Scorpion season 2 - disc 3
Sep. 13th, 2020 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI’d only seen the end of all these episodes, thus missing out on the build-up within episodes and all that had come before (e.g. getting to know Megan and what she meant to Walter and Sly.)
US vs UN vs UK
Even though the bit from where Toby was doing his ‘translation’ and Happy was making her ‘bomb’ is where I probably started watching the show the first time around, and I’d now watched everything up until this point, I still fell for the team going along with a well-dodgy mission. (Nice nod back to ‘Charades’, though.)
The mission is bookended by Walter high-handedly getting a court order to intubate Megan against her wishes, so Sly, wanting to support her, marries her (!!) and stands up to Walter. Despite Paige pushing him to face Megan’s approaching demise, Walter is still set on his sci-fi consciousness transference thingy.
In between that, a couple of MI6 agents force the team to plan a heist in ‘the UN’, and then it turns out the mission is really a hit (Though if the lady was in the pay of the target…NEVER MIND.)
Walter seems swayed by the ‘greater good’ argument – the target is clearly a bad’un- or the threat of jail if they don’t comply. To her credit, Cooper (in her last appearance???) doesn’t buy this and is ready at the opportune moment. Unlike this viewer who was relieved that they did the right thing and felt bad for not assuming they would find a way and not being more suspicious.
A lot of daftness ensues – a fake pregnancy, fake make-up ladies, Chekhov’s methane and a toy Megan gave Walter coming in handy. There’s enough for a Waige shipper to read into, including the angst at the garage. But the emotional whump comes from the boys’ love for Megan and her deteriorating state.
‘Arrivals and Departures’ is massive, as it’s the episode in which Megan dies. I had seen more of it than the previous ep, and it was obviously a big part of the show’s hold on me. Inescapably, I was now watching it during a pandemic, meaning that talk of ‘lockdown’ and ‘quarantine’ had a certain resonance.
Anyway, the O’Briens’ fraught relationship – chiefly the father and son – Sly’s dignity in his love for Megan and Happy and Toby’s heroics, plus Walter’s grief mean more this time around. The show gets away with juggling the usual humour with the big emotional stakes.
We start off in media res with the team using Happy’s driving and Cabe’s connections…to get them to the airport in time to meet Mr and Mrs O’Brien and take them to the hospital, where everyone (although Walter is in denial) knows Megan is dying. Their mother is nondescript, but has a deeply Irish accent. The father plays hardball with Walter (and is played by Colin Farrell crossed with Brendan Coyle, so comes off as eleventy times more Irish than his fictional offspring). He desn’t understand or appreciate his son. Or Sylvester, the stranger who married his daughter. (They win him around. A bit.)
Something is up at the hospital, namely a big, bad fungus that’s spreading rapidly as visually striking mould. The team is split up as the hospital is locked down, Happy and Toby have patient zero and a pregnant lady on their gloved hands in the kitchen/cafeteria. Walter and Paige get trapped near the ventilator, which means that he can’t get to Megan. Sly is with the in-laws and the barely-holding-on Megan. Cabe, on the outside, will have to kidnap Ralph from school (on Paige’s say-so) to brew a cure from the superbacteria Sly had cultivated from his obssssive cleanliness.
Typical.
Happy risking herself by going into mould central to help disperse the cure is heart-in-the-mouth stuff, leaving the Doc to choose between tending to her and saving a newborn’s life. (He picks right.)
Walter gets to be there as Megan dies…before completing her last words to him, but he gets to hear the crux of her message in a pre-record (I don’t quite understand how Megan set it up to play in the event of her death..but let’s handwave that.) Walter has been responding Walterishly to Megan’s demise until he (and everyone else) hears them, when he seems to take her advice to not be afraid of being himself and of his heart.
There’s a lovely hint of the Irish lilt returning to his voice as he tells a story about Megan, in what becomes a wake. He’s also grabbing hold of Paige’s hand as he does so – aww! This was an ep where the three main couples were paired off during the action. The scene where Sly shows Megan the display of stars he’s got up for her is powerful, and there’s the whole palm to palm stuff from Waige before they have to work as one to climb up the shaft.
