Quantico - S2E6 - Aquiline

Previously on Quantico, “KMFORGET”

Quantico – S2E6 – “Aquiline” | Starring: Priyanka Chorpa, Jake McLuaghlin, Aunjanue Ellis, Johanna Braddy, Yasmine Al Massri | directed by: Hanelle Culpepper

Aquiline refers to a CIA project to eavesdrop on conversations via a drone which looks like a bird. And boy is there some eavesdropping that happens in this episode. 

Time is Running Out

One year ago, it was the anniversary of Simon’s death. And on that one-year anniversary, Owen decides to give the CIA recruits a test that gives them the power to end a man’s life. Basically, Owen don’t care about nobody’s little feelings especially Alex.

The recruits are put through a training exercise in which they are given the task to show that a drone strike on an enemy combatant is justified. Drone strikes have to meet seven different criteria in order to be enacted and the recruits have to come to a unanimous decision. During the exercise, everyone sorts through the evidence methodically and agrees, but when Owen tells them that their exercise is now a real-life situation everyone, particularly Alex, Lee, and Sebastian, start to second guess their intel and their decision.

Like last week, it was heartening to see Ryan step up and back Alex once he realized how much this decision was weighing on her. They are really setting us up to be heartbroken if these two crazy kids can’t make it work. 

Meanwhile, Harry is still waiting on Alex and Ryan to tell him what their mission is and they are trying to figure out how to stall him until they can come up with a convincing cover story. This involves breaking Harry’s trust with Sebastian in order to find dirt on him.

Old Grudges

In the present day, Alex is working with Lydia who convinces her that they need to find the encrypted disks that the terrorists wanted the hacker to access. The two of them begrudgingly make peace to find the tapes but while Alex wants to destroy them while Lydia wants to take them back to the CIA and use them as leverage to negotiate with the terrorists. I’m not a secret agent or nothing but even I know that’s a bad idea. Lydia is still at the top of my AIC list because she can’t seem to tell the truth, ever.

Raina is back in the room with the hostages and she convinces all the former recruits to dish about what they’ve been doing and where they’ve been in the past year. Though they all admit to being at the Farm, they keep their cover stories going until Lee slips up and the terrorists turn on her neck device so we can watch her die. It was bloody and after seeing Lee and her kids in the past, you really feel for her. But you barely get a chance to register that before the terrorists are grabbing Raina and dragging her away. However, we’re in for a shock because it’s not Raina who’s been trying to get information, it’s Nimah.

Central (lack of) Intelligence Agency

• Given the ending, we know why Nimah (posing as Raina) was trying to get them to talk, but why they all went along loudly telling their business made no sense. You’re all CIA trained. You should know better.

Who’s Sexin’ Whom

Shelby’s dumb behind is sleeping with Leon. This is actually the dumbest thing Shelby has done after sleeping with Caleb’s dad. Her entire reasoning about wanting to be with a man who doesn’t know her past is ridiculous. Shelby is probably the most Google-able person on this show after Alex. Before she was an FBI agent, she was a billionaire orphan, and since the FBI she’s been a top-level FBI agent and was involved in a major terrorist plot. The fact that she thinks Leon doesn’t know who she really is makes her even dumber than I thought.

Also, Sebastian reveals that he has a wife in the present day and Harry looks visibly shaken. Something happened between them at the Farm.

Answers and More Questions

• Nimah said that Dayana might be “one of them”. One of who? Is Nimah working with the AIC or trying to flush them out? Dayana seemed genuinely terrified to be pulled into the room and now that we know she has kids it makes sense.
• Where’s Ryan? He was separated from the group and we haven’t seen him since.
• I’m starting to think that Alex washed out of the CIA but Ryan didn’t. Alex makes a crack about him being Lydia’s star pupil. Also Lydia hints that Alex got her dad put in jail. There’s a lot of bad blood between these women.
• Lydia also seems very interested in keeping her dad from going back out into the field. I can’t tell if she’s trying to protect him or if this is resentment from him being an absentee dad.