Quantico - S2E17 - ODYOKE

Previously on Quantico, “MKTOPAZ”

ODYOKE is a cryptonym for the US government.

Playing Politics

Last week we saw Raina being framed for a terrorist attack and this week we see it was carried out as a bombing in a shopping center. Word on the street is that a woman wearing a hijab carried out the attack. Conveniently, there is a vote going down to enact a Muslim registry spearheaded by current Speaker of the House Henry Roarke. Clay, Nimah, Shelby, and Ryan are tasked with persuading any swing votes to vote no. They are pointed in the direction of potential swing voters by an associate of Clay’s, Felix Cordova.

Unfortunately for Clay, Felix directs the team to voters who are strongly in favor of the Muslim registry and no amount of reasoning or pleading their cases will change their minds. Felix then uses Clay’s attempts to turn voters into ammunition so Felix can sway the actual swing voters and ensure the bill gets passed through to President Haas. Even though Roarke knows the president will veto the bill, and she does, Roarke goes to the media and attacks the president for her stance on terror. If another terror attack happens, which in all likelihood it will, Haas will be seen as weak. Since the president has yet to officially name a vice president, Roarke will ascend to the highest position in the land, and thus a Collaborator will become President.

I’ll Tell You Everything

While Clay and his team were at Capitol Hill, Clay tasked Alex with finding out who framed Raina. Raina being chosen to be framed may not have been random because Raina was still investigating the G20 crisis and who was behind it. Raina lets Alex know that she and Leon were working together. Alex follows up on that and tries to reach out to Leon, but gets a call that Leon was found dead in his apartment in an apparent suicide.

Owen and Alex are able to track down one of the kidnappers, Tony Vincent. Tony was trying to get on the first thing smoking out of town because he was supposed to make sure Raina’s body was found at the shopping center bombing. Since Raina got away he failed and failure leads to termination. Not the type of termination where your services are no longer needed, but the type where termination ensures you’ll never work in this town again.

If Alex and Owen can get him out of there he is willing to tell them everything about the Collaborators’ plan. However, right on cue, assassins start shooting Tony’s place up in attempt to kill him. During the shootout, Tony is killed and upon seeing this Owen freezes and can’t decide what move to make next. Luckily, Alex is built for this and shows Owen where they can hide. Once the assassins confirm Tony is killed they leave. Owen apologizes for how he got in his own head during the shootout and asks Alex to teach him how to be better under fire.

Who’s Sexin’ Whom?

Nimah, who is my MVP for the post G20 crisis episodes, tells Ryan that Sasha has been flagged as a Russian spy. Of course Ryan confronts Sasha directly and like “The Americans” taught me, good Russian spies know how to deny and deflect suspicion. This seems to satisfy Ryan for now, but he’s not totally convinced because after a night of wine and sex, Ryan is copying files from her computer to his to try and confirm Sasha’s story.

As soon as I start growing fond of  Nimah, she turns herself in on behalf of Raina. It’s an extremely noble gesture and we could only wish we have someone in our lives that would go to jail for us. Hopefully, this won’t be for long as she and Raina switch and Raina will now work with the team against the Collaborators and thus be able to prove Raina’s innocence. Although, I will miss the knowledge Nimah was dropping like “Two blonde people arguing the merits of my freedom instead of letting me have it!” I wish I could buy the Quan2co writers a beer!