My only criticism of the final scene was that they missed a reaction shot from Ralph, who seemed to disappear in the middle of it.
‘The Old College Try’ offered cracky comedy as the geniuses returned to university, but also delivered on the emotion. It’s six weeks after Megan’s death, Sly is trying to cope, Walter is denying his feelings of grief, but also trying to help Ray by proving he couldn’t have saved his best friend and colleague. Paige notes that this is both a step backward and forward.
There is a slo-mo shot of the geniuses in oldschool spacesuits For Reasons involving a super-duper computer. Walter is pretending to be a drama teacher, which is inherently funny; Toby is interviewing to work under his ex’s current husband; Happy is joining Sly in passing as college-age now (though, in fairness, she wasn’t in the running in ‘Love Boat’). So she’s trying out for a sorority and Sly for the wrestling team. He gets bullied, Toby and Happy get hit by truth bombs, which leads to Happy offering Toby a dance after aeons of cold-shouldering him.
There were one or two jarring exposition bits. But we learned Paige went to university with no reason to think she didn’t graduate. (WHERE WERE HER PARENTS AFTER DREW LEFT? WHERE ARE THEY NOW?)
Walter panics when Paige is taken at gunpoint by the baddie (after she’s heroic about some not-so-innocent college kids and has calmed Sly down at a crucial moment by talking to him about Megan, overriding Walter’s wishes.)
Then, after a lot of wink-wink, nudge-nudge trashtalking about actors, they give Gabel a speech from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to do to prove that Walter can act (if he’s happened to watch that particular speech performed by a good actor?) The speech is all about mourning and grief, and Paige theorises he was tapping into his feelings about Megan. Walter is still ‘feelings, what feelingis?’ But the speech is also about faithfulness, and Walter is directing it at Paige, not his former students. AND THEN THERE’S MORE.
Ray is written off (for season 2, I know, at least) by having Walter free him of some of his guilt via science. Before leaving to live the rest of his life, he advises Paige to be the one to reach out, advice she SPOILER won’t take. (And I think the nature of the show that it’s going to have to be Walter who grows enough to be able to make that move, actually, although it’s bizzare that Paige just sits on this forever.) Especially the bit about knowing how Walter feels about her, because she is very determined not to know, although, in fairness, some of Water’s later behaviour will justify her in that. Paige merely notes that Walter hugged Ray back. I note that I’d be happy for Ray to return.
The title of ‘Dam Breakthrough’ emphasises that we should see the state of the dam as representing Walter’s emotional state. He’s now talking to himself, which worries Toby and Paige. Oh, and carrying Megan’s ashes around in a coffee can in the car.
It’s the Christmas ep, and a Californian city’s Christmas is threatened by a nearby dam that’s about to break after terrible weather. Fortunately, the team were nearby, dealing with something involving helium, which of course led to funny voices. There are oodles of callbacks or the writers rehashing old bits: Paige and Walter hold hands again, Robert Patrick gets to dangle in midair again and Happy’s foot gets caught up in something aain, though this time it’s more serious as it endangers her life.
The team come up with a very Scoripon way to stop the dam from bursting: they create a tsunami bomb (is that even a thing?) to reverse a river’s flow, Ralph hacks into the city’s emergency warning system to transmit Paige’s wish for a Christmas miracle.
Walter hears he won the $15 million prize for his rocket thing, subject to an inspection. Instead of celebrating, he breaks down over the disappearance of Ferret Bueller (who hadn’t appeared on this show between the episode he was introduced and this one). Of course, for the ferret, who they find, read Megan. Cue a breakdown and hugs. Then he decides on the symbolic gesture of sending off the rocket carrying Megan’s ashes, which everyone approves of (I know he wanted the money to save Megan somehow, but they could do with some money to fix the garage up). He was listening when a worried Paige told him he needed to open up! Hence the hand-holding.
