Scorpion 3x22 Review: “Strife on Mars” (Man, This Party Sucks) [Guest Poster: Yasmine]

“Strife on Mars”

Original Airdate: April 17, 2017

Well, this Scorpion episode was emotionally exhausting, for both characters and viewers.

Even though everyone’s busy with planning the double bachelor/bachelorette part for Toby and Happy, Team Scorpion cannot say no to a job that would take them to a Mars Biodome simulation to fix its power grid. Kapper, the man behind the project and eyeing a billion-dollar deal with NASA, visits the garage and sells his project as the leading project in advancement of space exploration. The intro video the team watches is exciting, as Kapper describes the biodome as an Eden and promises the team they will not have to worry about dealing with the two resident scientists, Sal and Jen, who have been living there and testing the biodome for eleven months.

Paige and Ralph stay back at the garage with Kapper to overlook the team’s work, Toby, Happy and Walter head towards the biodome, while Cabe and Sylvester trail behind in the party bus with a few more party errands to run, most importantly picking up the piñatas, custom made to look like Toby and Happy.

Once they arrive at the biodome, the three geniuses realize that Kapper had lied about almost everything. The experiment is a failure and the place is a disaster. It is falling apart and the two scientists in there have long abandoned their scientific journey and are just living out the rest of the twelve months because Kapper won’t let them out.

The small engineering job to fix the grid turns into a disaster, of course, when the generator explodes. Kapper makes a run for it, abandoning the team both in the biodome and at the garage, and it is up to the team and the scientists to find a way to get out, with the biodome literally falling apart around them, temperatures increasing to fatal degrees, toxic fumes and doors they cannot open.

With some crazy idea, wacky science and a DIY Molotov cocktail, the team manages to make it out, but not before the experience proves to be a little more emotionally, let alone physically, taxing for those stuck inside.

Starting with the soon-to-be wed happy couple — who began the episode with Toby moving his things to Happy’s apartment, and then had to spend the day with two scientists who found being in love and being in a relationship and working together everyday a recipe for failure on all fronts. The moving of Toby’s things in the morning had led the two to a small argument, with Happy considering Toby’s stuff junk and Toby reminding her that her apartment is no longer her apartment, but their home. And then they spent the rest of the day watching two people who, eleven months ago, had been so in love with each other, but realized after living together and working together in close proximity that they could not stand each other at all and ended up resenting each other.

Both Toby and Happy realize that what happened to those two should serve as a cautionary tale for them but refuse to accept they will end up the same. They share a moment at the garage in the end, voicing their concerns, but also confidently agree that they won’t end up like that. And as a token of good faith, Happy brings Toby a painting that he has, which he suggested they hang in their apartment, of Toby Dick (a whale in a fedora) and she calls it a housewarming gift.

The character who went through the most traumatizing emotional roller coaster, though, was Walter. Being in that biodome triggered memories of being in the rocket earlier in the season, and that did not go well at all for the genius. Throughout the episode, Walter kept getting flashes of what happened there and demanded answers from the rest of the team. They kept avoiding it until there was no escaping the truth — and the truth was quite painful. Walter found out that he had confessed to Paige that he loved her, and that she had said she loved him too. And worst of all, the whole team knew and have kept it a secret from him for all those months.

After returning to the garage, Walter takes some time to himself while the others take part in the worst party ever. Later, he joins them downstairs and asks to speak to Paige privately.

Then Walter does the most non-Walter thing he has ever done — and yes, it does break Waige shippers’ hearts everywhere, and yes, I can see how they feel they are being mistreated by the writers. But keep in mind that if this was not their endgame ship, they would not be making it so hard and throwing so many obstacles in its way.

Walter thanks Paige for her work with Scorpion, and then he fires her.

And that is a horrible thing. But it is also a great thing. This is Walter’s first purely emotional decision. This is Walter at his most normal — at his most human. Compare this to Walter’s break-up in the pilot and compare it with every other time Walter was supposed to have an emotional reaction to something but he just remained... Walter. Logical, scientific Walter. Yes, this is a heartbreaking moment for Waige and for everyone involved, but it is a very important moment in Walter’s journey and it is the final piece of the puzzle that is Walter becoming the man who deserves to be with Paige.

He’s going to have to fix what he did, but I personally think he is finally ready to do that. He just needs to be aware of it all, and I think it is not going to take long for him to get there.

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Scorpion 3x21 Review: “Rock Block” (I'm Gonna Kick Both of You in Your Asteroidal States) [Guest Poster: Yasmine]

“Rock Block”

Original Airdate: April 10, 2017

Sometimes being a little too smart for your own good is actually a thing, and Team Scorpion has to learn that the hard way during this week’s case. In the middle of preparing for the big Quinn/Curtis wedding, the team takes on a small six-figure job in the Hechnian Republic to pick up a space capsule carrying an asteroid the Republic had harvested, and which is threatening to crash land in twenty hours.

Getting the capsule back to Earth safely was the easy part of the job, with some of what they dubbed their craziest ideas yet. But when they open it and look at the asteroid, the team immediately pick up on something not okay with it. Toby suggests running a test on it to make sure it is safe. The President of the Hechnian Republic agrees, but the General — the man really running things — doesn’t seem too eager. He wants to announce to the world their achievement without any delays. The team promises it would be quick, and they are allowed to proceed.

