Last night’s episode of ABC‘s Quantico, which was titled ‘JMPALM’, was full of double agents and people questioning orders. In the present, the new President, Claire Haas (Marcia Cross), has returned and needs Shelby’s (Johanna Braddy) help. Alex (Priyanka Chopra) is being held at gunpoint by Miranda (Aunjanue Ellis), and Raina (Yasmine Al Massri) makes a tough decision. Ten months in the past, at The Farm, Harry (Russell Tovey) turns Alex and Ryan (Jake McLaughlin) against each other and the recruiter for The AIC is revealed. Here is what went down in last night’s episode of Quantico.
“Call it off!” | The episode kicks off with Alex still driving Miranda to some unknown location. Miranda reveals that Alex failed in taking out The AIC, and Alex tells Miranda that she will too. Miranda replies quite ominously, saying that she [Alex] will pay for hers too, then reveals they are going to try to save the hostages from the airstrike. But that was another lie from Miranda, she only wants to get inside so she can get the drives from Lydia Hall (Tracy Ifeachor). Luckily, Nimah shows up and has her gun trained on Miranda. After a quick tussle, Alex disarms Miranda. Nimah quickly tells Alex that Ryan is not a terrorist, and then turns her attention to Miranda. She is very upset that Miranda made her go undercover with the wrong people. Alex leaves the two behind so she can sneak back inside the building and save the hostages.
Madam President walks in FBI offices and kicks everyone but Shelby out, they need to talk. Shelby and Claire have a conversation about glass ceilings and politics that eerily parallels our own government at the moment, and leads to Claire asking Shelby to help her call off the airstrike. When Shelby points out Claire can do that on her own, Claire responds with, “I can’t, because I helped create the rogue group inside the CIA.” Only not really, she just designed the budget and didn’t know that it was being used, not until she read Shelby’s report.
It’s time for the airstrike. With the clock ticking down to zero, President Haas struggles to make the decision to call off the strike, but she does call it off with only seconds to spare.
“Your patience will be rewarded.” | We already know Harry is a bit of a double agent, so it’s no surprise when we see him on the phone with his handler, who tells him The AIC is real and dangerous. Alex and Ryan meet up in the woods to discuss Alex’s AIC phone. Harry is spying on them, listening in and hearing every detail of their conversation. Ryan leaves and Alex opens her phone to a new message, “Your patience will be rewarded.” Harry intercepts her before she can go anywhere and thinks he’s being played by her, why didn’t she tell him about the phone?
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Leon (Aaron Diaz) is at Shelby/Jane’s apartment, and decides to poke around while she’s in the shower. What he finds is a major red flag, almost every drawer is empty, and she has a gun in the closet. Later, he follows Shelby to her real apartment, waits for her to leave, and confronts Nimah. He knows who they are and why they’re using him, and he wants to help. He hates what The AIC is and what they’re making them do.
In the classroom, their lesson of the day is MICE: Money, ideology, coercion, and ego. These are all leverage tactics, ways to manipulate an asset into helping them. Owen Hall (Blair Underwood) adds one more tactic to that list, doubt. Doubt must be seeded, it can take time, but he tells them all “your patience will be rewarded.” Mirroring Alex’s text from that morning. Harry quickly pulls Alex aside and tries to convince her to eliminate Ryan from the CIA, when earlier Nimah (Yasmine Al Massri) was trying to convince Ryan to do the same to Alex. When Alex brushes off Harry’s advice, he goes to Ryan and tells him the same thing, take out Alex before she takes you out. But it turns out Harry went to Ryan only to prove to Alex that he wants to take her out, and it worked. Ryan left Harry a message saying he’s in, he wants to get Alex kicked out.
The recruits assignment: go to the Venezuelan Consulate and try to get the target to give them access to confidential records. But if they get caught, The CIA can’t help them. The recruits do some morally questionable things in order to obtain the records, but Harry and Alex succeed in doing it. All the while, Ryan and Alex lash out at one another, trying to get them caught and kicked out. Alex is about to succeed in framing Ryan for attacking a security officer, but Ryan talks her out of it, bringing up what it will do to their relationship. Harry is furious when he finds out Ryan is still around, and that Alex and Ryan no longer want to work with him.
Later that night, Owen confronts Ryan about what happened at the Consulate, he’s seen footage of the fight with Alex. Ryan reveals Alex is jealous he got recruited by Owen too, and was trying to get him kicked out of it. Owen looks confused, and goes to confront Alex. He reveals that he is not involved with The AIC and had no idea it even existed. Looks like The FBI was wrong about the leader of the rogue group, because as the end of the episode reveals, Lydia Hall is the leader.
What an episode! The President has loose ties to The AIC, Lydia Hall is the leader of The AIC, and Ryan and Owen seem to be innocent in this whole mess. Is Alex going to succeed in rescuing the hostages, or will she get caught? What will happen between Miranda and Raina? Will Raina shoot her or forgive her? Leave your predictions for next week’s episode below!
Quantico airs on ABC Monday’s at 10pm!