The real Christmas romance comes about as Happy, inspired by Sly saying he and Megan made the most of the time they had together and nearly dying, offers Toby another chance. He kisses her, it goes well.
US vs UN vs UK
Even though the bit from where Toby was doing his ‘translation’ and Happy was making her ‘bomb’ is where I probably started watching the show the first time around, and I’d now watched everything up until this point, I still fell for the team going along with a well-dodgy mission. (Nice nod back to ‘Charades’, though.)
The mission is bookended by Walter high-handedly getting a court order to intubate Megan against her wishes, so Sly, wanting to support her, marries her (!!) and stands up to Walter. Despite Paige pushing him to face Megan’s approaching demise, Walter is still set on his sci-fi consciousness transference thingy.
In between that, a couple of MI6 agents force the team to plan a heist in ‘the UN’, and then it turns out the mission is really a hit (Though if the lady was in the pay of the target…NEVER MIND.)
Walter seems swayed by the ‘greater good’ argument – the target is clearly a bad’un- or the threat of jail if they don’t comply. To her credit, Cooper (in her last appearance???) doesn’t buy this and is ready at the opportune moment. Unlike this viewer who was relieved that they did the right thing and felt bad for not assuming they would find a way and not being more suspicious.
A lot of daftness ensues – a fake pregnancy, fake make-up ladies, Chekhov’s methane and a toy Megan gave Walter coming in handy. There’s enough for a Waige shipper to read into, including the angst at the garage. But the emotional whump comes from the boys’ love for Megan and her deteriorating state.
‘Arrivals and Departures’ is massive, as it’s the episode in which Megan dies. I had seen more of it than the previous ep, and it was obviously a big part of the show’s hold on me. Inescapably, I was now watching it during a pandemic, meaning that talk of ‘lockdown’ and ‘quarantine’ had a certain resonance.
Anyway, the O’Briens’ fraught relationship – chiefly the father and son – Sly’s dignity in his love for Megan and Happy and Toby’s heroics, plus Walter’s grief mean more this time around. The show gets away with juggling the usual humour with the big emotional stakes.
We start off in media res with the team using Happy’s driving and Cabe’s connections…to get them to the airport in time to meet Mr and Mrs O’Brien and take them to the hospital, where everyone (although Walter is in denial) knows Megan is dying. Their mother is nondescript, but has a deeply Irish accent. The father plays hardball with Walter (and is played by Colin Farrell crossed with Brendan Coyle, so comes off as eleventy times more Irish than his fictional offspring). He desn’t understand or appreciate his son. Or Sylvester, the stranger who married his daughter. (They win him around. A bit.)
Something is up at the hospital, namely a big, bad fungus that’s spreading rapidly as visually striking mould. The team is split up as the hospital is locked down, Happy and Toby have patient zero and a pregnant lady on their gloved hands in the kitchen/cafeteria. Walter and Paige get trapped near the ventilator, which means that he can’t get to Megan. Sly is with the in-laws and the barely-holding-on Megan. Cabe, on the outside, will have to kidnap Ralph from school (on Paige’s say-so) to brew a cure from the superbacteria Sly had cultivated from his obssssive cleanliness.
Typical.
Happy risking herself by going into mould central to help disperse the cure is heart-in-the-mouth stuff, leaving the Doc to choose between tending to her and saving a newborn’s life. (He picks right.)
Walter gets to be there as Megan dies…before completing her last words to him, but he gets to hear the crux of her message in a pre-record (I don’t quite understand how Megan set it up to play in the event of her death..but let’s handwave that.) Walter has been responding Walterishly to Megan’s demise until he (and everyone else) hears them, when he seems to take her advice to not be afraid of being himself and of his heart.
There’s a lovely hint of the Irish lilt returning to his voice as he tells a story about Megan, in what becomes a wake. He’s also grabbing hold of Paige’s hand as he does so – aww! This was an ep where the three main couples were paired off during the action. The scene where Sly shows Megan the display of stars he’s got up for her is powerful, and there’s the whole palm to palm stuff from Waige before they have to work as one to climb up the shaft.