Unfortunately for the team and for the Hechnians, the tests prove that the asteroid is carrying DNA strands of unknown pathogens and opening it would expose the world to diseases no one has the cure for. The answer seems simple enough: do not open it. Unfortunately for the team, the General has other plans and sends them away. But with the help of the President (a scientist himself) and his assistant, the team manages to escape assassination and are given a chance to covertly find a way to neutralize the threat. The team burns down the space rock with some help from Cabe and Allie back in the garage, but that doesn’t mean they get to go back home safely. It all comes down to Sylvester, this season’s real hero, who saves the day once again.

Sly uses his newly found diplomatic skills, proving once again that he is the one character who has grown the most since we first met them, and brokers a deal with the General and Hechnian Republic, saving their lives and saving the day — and saving the Hechnians space program. Not a bad day for the kid.

And Sly’s big political moment could not have come at a better time. Back at the garage, Allie shows up with some interesting news: She has incriminating evidence against Patel, proving he took bribes, and is on her way to expose him. This means Sly can be sworn in as Alderman within 48 hours. That’s great news for Sylvester, obviously, who has proven he is more than capable of taking up this position. And it is also great news for Cabe, who is obviously not over Allie (who, in turn, is still very much in love with Cabe).

As for the wedding prep, Toby and Happy are supposedly doing their venue vetting, which is a very exhausting task... or so they claim. The happy couple had been exploiting this to spend time getting pampered at spas and avoiding the actual vetting process, leaving most of the actual wedding planning work to the rest of the team — mainly Paige. The Best Ma’am, however, finds out about their little lie and instead of making them stop, she wants a bribe — and wants in on their little secret. This whole wedding planning thing is actually quite fun to watch. There is no team less qualified to plan a wedding, but they’re making the whole thing even more fun and bringing them, in a weird way, closer.

Walter is also trying his best to be an active and productive member of this wedding planning team. But when he reads the statistics on divorce rate, Walt’s reaction is to book lectures and appointments for Toby and Happy with marital consultants, financial consultants, etc. And yes, that is highly inappropriate and quite unconventional, and the others are sort of appalled by his actions, but that’s not how I see it. From where Walter is standing, this statistic is scary because it means it could happen to his friends, to people he loves, and it is his way of saying he would hate for that to happen to them. Yes, what he does is highly inappropriate, but this is still Walter, and he still suffers with his emotional intelligence. So while other may frown upon his actions, it actually says a lot about his emotional growth. This is the same Walter who did not even want those two to start dating to protect his company, and now he is scared that their relationship might fail. True his methods are not acceptable, but his intentions are pure and sweet and show so much growth on his end. He may not know how to express it properly yet, but this is Walter telling his friends he loves them and wants them to succeed and wants their marriage to succeed. He still has a long way, but he is on the right path, and fortunately, he’s got Paige by his side. Literally.

After some guiding advice from Paige, Walter focuses on finding the perfect wedding song for the couple and, oddly enough, he does. He finds a song that would appeal to both the medical background of Toby and the mechanical background of Happy. And to test the song’s dancing potential, the episode ends with Walter and Paige dancing cheek to cheek to “Dry Bones.”

It was another highly entertaining Scorpion episode, with little nuggets of character development for Sly and Walter, and a glimmer of hope for Waige fans.

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Scorpion 3x20 Review: “Broken Wind” (A Headless Bride Might Crimp My Nuptials) [Guest Poster: Yasmine]

“Broken Wind”

Original Airdate: March 20, 2017

I love when shows with ensemble casts break up their team into different pairs and have them spend the episode together. It allows for an interesting reshuffling and establishes relationships, tests friendships, and makes for fun and fresh new dynamics every week.

Scorpion is pretty good at that, and with a team of such fun and quirky characters, most of whom suffer when it comes to interpersonal relationships, it is always an interesting recipe for an episode that promises big character moments and pushing relationships forward.

This week’s case had the team finally working with the Department of Energy again (after Walter lost them the last job) and replacing parts in wind turbines. The job goes perfectly fine, until Paige and Happy take the gondola for the ride back down and the cable snaps, leaving the two ladies swinging in midair, literally hanging on for dear life. With Sly and Cabe on the ground and Walter and Toby still in the turbine, it’s a race against time, gravity, and the forces of nature to rescue the two ladies.

The — eventually successful — rescue attempt involved a makeshift hot air balloon, a sniper rifle, and electrocuting the ladies. That last one coming only second to that time they actually killed Cabe in order to rescue him.

The case and the rescue mission were secondary to the selected pairings and how the ordeal affected their relationships. The main team struggles this week are split. One is between the men and one is between the women. The men take the lighter, less dramatic one, as Walter, Cabe, and Sylvester battle for who deserves the title of best man at Toby and Happy’s wedding (even though Toby repeatedly makes it clear that he will not be picking a best man). For the entire episode, the three men try to prove their value, how much Toby means to them, and why they would be deserving of that title. Even as Toby and Walter are in the turbine — fighting to keep the women they love from plunging to their deaths, and Cabe and Sly are on the ground, figuring a way to bring them down — the battle continued.

Happy and Paige, on the other hand, go through a more dramatic struggle. Excited that her friends are getting married, Paige offers to help Happy prepare for the wedding, but Happy rejects her offer repeatedly. And when Paige confronts her about it, telling her that she’d assumed that over the past few years, the two women had grown close, Happy dismisses that, saying that they’re only “friend-ish,” that she wouldn’t go as far as calling them friends. Now we know Happy has trouble communicating her feelings and that she’s never really had friends, but still, that was pretty harsh.

And with the two of them stuck in a gondola, suspended in mid-air, with their lives on the line, there’s really no place for them to go. They are stuck together with that elephant in the gondola. As things get worse, Paige tries to get their mind off things, using the wedding prep as a distraction. But that only makes things worse. Putting her foot in her mouth, yet again, telling Paige that she’s a genius, not a cheerleader — which Paige takes to mean that she, Paige, is just a dumb cheerleader. And that just makes the situation worse between the two.

