Scorpion’s seventeenth episode of its premiere season, “Going South,†takes our genius team down to Mexico. Walter takes a case from a prominent businessman. Richard Elia is a billionaire whose daughter was kidnapped by a drug cartel in Mexico. He paid a two million dollar ransom to get her back, but the cartel considered that a down payment and asked for two million more. He asked the Scorpion team to find his daughter. He said that he only needed a location or even just a general area, and he could hire trained professionals to take it from there.
Since we know that Walter is narcissistic, he decides that the Scorpion team should do everything on their own rather than let professionals take over. He decides to lead the team into Mexico, without Gabe, to make an in-person trade with the cartel. The Mexican “police escort†dropped the Scorpion team off in the middle of nowhere claiming a bus would be there on the hour, maybe. Now, the team is stranded with two million dollars in cash in duffel bags at their feet. Oh, and they are unarmed. It only took a few moments before a van full of armed men drove up and snatched the money.
Thankfully, Cabe shows up in Mexico but soon realizes that the money is gone. Elia sent the Scorpion team a ransom video that the cartel sent him. Zoe is sitting in front of a very prominent statue. Since the Scorpion team doesn’t know the area, Sylvester and Toby actually find the location through a bird sitting on the statue. When they arrive, they realize that the statue is easily recognizable to anyone from the area; such as the contracting team that Elia has waiting to swoop in and save the day. Moments later, motion sensor machineguns start firing on the team. Using their combined skills, the team is able to take out the guns. Unfortunately, the cartel was recording the whole thing and sent the video to Elia. Now, Elia’s contractors won’t go anywhere near the cartel. It all comes down to Team Scorpion.
Happy tries to convince the team that they need to hit the streets and talk to the people in town to try to find the cartel. She figures that the people don’t want the cartel around anymore than they do. Even though Walter tells her not to go, she leaves anyway. After being on the streets for only a few minutes, she is knocked out and kidnapped by a young boy. Luckily, the boy is a terrible kidnapper, and Happy was free in seconds. She realized that the boy looks up to the cartel and only wants to be one of the big boys.
Back at the motel, Toby tries to convince the kid to give up the cartel. He even bribes him with gadgets and gaming devices. Realizing that the kid doesn’t trust them, Toby tells him that they are going to leave him alone to think over his decision. It seems that no one trusts Toby’s plan. The kid grabs the team’s wallets, with IDs, and jumps out the window to take it to the cartel. Toby is smug with the satisfaction that his plan worked. The money strips with GPS were in the wallets and in turn lead them straight to where the cartel is keeping Zoe.
Now comes the tricky part. The team has to figure out how to get this girl out while avoiding the highly trained cartel members who are armed to the teeth. Let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be Scorpion without some hair-brained scheme. It also wouldn’t be complete without something going wrong. Even with all of their brilliant calculations and inventions, somehow the Scorpion team always seems to get caught. This time, they had a plan. Happy recalibrated the motion sensor machine guns and had them trained on the cartel. Here comes the happy ending; they brought Zoe home and reunited her with her father.
This episode featured Walter doing something else ridiculously stupid. Walter is extremely excited to show the team an interview he did for a morning talk show about Scorpion. Sadly, Walter didn’t think to include anyone else in the interview, and the rest of the team’s credentials were completely misconstrued. It’s amazing how often Walter admits that he doesn’t think, although usually what he means is that he doesn’t think of anyone other than himself. He proves to be very selfish and egotistical. Luckily, Paige’s wisdom is rubbing off on Walter, and by the end of the episode, he not only apologizes but also admits his fault.
Arguably the best scenes in this episode include Sylvester and Megan. Sylvester is worried about dating Walter’s sister, and he even waits until they are stranded in Mexico to tell Walter. Walter is angry with Sylvester throughout the case in Mexico, and Sylvester is beside himself with worry. Once they are home, Sylvester confronts Walter wondering why he isn’t good enough for Megan. Walter reveals that it has nothing to do with Sylvester. Walter is only worried that he can’t save Megan, and Sylvester won’t be able to handle losing her. Sylvester tells Walter that she is worth the risk.