Team Scorpion meets some old friends in “Da Bomb.†Walter goes on a date. Any guesses as to how well it went? They get a new case from NASA. NASA has scheduled an unmanned rocket launch. They are getting a possible system failure and only have three hours before launch. Enter our favorite geniuses. Happy starts it off right by jinxing the whole thing when she says, “should be a quick fix.†You think they’d learn by now.
It turns out our old buddy, Merrick, is back. He is not happy with Team Scorpion after he was demoted because he couldn’t play nice with them. But, he still had no trouble calling them in to help NASA. Happy, Sly, and Cabe are at Hoffman Air Force Base to take a look at the rocket, while Walter, Toby, and Paige run point from the garage. In walks Linda, with a very concerned look on her face asking for Walter. Walter is happy to see his date from the previous night until she hands him a flash drive with a look of pure terror on her face.
Toby realizes that she’s in shock, and they plug in the flash drive. A disguised voice tells them that they must sabotage the NASA rocket, or there will be consequences. That’s when Linda opens her jacket and reveals a bomb strapped to her torso. Poor Linda. She was an innocent bystander who became a target. The voice on the flash drive claims to have been watching Team Scorpion all day and even gave examples of their morning routines to prove himself.
Linda explains what happened after their date. All she remembers is walking to her car, feeling a prick on her neck, and waking up with a bitter taste in her mouth and a bomb strapped to her. Toby thinks that the bitter taste was from a government developed chemical. Plus, the surveillance proves that the bomber must have access to satellite footage. This new information starts to narrow the pool of suspects but not nearly enough in their short timeframe.
Walter assures Linda that he will do whatever it takes to save her; he just doesn’t know what that is yet. Walter inspects the bomb and realizes that it is set up with a remote detonator. Walter decides that they need to sabotage the rocket. It’s their only way out at this point. Happy suggests that if they dilute the fuel source, the rocket will never make it into orbit and crash safely in the Pacific Ocean.
Walter still looks to defuse the bomb. He creates a pseudo X-Ray machine to look inside at the bomb. It is completely tamper proof, but the bomber left a calling card. Toby searches the FBI database and finds a case matching the signature left by the bomber. Unfortunately, the bomber is dead. But, it turns out that Merrick is the one who put him behind bars and knows all the details of his case. As if the news of Merrick being the bomber weren’t bad enough, Happy and Sly notice that NASA is actually sending astronauts on the rocket that they were previously told was going to be unmanned. Now, they need to revise their plan. If they let the rocket crash, they are killing three innocent astronauts, but if they don’t sabotage the rocket, Linda will die.
Walter finds a way to keep Linda safe even if the bomb detonates. He builds a plexiglass box around Linda and fills it with this gel that should contain the blast. He doesn’t instill nearly enough confidence in Linda who is very nervous about this plan. After Happy fixes the rocket to save the astronauts, Merrick falls to his death when fighting with Cabe. Turns out, Merrick has been on Beijing’s payroll all along. The detonator falls with him, and they both get superheated from the rocket launch. Of course, this turns on the timer on the bomb. Linda can’t hold up the armor to protect herself from the blast, so Walter jumps in the box with her. I guess Walter isn’t as bad at this dating thing as he thinks. He did save the girl from a bomb.
Understandably, at one point during this whole ordeal, Linda breaks. She yells at Walter saying, “No one with half a brain could think that dinner was a success.†She says the Walter is a weird guy who does weird things and has a weird job. After Walter saves her life, she apologizes for saying those hurtful things. Walter pretends that her words didn’t hurt him, but he admits that sometimes he wishes he could be more normal. He knows that the date didn’t go well, but he was ashamed and didn’t want his friends to know. She tells Walter that he’s more normal than he thinks. Walter asks her to dinner again, and she emphatically says no. I guess having a bomb on her torso all day was too much to risk going out with him again.
Sly continues to break down his barriers. He wants to audition for Jeopardy, but sadly, he knows nothing of pop culture. Toby and Happy are trying to help, but it may be a lost cause. Of course, Jeopardy is not his only goal. His true goal is to get comfortable enough on camera to get on The Price is Right. When Paige asks why he is going through all of this stress, Sly reveals his end game. He wants to raise enough money to get the Pediatric Ward at the hospital named after Megan. Leave it to Sly to always be thinking of others.