My only criticism of the final scene was that they missed a reaction shot from Ralph, who seemed to disappear in the middle of it.
‘The Old College Try’ offered cracky comedy as the geniuses returned to university, but also delivered on the emotion. It’s six weeks after Megan’s death, Sly is trying to cope, Walter is denying his feelings of grief, but also trying to help Ray by proving he couldn’t have saved his best friend and colleague. Paige notes that this is both a step backward and forward.
There is a slo-mo shot of the geniuses in oldschool spacesuits For Reasons involving a super-duper computer. Walter is pretending to be a drama teacher, which is inherently funny; Toby is interviewing to work under his ex’s current husband; Happy is joining Sly in passing as college-age now (though, in fairness, she wasn’t in the running in ‘Love Boat’). So she’s trying out for a sorority and Sly for the wrestling team. He gets bullied, Toby and Happy get hit by truth bombs, which leads to Happy offering Toby a dance after aeons of cold-shouldering him.
There were one or two jarring exposition bits. But we learned Paige went to university with no reason to think she didn’t graduate. (WHERE WERE HER PARENTS AFTER DREW LEFT? WHERE ARE THEY NOW?)
Walter panics when Paige is taken at gunpoint by the baddie (after she’s heroic about some not-so-innocent college kids and has calmed Sly down at a crucial moment by talking to him about Megan, overriding Walter’s wishes.)
Then, after a lot of wink-wink, nudge-nudge trashtalking about actors, they give Gabel a speech from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to do to prove that Walter can act (if he’s happened to watch that particular speech performed by a good actor?) The speech is all about mourning and grief, and Paige theorises he was tapping into his feelings about Megan. Walter is still ‘feelings, what feelingis?’ But the speech is also about faithfulness, and Walter is directing it at Paige, not his former students. AND THEN THERE’S MORE.
Ray is written off (for season 2, I know, at least) by having Walter free him of some of his guilt via science. Before leaving to live the rest of his life, he advises Paige to be the one to reach out, advice she SPOILER won’t take. (And I think the nature of the show that it’s going to have to be Walter who grows enough to be able to make that move, actually, although it’s bizzare that Paige just sits on this forever.) Especially the bit about knowing how Walter feels about her, because she is very determined not to know, although, in fairness, some of Water’s later behaviour will justify her in that. Paige merely notes that Walter hugged Ray back. I note that I’d be happy for Ray to return.
The title of ‘Dam Breakthrough’ emphasises that we should see the state of the dam as representing Walter’s emotional state. He’s now talking to himself, which worries Toby and Paige. Oh, and carrying Megan’s ashes around in a coffee can in the car.
It’s the Christmas ep, and a Californian city’s Christmas is threatened by a nearby dam that’s about to break after terrible weather. Fortunately, the team were nearby, dealing with something involving helium, which of course led to funny voices. There are oodles of callbacks or the writers rehashing old bits: Paige and Walter hold hands again, Robert Patrick gets to dangle in midair again and Happy’s foot gets caught up in something aain, though this time it’s more serious as it endangers her life.
The team come up with a very Scoripon way to stop the dam from bursting: they create a tsunami bomb (is that even a thing?) to reverse a river’s flow, Ralph hacks into the city’s emergency warning system to transmit Paige’s wish for a Christmas miracle.
Walter hears he won the $15 million prize for his rocket thing, subject to an inspection. Instead of celebrating, he breaks down over the disappearance of Ferret Bueller (who hadn’t appeared on this show between the episode he was introduced and this one). Of course, for the ferret, who they find, read Megan. Cue a breakdown and hugs. Then he decides on the symbolic gesture of sending off the rocket carrying Megan’s ashes, which everyone approves of (I know he wanted the money to save Megan somehow, but they could do with some money to fix the garage up). He was listening when a worried Paige told him he needed to open up! Hence the hand-holding.
The real Christmas romance comes about as Happy, inspired by Sly saying he and Megan made the most of the time they had together and nearly dying, offers Toby another chance. He kisses her, it goes well.
