In this episode of Quantico, “Go,” the trainees go through their biggest test yet and many of them will be going home when it’s all over, even a couple we’ve come to know and love. Meanwhile, Alex is still trying to figure out who really did the bombings and it appears the danger to the United States isn’t quite over as a new terrorist group moves front and center thanks to the twins’ work.
The episode opens in the past when the recruits are training and Simon is talking to Miranda shortly after the twins apparently fetched her to deal with the fallout of him learning their secret. While Simon seems to understand why Miranda has brought this plan forward, he personally is clearly hurt, considering he really liked Nimah.
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Maybe the Twins Aren’t Bad After All
The episode flashes forward to the bombing investigation, where Alex and Simon have found Raina. They thought she was the one who was at Grand Central right before the bombing. She divulges that who they actually saw was Nimah. Raina explains that she and Nimah were working undercover when Nimah suddenly went dark. Simon thinks it’s because Nimah joined the terrorist cell they’d been investigating. Raina talks about how the group had wanted to send a message to America and it appears they are now the frontrunners for “who done it.” There’s also an exchange between Simon and Raina where she pointedly tells him, “Nobody forced you to do anything.” I have a feeling we’re going to see what that means later in the season.
The Test
Back in the present, the trainees are trying to figure out their latest test, where all they’ve been given is blank pieces of paper. Alex posits that it’s the gateway to start investigating the evidence. After the group is initially skeptical, Natalie jumps on board and the group is off and running in that direction. After various tests on the pieces of paper, the trainees realize there are 61 people in the room, but only 60 pieces of paper have been turned in. The person who didn’t turn it in, or didn’t get one, isn’t speaking up, so the group moves to what it learned in the previous episode: surveillance.
Revisiting the Previous Lesson
The mention of surveillance is also foreshadowing a jump to the future where Caleb is looking at surveillance video of Grand Central. He and Shelby start talking about the fact that she was sleeping with Clayton and she lets it slip that she knows the twin he’s looking at is Nimah. Caleb very quickly realizes this and Shelby has to go running back to Ryan to let him know that their cover (helping Alex) is blown.
The episode then goes back to the trainee center where Shelby and Caleb are again talking about his dad, this time with Caleb explaining his rather difficult relationship with his father (who had earlier in the episode offered him $10,000 to quit the FBI). Meanwhile, the trainees’ surveillance turns up that Brandon is the one who didn’t get a sheet of paper. After being found out, he explains that he feels as though he shouldn’t be there and leaves. As soon as he leaves, the room goes into lockdown and Elias (who is nowhere to be found in present-day scenes so far) finds a timer on the seat where Brandon was sitting.
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Has Nimah Gone Dark or Chosen the Dark Side?
In the future, Raina, Simon and Alex are able to see enough signatures in the house they’re surveilling to decide that Nimah is inside. Alex and Simon are convinced that it’s because she’s helping the terrorists, but Raina isn’t so sure. At the FBI investigation headquarters, Ryan and Shelby try to convince Nathalie that they know Alex isn’t the one who did the bombing and they hurry off thinking Nathalie is on their side, but it looks like she only let them go in order to track their location and find Alex. That romantic rivalry isn’t dead just yet, it appears. Unbeknownst that trouble might be on the way, Raina goes into the terrorist house and gets Nimah out into the waiting hands of Simon.
When the group returns to the twins’ room, Nimah explains that she was able to get close to the leader of the terrorist cell. It’s at that moment that the terrorist leader returns to his hideout across the street. He is fooled by the ruse and believes that Raina is Nimah, explaining to her that they have to leave the country soon. He also seems to indicate that the Grand Central bombing wasn’t his doing and that something else is coming. It looks like Alex and company haven’t cracked the case just yet.
The Test That May Not Be a Test
Back in the training center, the group is convinced that Brandon is up to no good, while Alex tries to get them to believe this is actually a test. Alex starts asking Nathalie questions about Brandon and she divulges that he’s been under quite a bit of stress. They eventually decide to rewind the surveillance tape and find that Brandon has put a bomb in the room. While there’s some debate as to whether it’s real at all, Simon is given the task of diffusing the bomb. He thinks he’s getting it and a trainee gets the doors open, but the bomb’s timer starts speeding up.
Elias and some other trainees take off while Simon explains that he can’t leave because he won’t risk letting go of the wires. Alex, Ryan and the core group all stay behind to help … and it turns out it really was a test. Brandon explains that those who fled failed the test. So we finally know why Elias is not part of the investigation into the bombing; he quits because he was fooled into thinking the bomb was real.
Final Fallout
Alex and Ryan are finally talking again, and Ryan explains that he had to tail Alex because he was doing penance for Liam’s screw-ups. It turns out Caleb did well enough as an analyst that he’s back on the team as a field agent trainee, and Nimah and Raina are allowed to share their secret with the trainees who remain on the team.
In the future, Ryan and Shelby show up and the group starts to hatch a plan to get Raina out of the terrorist house. That plan goes bad when Nathalie leads a strike team against Alex and her group. The terrorists and FBI agents get into a shootout, with Ryan getting hit as they’re fleeing. Nathalie catches them but lets them go when she sees how badly hurt Ryan is. It appears that the group has unofficially gained one more ally.
Quantico airs Sundays at 10pm on ABC.
(Image courtesy of ABC)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