But at the end of the day, when they’re grabbing on the cable and swinging in mid-air, it’s Paige’s cheerleading experience that rescues the two. And ultimately, there is nothing like a near-death experience to clear the air and bring two people closer. They realize that there are things more important in life than little arguments, especially between friends, and it is the differences between them that make them stronger.

At the beginning of the episode, Sylvester is at the Warlock’s Chest, being honored for his valiant struggle to keep the place open,. He is presented with the Stone of Valor — something he wears proudly for the rest of the day. And it also comes in handy when they try to buy a sniper rifle and the owner of the gun shop turns out to be Erhlic of the Desert Dwellers, at Sly’s service. He ignores the wait period required to purchase the rifle and allows them to have it, after refusing Cabe and his badge.

Grateful for Cabe’s help during his campaign, Sylvester invites him over to The Warlock’s Chest so that he too can be honored with the Cape of Windsor. When Cabe turns down Sly’s invitation, that breaks the young’s man heart. While Cabe was grateful for it, he failed to see that, failed to see how much he had hurt Sylvester in rejecting his offer. Cabe was under the impression that Sly was only doing it to pay him back and it takes Happy, of all people, to explain to him that he was doing it to be his friend and sometimes if someone is your friend, you let them do stuff for you because it's not about you, it's about them, and them feeling good about being a good friend.

A valuable lesson Happy herself had to learn the hard way. So Cabe goes and joins the knights and the roundtable for the honoring and the game.

And as for the great battle of the potential best men, Toby surprises everyone at the end of the day when he announces that the person he is choosing is the one person without whom he would have never managed to even get together with Happy in the first place. Toby picks a Best Ma’am. He picks Paige. And I personally love the relationship between these two, so I am looking forward to this.

One of the closing images of the episode is a little cute Waige moment. After accepting her role as Best Ma’am, and after Happy announces she’s picking the guys as her Dudes of Honor, the two are left alone in the garage and offer to help each other with their respective tasks. The scene closes on the two of them sitting closely at Paige’s desk, preparing and planning their friends’ wedding. Maybe that’s good practice for when it’s their turn? Waige fans can only hope so!

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Scorpion 3x19 Review: “Monkey See, Monkey Poo” (The Bicker Clicker) [Guest Poster: Yasmine]

“Monkey See, Monkey Poo”

Original Airdate: March 13, 2017

With all the crazy monkey business that went down this week, the members of Team Scorpion are still going through huge emotional transitions and changes in their real lives.

A deadly disease is spreading in South America and threatening a pandemic, so the World Health Organization tasks Team Scorpion with running DNA tests on the one species of primate that is, so far, immune to the disease. So the team, minus Sylvester, head down to another fictional country and spend the day running around in the Amazon, trying to catch a monkey. Literally, that’s what they do. And after they do catch the monkey but fail to identify the reason it is immune, a local kid who has been helping them starts showing symptoms. Not only is the kid on the verge of death, but the team may have been exposed as well. The team finally identifies, by testing the monkey’s poo, that the source of his immunity is the fruit of the local Von Von tree. And so it comes down to finding a tree (the specific species having recently become endangered, thanks to loggers) and shaking it to get it to toss them some fruit, and they’ve found a cure. Oh, and they also electrocute some spiders along the way.

The case was really fun, especially with what was happening between Toby and Happy — more on that later — and with Cabe’s emotional drama. And honestly, every time the team gets to travel to another country, it is always a good episode... no matter how fictional that country is.

Now as to the characters and what they are going through, let’s start with Cabe. The team’s surrogate father recently broke up with the first woman he actually liked and dared to start a relationship with in a very, very long time. It’s a rough time for Cabe, since the break-up was sudden and unexpected. Cabe is having a hard time accepting this breakup, especially after the way he dealt with what the relationship meant to him and getting older.

Sylvester, on the other hand, now that he does not have the elections occupying his time, is focused on a new project: producing square-shaped tomatoes to maximize coverage on square bread. That’s on the surface, but what is really happening to Sly is what has been happening all season, which is that he is slowly growing and overcoming his worst fears. As he has been all season, Sly starts the episode admitting a new fear, and this time that fear literally cripples him. That is until Ralph makes him realize that it was all in his head, that he is projecting and using these fears to push himself back when in reality he has outgrown them. Once again, as slow and steady as it has been, I think Sly has had a great arc this year and his development has been perfectly mapped out.

And then there’s the soon-to-be-wed Toby and Happy. This week saw a little trouble in the Quintis paradise. Happy insists they should see a therapist before they get married, and of all the therapists in town, she chooses Dr. Cecil P. Rizzuto, the unorthodox doctor that had previously “cured” Toby and Walter’s relationship. Of course, this doesn’t go over well with Toby, who disapproves of everything about the doctor. The problem seems to be that Toby is incapable of seeing any of Happy’s flaws, which — as endearing and sweet as it is — certainly isn’t good for a relationship.

Dr. Rizzuto suggests Toby use a little invention of his called the Bicker Clicker. Whenever Toby feels Happy does or says something that should cause them to bicker, he would click the clicker. And while Toby starts off believing that he is going to return with a zero count on the clicker, as the day progresses, he starts to use it. Repeatedly. And most dramatically when Happy insults the hat, of course. By the end of the day, Toby has used the clicker 131 times. Believing they had failed the test, the couple return to the doctor truly pissed off at this experiment, but he only tells them what we’ve known all along: those two were made for each other.

