Lakshmi’s recaps for “Quantico” episodes 1-7 can be found here and for episode 8 onward here, including her recap of the show’s most recent episode. Her recaps appear on Reappropriate every Monday morning! As with reading any recaps, please be wary of spoilers.
Last week’s bombshell episode ended with Alex (and all of us) learning that Shelby was The Voice’s next target and that Simon and Will are very likely in grave danger.
We started Sunday’s episode with a shot of a very anxious Alex Parrish leaving endless voicemails and electronic messages to Shelby. In them, Alex pleads with Shelby to reach out to her and to give some assurance that she, Simon and Will are all okay.
Of course… Shelby doesn’t reply.
Here are all the things that stood out to us in this week’s episode:
What was that with Miranda and Liam? We missed Deputy Director Miranda Shaw SO MUCH last week, especially since it looked like her future at Quantico was uncertain. So we were thrilled to see her back this week. We were instantly confused however with all of the stuff that came out this episode. Liam and Miranda have a long history together? They almost left their spouses’ for each other? Miranda went out of her way to seduce Liam (who might be the sleaziest character on this show) just to make sure he wouldn’t get her job? We are SO confused.
Miranda and Liam have A LOT OF HISTORY #Quantico
— Quantico WritersRoom (@QuanticoWriters) April 18, 2016
Why is everyone pressuring Raina to take off her hijab? We started to worry the second Alex told Raina that she needed her help to get to the bottom of the terror plot. Raina pointed out that she didn’t have a security clearance and wouldn’t be much use. “Your sister does [have clearance]”, Alex pointed out. But… does that mean that Raina will have to unveil? How does she feel about it?
Nimah herself wasn’t super tolerant of her sister for much of this episode, constantly chiding her for being “the perfect Muslim girl.” Eventually the twins come up with a compromise: Raina will start showing a bit of her hairline under her hijab. There was one thing missing in all of these scenes and that was any reflection on how Raina felt about all this. After all, this was a very big part of her identity that everyone around her seems to have no problem dismissing.
The Quantico writers’ room has obviously read ‘Going Clear.’ Confession time: After I read Lawrence Wright’s expose about Scientology, I had dreams about people being punched and otherwise abused by their peers for a week. I was reminded of this once again when Caleb returned to Systemics headquarters to try to rescue Will. If you recall, Systemics was the cult that indoctrinated Caleb as a teen and to which he still may have ties.
Caleb’s rescue doesn’t go as planned. Systemics leaders demand that Caleb prove his loyalty by attacking Will. Lots of flinching (on our end) ensued.
About that security clearances thing: Anyone else notice that most of the NATs who didn’t get security clearances were people of color? And in Raina and Drew’s cases, they were flagged because they were suspected of being disloyal to the United States.
Nimah instantly notices what’s happening. “She’s being flagged for being devout?” she asks her colleagues.
Once again, Quantico is more timely than it realizes.
Lakshmi Gandhi is a journalist and pop culture writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in Metro New York, NBC Asian America and NPR’s Code Switch blog, among other sites. She likes it when readers tweet her @LakshmiGandhi with their thoughts on Asian American issues and romance novels.
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