to the button that’ll get them out, but they’re told if they press it it will flood the room next door (now visible through a window) with toxic gas.
Naturally, our fuzzy-hearted Weller hesitates. The room next door, however, decides to hit their button. It opens Jane and Weller’s room instead, flooding the other room with gas.
This test was about being moral. Naturally, this is why Weller passed. He chooses to break the window and get his competitors out, and for a minute it almost looks like they’re going to lose–but of course, they get the file cache in the end.
Cages bird breaks free
During all of this, Shepard finally gets the guard to come close enough to smack, and she gets free. Patterson and Zapata figured out through finding the passport aliases Shepard bought which name she was using and that she was in Bangkok, but by this time it’s too late. Shepard is in the wind, and she has her radioactive material after retrieving it from the men she bought it from.
The team checks out the document cache and surprise, surprise–the Truman Protocol that the older agent mumbled about in Weller’s ear before he died is on the drive.
However, it’s redacted. One big solid block of blacked out text.
The only clue they get is the fact that it’s signed by Truman himself, and that it’s stamped COGS. Recall that Cade said something to Nas about watching the cogs?
Jane and Weller almost have a moment, and just as they’re closing in…it’s spoiled by the team. Damn.
Shepard makes her escape from Bangkok on a boat, and when she’s informed that Weller has the Truman Protocol she decides he has to die. Yipes.
Zapata is walking home when we see her surrounded by police and arrested. Did someone figure out the evidence tampering she did with that knife?
Previous Episode: Senile Lines
JL Jamieson is a strange book nerd who writes technical documents by day, and book news, reviews, and other assorted opinions for you by night. She is working on her own fiction, and spends time making jewelry to sell at local conventions, as well as stalking the social media accounts of all your favorite writers.