Ralph has a little side story this week, besides helping Sly realize his fears are all in his head. He starts the episode by announcing he needs a new haircut. He has outgrown the blue bowl cut his mother has been giving him. Paige finds this hard because she believes her special young boy is growing, conforming, and is probably allowing peer pressure to get to him. And while I doubt most kids his age choose a haircut by developing a computer program to help him decide, in the end, it turns out he just needs a new haircut because his old one was getting in the way of him using his goggles comfortably.

And speaking of Paige, the team’s emotional leader has two very cute moments with Toby this week, and the second one comes at a realization regarding Walter. After seeing that Cabe is having a hard time and their Homeland agent is nursing a broken heart, Walter offers to spend some time with him. In that moment, Walter recognizes another person’s emotional pain and shows empathy, as Toby points out to Paige. And the only reason he does is because he has had his heart broken, by Paige, and he knows and understands the pain that Cabe is in.

Paige sees that, and for the first time realizes that Walter wasn’t just being petty with Tim, that he was truly hurt by her relationship with the other man.

This little moment is a big moment for Waige, and hopefully this will trigger something that will finally push this relationship forward.

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Scorpion 3x17 Review: "Dirty Seeds, Done Dirt Cheap" (Walter Apologizing is a Sign of the Apocalypse) [Guest Poster: Yasmine]

“Dirty Seeds, Done Dirt Cheap”

Original Airdate: February 20, 2017

Scorpion this week raised the stakes for its characters and made them face their worst fear — literally. In the process, it managed to bring the best out of at least one of them and helped a couple others move forward with what has been holding them back.

The case this week took the team to Greenland, and a facility that holds a vault that houses samples of seeds of every known food crop and plant in the world. The facility is there to protect crop diversity against catastrophes like famine, to ensure that the world has backup seeds in case agricultural output is destroyed and safeguards against warfare-caused starvation. So, it’s a pretty important vault, and it’s suffering from a technical malfunction. And that is why the members of Team Scorpion have been tasked to fix it and save the world’s backup food reserve.

Since the facility is an unmanned one, Toby’s skills wouldn’t be required. He is left at the garage to help Ralph with his school project while the others leave for Greenland. And for once, Sly is more than happy to travel because it means he just might miss the debate he has in his election campaign against his opponent, and Allie’s boss, Patel.

Unfortunately, the job doesn’t end up being as simple as they’d expected — which is pretty much the summary of every Scorpion episode. Emergency brass doors separate and lock up the team, leaving them with no power and no access to the computers. Sylvester is locked down alone, Cabe alone, and Happy alone, while Paige and Walter find themselves together but also locked down. The plan is simple: Cabe has to switch a fuse, Happy has to turn on the generator, and Sylvester has to fix the server’s clock, which was the problem to begin with. Unfortunately, all three of them had been exposed to rye seed fungus, which causes hallucinations that affect the fear center in the brain.

And so, instead of fixing the problem at hand, all three of them experience their deepest fears. Actually, they don’t just experience them — they hallucinate and actually live them.

For Sylvester, it’s a fear of chickens. For Cabe, it’s getting old. And for Happy, it’s abandonment and not being wanted. In Sly’s hallucination, the server room is full of chickens out to get him. In Happy’s, she is back at the orphanage, being rejected by every potential adoptive family. And in Cabe’s hallucination, he is dating a young Allie as he ages rapidly, until he’s a very, very old man. It is up to the other three to pull them out of it, and the only way to do it is to revisit the moment that fear was born in them and help them fight through it.

And then of course, even after they do that, things still get a little worse — because this is Scorpion — and all three fall into comas. Luckily for Paige and Walter, they are in a facility that houses all kinds of crops and plants, and creating a concoction that will wake them up is just a short adventure away. They do end up rescuing their friends, but not before Paige herself inhales some of that fungus and sees her worst fear — losing Walter to someone else!

Facing their worst fears actually served them well in the end. For Happy, facing her fear and having Toby be the one to help her through it was a beautiful moment for the couple and gave Happy the belief she needed to move forward. It helped her overcome whatever hesitations she might have had and reaffirmed the fact that Toby does love her and would never leave her.

As for Cabe, it helped with Allie as well. He doesn’t need to pretend to be something he isn’t or to prove anything to her. It also allowed him to finally jump into this relationship with both feet and be himself, completely, no longer questioning himself or her feelings for him.

As for Sly, he comes out of this, in my opinion, the strongest. He takes his overcoming of his fear and uses that strength in his political debate. It’s a new Sly on that podium. He is a reborn man who has realized something about himself, who is proud and sure and confident. He embraces who he has become and uses everything in him to kick ass in the debate as his friends watch proudly from the sidelines.

As for Walter, he may not have been exposed to the fungus, but he had already started the episode on the right track. After reconciling with Paige a few episodes back, they have been working together and he has apparently spent a lot of time apologizing to people he has wronged in the past, one of whom is the frozen yogurt vendor, and now they can go back to having frozen yogurt from their favorite place.

It is good to see that Walter is back on track and slowly working on becoming a better person. And the fact that he is doing so with Paige is also good.

Speaking of Paige, it was rather interesting to see that her worst fear is losing Walter. I have to admit that yes, it is a good Waige sign, but I was slightly disappointed with that. I always thought her worst fear would have to do with Ralph, and not Walter. But either way, this was a good way for the writers to show that the viewers should not give up on Waige just yet. It was another little crumb dropped, but Waige needs to move forward soon or else people will get bored. They’ve dragged this ship along for way too long.

