Scorpion’s 19th episode, “Young Hearts Spark Fire,†features six hikers who are lost in a Los Angeles forest. Unluckily for them, the Santa Ana winds are picking up and making their trail nearly impossible to find. Now, it’s time to call in the Scorpion team. At the garage, Toby is working on furthering his relationship with Happy by trying to take her out to dinner. Also, Toby makes a point to show Walter scientific proof that he has feelings for Paige. Walter makes sure to have a reason for everything he does that seems to be a favor for Paige; sooner or later, he may figure it out.
When the team gets to the sight of the rescue team, they find out that they are going to be using Walter’s software from Baghdad to help find the missing hikers. We have yet to understand what happened between Walter and Cabe in Baghdad; maybe soon we will learn more. The Scorpion team goes up into a helicopter to help scan the area in search of patterns that will help find the hikers. When they feel that they have potentially spotted the hikers, the helicopter starts to go down.
It is amazing that these geniuses always find themselves in these predicaments, but at least we get to see each member use their abilities to shine in the face of danger. Sylvester manages to overcome even more fears and hurdles by first getting in the helicopter and then repelling 40 feet from up in the tree to the ground. He calculates the exact order of when each person should repel out of the helicopter. Walter puts Paige before himself even though she should have gone last. Once again, Walter lets his feelings get in the way of the math and science, which is very unlike him. Naturally, this causes the helicopter to come inches from crashing on top of him.
With the pilot injured, Sylvester stays at the helicopter with him and works on getting the coms working again. The rest of the team goes to search for the hikers. At one point they lose the trail and are about to give up since the science in failing them. That’s when Paige comes in. She tells the team which way to go. When they ask how she knows, she says, “It’s very scientific. I heard them.†Sylvester is attempting to work on the coms when a spark from the wires starts a fire. With the Santa Ana winds picking up, this is becoming a disaster. It is so fierce that within minutes the rest of the Scorpion team along with the hikers are looking out over rapidly spreading forest fires.
Now that the fires are closing in on both parties, everyone must use their strengths and find a way out. Sylvester makes a sled backboard to help carry the injured pilot to safety. The pilot tries using military speak and berating Sylvester before he starts to break down. Sly knows that he can’t outrun the fires, but he realizes that maybe they don’t have to. He finds a way for them to take cover and let the fires roar around them without killing them. The rest of the team and the hikers are also at a crossroads. With the fires at their backs, they come upon a steep drop off with seemingly no way across. Happy makes a rope swing that may or may not hold someone, but there’s no time to find out. Walter takes the plunge as guinea pig, and obviously, it holds.
I’ll give it to the Scorpion writers this time. When Cabe goes out in search of the Scorpion team, I thought for sure it would be a no brainer easy rescue. But, even Cabe gives up when he can’t see them through the fires. Thanks to Walter’s quick thinking, he creates a green smoke flair to send up before the helicopter is completely out of range. There is still the case of Sylvester. The injured pilot sends Sly on without him, but Sylvester would never leave a man behind. Sly carries the man on his shoulders and makes it to the evacuation helicopter just in time.
Like the characters on this show, but the plots? How can a show about geniuses be so um, intellectually challenged? For example…
Sylvester and the pilot take cover in a drainage pipe, using the helicopter door to close themselves up. The pilot says, “We’ll be cooked!” Sylvester replies, “It’s okay, the door is made of titanium.” Really? What about the drainage pipe?
After the fire passes, Sylvester needs to fix the helicopter door so it can once again be used as a sled. He does so by hitting it with a rock. A rock. On the door he just said was made of titanium. Good luck with that.
And how can someone smart enough to make a flare out of a diamond engagement ring, not figure
out that taking a helicopter up in 50 knot winds is a really bad idea in the first place? Helicopters are grounded due to winds half that strong.