Scorpion had their first 90 minute episode with “Tech, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll.†This episode was both heart stopping and heart breaking. The team was truly tested in easily one of their biggest challenges to date. Richard Elias, brilliant billionaire, is back and asking Team Scorpion for help with the world’s most energy efficient building that leaves no negative footprint.
The night before the launch, when Walter should have been focused on finishing the coding for the building, he went out to a mixer instead. The old Walter would have never done anything like this, but his buddy Ray told Walter to ask himself, “What would Ray do?†Walter decides to go to the mixer and meets a lovely young woman named Stella. She’s weirdly interested in Walter and orders him a Long Island Iced Tea, which Walter doesn’t realize has alcohol in it.
The next morning, only hours before the launch, Walter is nowhere to be found. When Paige and Cabe catch up to Walter, he’s passed out in his hotel room. It seems that Walter was partying it up with Stella all night but can’t seem to remember any of it. No time to dwell on it before the launch of Elias’s building. A hungover Walter and the rest of Team Scorpion celebrate the success of the launch, at least for a few minutes. Because only moments later, the building begins to malfunction.
It’s clear that a virus has attacked the building using Walter’s code, but how did it get there? They figure that the woman from the bar, Stella, must have drugged Walter to plant the virus. Now, Toby is stuck in an elevator and Sylvester is locked in a room on the fifteenth floor with three kids who are terrified. Happy tries to work on the malfunctioning air conditioning when pumps start exploding. Walter is in the control room trying to kill the virus. It is true and utter chaos.
Elias and his head of security are furious. They are blaming Scorpion for this atrocity. Walter is embarrassed and willing to do anything to keep the building from burning to the ground with everyone trapped inside. Walter starts exhibiting erratic behavior in order to save the building. First, he gets too close to the fire while trying to extinguish it, and his arm gets burned. Then he risks Toby’s life to save the servers. As if that isn’t enough, Walter jumps out of a window high up in the building to catch a ladder from a helicopter. It’s safe to say that Walter was not himself that day.
Toby definitely has reason to be the most upset with Walter’s behavior of the day. Toby tries to save the servers from burning up and losing everything. If they lose the servers, then they won’t know who’s behind the attack, and they won’t be able to save everyone inside the building. Toby gets trapped inside the server room while they are burning up. He tries to put out the fire himself, but Walter wants to use the manual override. This override would suck the oxygen out of the room and extinguish the fire, but it would potentially kill Toby as well.
Walter is confident that they could revive Toby, but Happy vehemently disagrees saying there must be another way. Walter acts erratically and uses the manual override anyway. The fire goes out, but Toby stops breathing. When they finally break into the server room, Walter goes straight to the servers. Happy resuscitates Toby, but Walter doesn’t even bat an eye. All he can think about are the servers.
Toby has words with Walter. He’s upset that Walter barely cared about his life. Toby says that Walter’s ego is bruised from this building being a failure, and Walter is only trying to impress his mentor, Elias. Walter tries to back out of it saying that yes he was embarrassed, but his ego wasn’t bruised. Toby and Happy both question why Walter has been making so many rash decisions on this day.
Then on the other hand, Sylvester is trapped on the fifteenth floor after helping the children to safety. They couldn’t take Sly with them, so he has to find another way out of the collapsing room. This time, Walter fights with everything he has to save Sly. He won’t let Sylvester die. Sly is eternally grateful when their rescue mission is successful. So what changed in Walter between almost killing Toby to risking everything to save Sylvester? Walter needs to get his head on straight here.
Paige and Walter’s relationship was also strained because of this ordeal. Paige saw security footage of a drunk Walter having a jovial time at the bar with Stella. She doesn’t understand why Walter never seems to have that much fun with them and why he won’t let her in. Cabe tries to comfort her, but there’s only so much he can say. She’s clearly jealous of Stella getting to spend the evening with Walter. She even tells Walter that her feelings got in the way of the case, but only time will tell whether Walter realizes that he should let Paige in.