Either way, this was a great character-focused episode that gave everyone a huge leap forward and I hope Scorpion continues with episodes like this, because this is what they are best with — episodes with a fun, exciting case, but still mostly driven by character development.

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Scorpion 3x16 Review: “Keep It in Check, Mate” (It’ll Be Like Landing on a Giant Muffin) [Guest Poster: Yasmine]

“Keep It in Check, Mate”

Original Airdate: February 13, 2017

This week’s Scorpion episode pitted team members against each other in more ways than one. While the case of the week was fun — and the secondary storyline with Happy, Cabe, and her father was very interesting and carried the emotional weight of the episode — I cannot help but feel slightly disappointed that the episode did not pick up from the previous episode’s strong character developments.

The case was fun and exciting, sending Walter, Sly, Paige, and Toby to the fictional former Soviet country of Sardovia. Their mission was to help extract a Sardovian national, and chess grand master, working for the CIA. The case sends them on another adventure in which Paige has to break down a wall between the ladies’ room and the men’s, Toby and Paige have to build a landing spot using the world’s largest ball of dough, Toby steals a garbage truck, and the whole team, with the asset, sneaks through old sewers to cross the border.

In order to get to the asset, though, the team has to play their way through a chess tournament, and that is where the problem begins. After an incident involving a sneeze and a flying rook years ago, members of the team — mainly Sly and Walter — have vowed never to play chess again because it brings out the worst in them. They need, however, to set this rivalry aside in order to extract Natalya Abelev. However, they can barely put it aside long enough to avoid jeopardizing the mission at some point. And everyone can see how competitive these two can get and to what extremes they would go to win (or to just not lose).

Meanwhile, back at the garage, Cabe has some unfortunate news for Happy’s father, Patrick. It seems that Patrick has had some slightly shady connections in his time and the Feds want him to testify against one of those shady connections. The deal that Cabe manages to get him involves him surrendering, testifying and serving two years in jail. Happy is not happy at all about this. She blames Cabe for ambushing her father, for not doing enough for him, and spends the episode trying to figure out how to help him escape.

Being the genius that she is, she does find a way for him to escape, and sets him up with a getaway plan as well. And while she watched her father get processed from the garage, she took her chance and unlocked the door for his escape... but he chose not to. Happy’s breakdown was the highlight of the episode. Her anger at Cabe is understandable as well. She wants nothing more than for her father, the father she only just got back into her life recently, to walk her down the aisle. Instead, now he will be locked in prison when she gets married. The projection of her anger onto Cabe soon dissolves, and he is there to comfort her.

That moment, when Happy watches her dad being taken away, was by far one of the most heartbreaking and emotionally strong moments the show has delivered. It was so well-acted in its subtlety and in the sheer desperation felt. Cabe is great in that moment as well, being there for Happy as a friend and as a father figure.

However, despite this being the strongest aspect of the episode, I still felt it was a wasted opportunity for Toby and Happy. Those two did not get a single scene together, all their moments happening off-screen, despite the emotional trauma that Happy was in. I think it would have been a great opportunity to show the viewers and fans of this ship a moment between those two. They’ve had great moments in the past where they support each other through things like this, and they did end the previous episode on a strong note in the development of their relationship.

The other relationship that was focused on this week was Sylvester and Walter’s, but that one concentrated on their rivalry at playing chess. It highlighted some of their character flaws, mainly Walter’s competitiveness and inability to accept that someone may be better at him at something. It was fun to watch, that’s for sure — but again, I felt it was a wasted opportunity.

And finally, the episode did showcase one more relationship: Ralph and Paige’s. It seems that as he is growing older, Ralph is starting to show the typical signs of a growing boy as he moves away from seeing his mom as the source of all knowledge and has started seeking advice elsewhere. Ralph came to the guys with a girl problem — it seems the little genius got invited by two girls to the dance — and the fact that he didn’t go to Paige clearly upset her. At the end of the episode, the guys convince him not to cut his mom out and Ralph goes to her to ask for dancing lessons.

Like I said, while I thoroughly enjoyed the episode and was blown away by the moment where Happy broke down, I felt that, after the strong episode from the week before, it was a wasted opportunity to capitalize on that development and push it forward.

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Scorpion 3x15 Review: “Sharknerdo” (A Group of Sharks is Called a Frenzy. Who Gives a Crap!) [Guest Contributor: Yasmine]

“Sharknerdo”

Original Airdate: February 6, 2017

Character development. Character development for everyone! This episode may have taken it a bit easy on the action — or not really, when Paige and Walter were stranded in the middle of the ocean being circled by sharks — but it was big on the character development.

The episode starts with Walter losing the team a big payday job because he couldn’t put aside that someone would say, incorrectly, one hundred and nine thousand instead of one hundred nine. Instead of a safe government job, they end up in the middle of the Pacific seeking a sunken pirate treasure in a private job paying on commission.

The level of excitement regarding their new job is varied among the team. From Cabe's neutral demeanor — although I'm not sure why, as a Homeland Security agent, he's working with them on the private job — to Happy and Sly's excitement (but only toward the new tech they've developed). Paige is naturally furious at Walter costing them another job because he couldn't just act like a normal person and not anger their client. Toby, on the other hand, is overly excited — with his pirate hat ready, he's a little boy on a treasure hunt.

With Sly and Happy back in the garage and Cabe and Toby on the boat with their client, Walter and Paige leave on a smaller boat to help locate the sunken ship. And because this is Scorpion, nothing can be so simple. Walter and Paige — the two who have developed an estranged and strenuous relationship — find themselves shipwrecked and seeking refuge on a Danish buoy. And to make things worse, they are being circled by a frenzy of sharks.

