We left off the winter finale with the FBI headquarters being bombed and everyone leaving in shock. Coming back we see flashbacks to the NAT’s, who are still on the same training time line, but entering the present day we have jumped three months ahead after the bombing.
Hearings are being held regarding the Grand Central and FBI head quarters bombing. Alex is the only
one who believes that Elias was not working alone. Everyone else thinks he was. Even Simon has an honest and well calculated answer; he spent the last three months going over everything Elias ever said to him: Elias hated the FBI, and that he believes Elias was working alone. I don’t think Simon is telling the truth and I believe his loyalty will be questioned again when we see flashbacks of the past three months. I hope there are many flashbacks to come to help fill in the blanks!
With the entire room flooded, camera’s flashing and news reporters, the intensity of the hearings was amplified. I love the way the director set those the scenes up. It portrays how widely spread this conflict has been and that everyone is watching and listening to what these people have to say. Telling the truth or giving your honest opinion to an audience of that magnitude is very difficult, especially when, like Alex, you’re the only fish swimming against the current.
In this week’s episode, during the flashbacks to the NAT’s training they have a ruthless class battle. The prize being whichever class wins can choose five from the losing class to be expelled. In order to break the tie, both teams take part in a hostage exercise. By cheating, the upper class wins, demonstrating the major theme being pushed to the forefront this episode; bad guys don’t play by the rules. Miranda decided that due to the cheating they would expel class members from both teams to make it fair, but requiring the upper and lower class to meld into one. Reminding the audience that everything is unexpected and again that whoever is framing Alex is not playing by any rule book.
“In this job you will make a lot more enemies than friends. We’re not training you to be nice. We’re not training you for what’s fair. We’re training you for what’s real. We’re training you to deal with the unexpected because you will go through the fire and you will get burned. But you will come out on the other side stronger you have to for what comes next.” – Miranda Shaw
At the beginning of the episode we see Alex use her cheeky charms that she first used on Ryan on a telecom worker. Stealing his access key she use it to try and find the ‘needle in the haystack’ to show the world that Elias wasn’t working alone. Ryan pays Alex a visit and slyly convinces her that she needs to let this go. Alex feels like everyone thinks she is crazy for believing so strongly that Elias was working alone, “I know there is someone else! You should have heard Elias, he was so scared, so ashamed… he just wanted someone to forgive him.” I believe Alex, and she has many supporters, but at the end of the episode we see her change her tune.
After Ryan’s talk in her apartment she thought about the options and thought it would be best to give up the fight. At first I thought it was a strategic move to try to fish out the real bomber, but then we see her argument with Ryan right after her statement. I honestly believed that she did it for Ryan. As of this moment I think Ryan is the bomber. He baited Alex into changing her beliefs, and then turned around and scolded her for doing so. He got close to her during the training, so she has a soft spot for him, making it easy for him to manipulate her. At the end of the episode we see the new guy ‘T-Bone’ come into her room with Ryan’s dog tags. I think Ryan left them there knowing that whoever found them would ask Alex to return them. We haven’t seen her do this yet but it causes her to think about him again. I believe Ryan uses this to keep the connection between them alive even though he is no longer at the academy.
At the end of the episode we see Alex drinking and she starts receiving hate phone calls from her former supporters. Then another phone rings, finding it hidden on her desk, it’s the other terrorist. I believe that Natalie was forced to plant the phone there when she went to escort Alex to the hearing. I want to just say that the editors who warped the voice on the phone did an excellent job at enhancing the fear factor and confusion by adding in clear words or phrases spoken by people that Alex knows as she is trying to figure out who it is. The final scene is so intense as Natalie walks towards Alex showing that she has a bomb strapped to her stomach, “You weren’t the terrorist before but you’re going to be now. Listen closely Alex.”
We have to wait until Sunday March 13th to find out more! Tweet me your theories of who the terrorist is @prmiller20!