Action Heroes | Scorpion “Charades†Review
Scorpion’s fourteenth episode, “Charades,†aired after the NFL’s AFC Championship game. We find our Scorpion team playing charades in the garage. It seems that playing charades with geniuses would not be fun, as Paige finds out the hard way. Gabe knows better; he skips the charades and dives right into business. The CIA has found a leak. This leak is providing chemicals to a foreign national from Yemen.
The Scorpion team digs into the encrypted message sent. On the outside, it looks like a love letter, but the Scorpion team is skeptical. They know that this must be code for something. Always playing devil’s advocate, Paige reminds them that maybe it could just be a love letter. The team now needs to trace the letter back to the leak by profiling the CIA employees. When they arrive, they are assured that all of their best agents are there and ready to be questioned. Walter reminds him that the person who sent this message knows all about coding and is more like one of them than a top agent. Toby asks, “where are the guys with the faces for radio?â€
Using Paige’s idea that it could be a love letter, they find a man named Leonard who believes he is in love with this woman from Yemen. He admits to sending her chemicals that she can use to make pesticides for local farmers. He believes that he is helping the poor who can not help themselves. Walter and the team show him that the chemicals provided could be combined in a different manner to make nerve gas. They believe this woman from Yemen has been playing Leonard and many lives are now in danger.
Using Leonard, Walter makes a voice-changing program, so they can call his Yemen girlfriend. She will only hear Leonard’s voice. Since Paige is the only one who knows how to be romantic, she takes the phone away from Walter to flirt with Sima. Paige, as Leonard, agrees to have his colleague, “Marvin,†meet him at her hotel bar. “Marvin†has the necessary access to get the third chemical. Unfortunately, Walter is the only one who can pretend to be Marvin and flirt with Sima while the others search her room and keep a watch on Walter. Paige, unsuccessfully, attempts to teach Walter how to flirt. She warns him that Sima will try to get him to fall for her, and in order to keep her there, he must pretend that he is falling for her charms. Of course, that is easier said than done with someone who doesn’t understand love.
In the bar, Sima approaches Walter. He reveals that a friend was supposed to meet him but is no longer coming. Luckily for Walter, Paige is in his ear to help him flirt since he is completely clueless. At one point, she flips her hair over her shoulder, and Paige tells Walter to smile back at her. She tries to tone down his giant smile, but she can only say, “he looks like he’s birthing.†It’s a good thing that Sima is determined to get his access card, which she believes will get Leonard access to the third chemical for her.
Meanwhile, Happy and Toby can’t go through the front door of her room. She set up an alarm that will alert her should anyone enter her room. Since Toby was given (or so he says) the scaling gloves from the CIA, Happy takes to the side of the building to enter her room from the outside. Happy can’t get out in time, so in order to distract Sima, Walter kisses her in the hallway to let Happy out. Happy found a key for a storage locker, so she, Toby, and Gabe head to the nearest storage facility in hopes that the chemicals are there. They find the chemicals but also set off an alarm that goes straight to Sima.
Sima, now realizing this is a setup, knocks Walter out. Paige and Sylvester are the only ones outside of the hotel, and they have lost communications with Walter. Walter wakes up handcuffed to a chair on a private jet. Sima negotiated with the Scorpion team to trade the chemicals for Walter. They have to do whatever they can to get Walter off the plane, but Toby believes that she will keep Walter as a hostage until she is in neutral territory. This turns out to be true, but it looks like Sima truly cares for Leonard.
In an attempt to stop the plane and escape, Walter blows a whole in the side of the plane. This causes the pilot to pass out but doesn’t stop the plane. Walter has to jump from the plane onto the truck that Happy is driving next to the plane. The team wonders when they became action heroes. Sima risked being caught because of her love for Leonard. Walter is still the only one who seems to not understand the power of love. He continues to only refer to it as a chemical reaction and constantly deems it as being not real.