They do manage to get in contact with the team, and rescue does arrive eventually — but not before Walter risks his life, diving into the shark-infested waters to save Paige. And yes, another day goes by with Team Scorpion escaping death and disaster.

While the case this week was slightly less complicated than usual, the weight of this episode was on highlighting character development for everyone.

... Starting with Cabe. This episode confirmed that he has indeed begun a relationship with Allie, Sly's election opponent's campaign manager. And despite the conflict of interest there, Allie does prove to be a good person in this scenario by arranging an interview for Sly with the West Altadenia Shopper to help him get their endorsement for his campaign.

Speaking of Sly and his campaign, the wizard ad his opponent ran really did some damage to him, and while the interview with the Shopper didn’t seem to go too well because Sly kicked the reporter out of the garage, it all worked out well in the end. By being himself and by focusing on rescuing his friends, Sly leaves a good impression on the reporter and manages to get their endorsement. Once again, being himself pays off for Sylvester. And, as unorthodox as his method may have been, he just might have a chance to win this.

On the other hand, Toby starts the day like a kid in a candy store in anticipation of his big adventure out to sea, searching for sunken treasure. When the job turns out to be way less exciting and swashbuckling than he had anticipated, his mood immediately changes and he sulks for most of the episode. Until it is time to rescue Walter and Paige, that is, and he ends the day swinging from the ship on a rope to pull Walter out of the water. But his antics and behavior raise a lot of worries for Happy, and she doesn’t shy away from confronting him about them. Happy is worried that as a gambler, as a treasure seeker, Toby is only excited about the chase, the thrill of it all, and that the chase is why he wants to be with her. She is worried that once they are married, he will be bored because the chase would be over and he wouldn’t want to be with her anymore. That is huge for Happy to admit that, to voice her concerns and to expose so much vulnerability. And Toby, like the model fiancé/psychiatrist that he is, knows just how to ease her worries, and to say the right things to assure her that he is not going anywhere.

And finally we come to Walter and Paige... and Walter/Paige. If there was ever an episode that allowed those two to completely lay it out there in the open and be honest and candid in their conversations, it’s this one. While they are still miles away from becoming a couple, this episode has at least put them back on the right path, because the path to getting together should start with honesty. The two, conveniently stranded alone in the middle of the Pacific, had plenty of time to open up about everything: from Walter’s role in Tim’s departure, to Paige “abandoning” Walter and leaving him to fend for himself with people, to Walter’s regression, and everything in between. With all this out in the open, nothing is left unsaid, feelings are expressed and those two find themselves at a whole new place in their relationship.

It also helps that Walter shows his true growth when he sacrifices himself for Paige. Logic would state that she is the more expendable one (or so the old Walter would have said). But this Walter chooses to jump into the ocean to save Paige.

And at the end of the day, with this new understanding between them, this reestablished bond of friendship and honesty, Paige takes a leap into the next stage. She postpones a Skype call with Tim in order to spend the evening with Walter — albeit to call people he has offended and apologize to them. But the message is clear: Walter’s journey and his growth is the most important thing to Paige right now.

I know it is hard for Scorpion to have an episode with no action whatsoever and focus mostly on the characters, so this was, in my opinion, a perfect balance of that. They gave us just enough action to keep the identity of the show going but managed to provide so much in terms of focus on character to push the story forward for all the characters and relationships.

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Scorpion 3x14 Review: "The Hole Truth" (I Don't Have Time to Babysit that Emotionally-Stunted Genius) [Guest Contributor: Yasmine]

“The Hole Truth”

Original Airdate: January 23, 2017

In this week’s episode, Sylvester struggles in his election campaign, Paige tries to find some closure with her mother, and Walter reaches a whole new low. Oh, and the members of Team Scorpion accidentally find themselves involved in creating a sinkhole in California. Just another day at the office for this team of geniuses.

At this point, I think Team Scorpion should know that there is no “routine check-up” job when they are involved, and this week’s case was another one of those situations. A simple engineering job with the Army Corps of Engineers turns into an ecological and humanitarian disaster. It also didn’t help that Paige was off helping Veronica, which meant the team was left without a buffer between them and civilians. And more importantly, Walter was left without a buffer, and that is always a recipe for things to go bad.

And if alienating the chief at the site of the job wasn’t enough, the team detected tiny leaks in the tunnels they were inspecting a little too late, which led to a collapse and the creation of a sinkhole. A sinkhole that wouldn’t stop growing. And of course, that wouldn’t be enough of a challenge for the team, so to make things more exciting, a silo of toxic chemicals sitting at the periphery of the growing sinkhole was threatening to fall into it. That meant poisoning the drinking water for millions in Southern California.

The team split up, with Cabe and Sly teaming up with one of the workers — one who made it clear early on he was not a fan of Sly and his attempt to run for office — in order to slow down the sinkhole. Walter, Toby and Happy worked with the chief to drain out the silo.

Eventually, the team saves the day with a series of unorthodox methods, including but not limited to turning the silo into a version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, building a giant trampoline, and getting inspired by yogurt to stop the flow of the toxic material. But unorthodox is just their style, after all.

While the team was trying their best to prevent the disaster, Paige was dealing with her own human version of a disaster — her mother. Veronica came back last week and when she appeared on the news report on TV, the men who were after her for the money in episode nine reappeared in her life. And of course, who would she go to other than Paige and Team Scorpion? Veronica doesn’t seem like a woman who takes no for an answer — not the first time and not the tenth time. She promises Paige that this would be the last time, that she needs her help to retrieve the money she buried, and that would be it.

Paige agrees to help her mother one last time, and together they pull off a con that allows Veronica to retrieve the money. But the con didn’t stop there: Paige also finds a way to get those men off her mother’s back forever by helping her fake her death. Paige proves this week that, while she might have her mother’s conning and acting skills, at least she knows better than to choose that life. It is interesting watching the parallel between the two women — one choosing the easy life of crime and money, while the other puts her son and her family/friends above everything.

Veronica did not do much this week to change who she is, even if she claims she wants to have a better relationship with Paige and Ralph. However, the day spent together did bring the two women closer, and — for once — made Veronica seem slightly more likable than all the times she had shown up. Veronica leaves once again, but something tells me she will be showing up in the future — if only to check up on whether Walter had made a move to ask Paige out (yes, she is still the biggest Waige shipper that there is).

Someone else who wasn’t having a great week is Sylvester. His opponent is crushing him in the road to elections and it’s all because Sylvester has embraced the fact that he is different. Apparently voters aren’t too excited about being represented by a man wearing a cape. And you can’t blame the public. For anyone who doesn’t really know Sylvester, this all does look like a joke. And it is highlighted when one of the workers on the site lets Sylvester know what he thinks of him and that he is not voting for him.

But Happy was right: by being himself, Sylvester can win over the voters; they just have to see how amazing he truly is and the amazing things he does every day. After spending the day with Sylvester, watching him save Cabe and help save the day, the worker is able to see past the cartoonish version Sly’s opponent is painting of him and truly appreciate what he is capable of.

Finally, there’s Walter. He started the day with one black eye and ended it with two. At the beginning of the day, Happy and Toby warn Paige that her new approach with Walter is not working, and that he is quickly spiraling back into his pre-Paige days when his EQ was drastically low and he would get into fights with people all the time thanks to his complete lack of people skills.

Walter is not doing well at all — not since Tim left and not since Paige decided she was taking a step back. And it shows. He is getting into fights and jeopardizing jobs by infuriating people he should be working with. And with Paige out of the picture, Happy and Toby take on the task of keeping him in control, playing babysitters to the genius, but even they can’t help him. Walter’s steady growth in the first half of the season is facing its biggest trial now and he is in danger of slipping back and losing all the development he went through.

Paige’s decision does make sense, because she cannot continue to hold his hand through this, especially when he seems to be reeling against the idea of becoming a better person. I think at this point Walter is going to have to come face to face with a huge loss — or a potential huge loss — because of something he does, in order to have reason to start fighting for himself again. Because, at the moment, he does not seem to truly understand the severity of his decline.

I think that was another great episode, perfectly balanced between the case of the week and Paige and Veronica’s story. Walter’s journey continues to be the backbone of the character-driven aspect of the show, as we alternate every week between Quintis and Sylvester’s stories.

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Scorpion 3x13 Review: “Faux Money Maux Problems” (The Conch is Dead. I Am the Conch.) [Guest Poster: Yasmine]

“Faux Money Maux Problems”

Original Airdate: January 16, 2017

In this week’s episode, Paige’s con man mother, Veronica, returns and with her she brings trouble. She may not be responsible for the sticky situation the team finds themselves in, but somehow it seems like trouble follows this woman everywhere she goes.

Veronica shows up just as the team is getting ready for a private job they took at a winery (and while Toby and Cabe are helping Sly prep for the debates — something that is going terribly, as Sly is determined to answer questions truthfully). Walter, on the other hand, comes in with a conch and an announcement. He admits that he has realized he’s been handling things badly in term of decision-making within the team and has decided to adopt the conch method — from Lord of the Flies — as a tool to make decisions in Team Scorpion. Of course, none of this can end well.

But first, the case. The team — plus Veronica but minus Toby and Happy, who had spent the night wedding panning and forgot some equipment back home — ride in the client-provided limo as they head to the site of the project. However, soon enough, Walter realizes they are being drugged. Later, they wake up in a windowless basement, surrounded by Spanish signs and piles of counterfeit money.

Team Scorpion have been kidnapped by the fictional Central American country Norteguay. The country’s dictatorial government is demanding they counterfeit the U.S. dollars, or else they will start killing them off one by one, starting with the non-geniuses.

Luckily for the team, Veronica’s conning skills prove to be actually useful for once, and she manages to find a way to let Cabe, Sly, and Walter escape. But when the three flee the compound, they realize they are still very much at home. In fact, they are only one hour away in Simi Valley.

With Toby and Happy back in the garage and aware that something has gone wrong — they themselves had to outsmart the thug sent after them — the team manages to rescue Veronica and Paige and uncover a complex scheme to flood the U.S. economy with counterfeit bills and crash the international economy.

The main relationship in focus this week is Paige and Veronica’s. The episode starts with a flashback of a young Paige helping her mother run a con and proving once again the very unhealthy relationship between the two, or at least just how horrible of a mother Veronica was... and still is. Paige has never forgiven her mother, and this is something she says to her repeatedly throughout the episode. She even brings up how she may regret letting her back into her life and, more importantly, into Ralph’s. And honestly, Veronica needs to try much, much harder if she wants Paige to ever forgive her and welcome her back. Even though Veronica does help the team, she does so by relying on her conning skills, by lying and scheming, and by using Paige again, like she did when she was young.

Paige obviously does not appreciate that, or find in that a reason to thank her mother, despite what Veronica might think. And rightfully so. These two have a long way to go before they can mend their non-existent relationship, if they really want to do that. The only reason I can see Paige wanting that is for Ralph, but if Veronica does not put an effort and honestly try to change, I cannot see Paige letting her any closer to her and Ralph.

Once again, I am left in awe of how amazing Paige is, and what an inspirational woman she is, considering the mother she had to grow up with — or without, for the most part.

One good thing did come out of Veronica’s return and her annoying Paige in the many ways that she does: it helped Paige realize she needs to approach things with Walter in a different way, after her attempts to help him for three years have gotten them nowhere. After announcing the conch system in the beginning of the episode, Walter ends the episode by breaking it down — or a virtual version of it — and announcing that Team Scorpion is not a democracy but instead, it is a logical dictatorship.

At the beginning of the episode, he announces that he is aware that he has a problem, but I wonder if it is just him admitting that the others think there is a problem and not admitting it honestly to himself. After weeks of slow development, Walter seems to have regressed, and Paige’s new approach to him is to drop him in the deep end and let him teach himself to swim. Let’s hope this works out for our Scorpion leader, because he is in desperate need of finding his way to shore.

Finally, the other relationship that was brought into focus this week was Happy and Toby’s. The happy couple are now planning their wedding and it is nice to see a couple having a nice, happy, non-problematic period for once. Well, non-problematic to a certain extent, because by the end of the episode they both admit they are too broke to plan the wedding they were thinking of. Toby is still paying off his gambling debts and Happy seemingly spent five figures on motorcycle parts.

But I don’t see this being a problem for those two. For starters, they are being open and honest with each other, and I think their love and the kind of relationship they have means they can be happy and perfectly ecstatic if they just got married, as Toby put it, in Kovelsky’s parking lot (but no, Happy won’t let that happen).

I think a garage wedding would be a great idea, though, what do you think?

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Scorpion 3x12 Review: “Ice Ca-Cabes” (He’s My Father) [Guest Contributor: Yasmine]

“Ice Ca-Cabes”

Original Airdate: January 2, 2017

Scorpion came back from its short hiatus with one of the most emotionally draining episodes yet. After the Christmas-themed episode that saw the departure of one team member and saw Walter regress after weeks of steady growth, this episode picks up almost immediately after that, with Tim leaving to Jordan that morning. Meanwhile, the team in the garage prepares for a seemingly easy job in the desert. But this episode turns out to be more emotionally loaded that expected and every member of the team has to be on top of their game, put personal matters aside, and do the impossible to rescue one of their own.

The job for the team of geniuses this week should have been an easy one — checking on some machinery in the desert for the government. For Cabe, it was even an easier job of keeping an eye on them, which meant sitting in the sun and drinking iced coffee. But a small mishap sent a piece of copper shrapnel right into Cabe’s abdomen, cutting a major artery. And the closest medical chopper was ninety minutes away.

That meant one thing: emergency surgery in the middle of the desert with no medical equipment whatsoever. And of course, because this is Scorpion’s team of dysfunctional geniuses, they make it even impossibly harder than it needs to be. In order to rescue their Homeland liaison, the team needs to essentially kill him first (in order to stop the blood flow from his heart), glue the punctured artery, and then bring him back to life in time for the chopper’s arrival.

Using material they had with them in Happy’s truck and whatever natural resources they could gather in the desert, the team manage to save Cabe’s life. But it wasn’t until the last minute, of course, making the whole ordeal physically and emotionally taxing on all.

As for Cabe — besides spending most of the day lying in a frozen tub with Toby’s hand in his abdominal cavity — he had started the day in an especially colorful shirt and an awkward moment with Allie, the woman he has been pining for, and who in turn likes him (except he cannot take a hint). Once again, Allie had showed up at the garage, flirted adorably with Cabe, and hinted that she wanted him to ask her out. And yet, Cabe stood there, clueless — much to the dismay of Toby and Happy. Also, another big development in his life was that his apartment had officially become livable again, meaning he would be moving out of Happy’s apartment, putting an end to their roommate situation, which surprisingly looked harder on the closed-up mechanical genius than on Cabe himself.

And speaking of Happy, the team’s other emotionally unavailable genius had started off not-too-keen on having Cabe as her roommate, but has grown very close to him — even if she doesn’t always admit it. In her own way, though, she had hinted at it. And throughout the episode — with Cabe’s fate hanging in the balance — she was, I think, the one who was most visibly shaken by it. At the beginning of the episode, Cabe had given her a pin that had belonged to his mother and said it was for her to wear on her wedding, cementing the newfound bond between the two.

The events of the day were very hard on everyone. This was not just another case, or another victim they needed to rescue. It was one of their own. It was Cabe. And as everyone struggled to keep it together, their feelings were exposed, proving that the Homeland agent had become more than just that to each and every one of them. He was a friend, a mentor, and a father figure to almost every single team member, supporting them every step of the way.

And for Paige, the day was especially harder than any other. While Cabe, the only other member she can relate to as a non-genius, battled to stay alive, she had already started the day in a place of hurt and betrayal. Having said good bye to Tim at the airport, Paige came back to the garage to find a Walter who had tried to convince himself that everything would be okay, that everything would be back to normal. Confronting him then — calling him out on his actions that led to Tim’s departure — was only the first of many confrontations between them in which Paige voiced her disappointment in him and how tired she was of trying to help him move forward when he insisted on self-sabotaging that development every time. Paige is in a place we have never seen her before. She is angry, hurt, heartbroken and betrayed and, from where she stands right now, it is all the fault of one person.

Walter.

After a first half of the season in which he had had very steady and healthy growth, Walter regressed severely in the last episode. And that did not happen without some heavy consequences — on the team, on Paige and, most importantly, on him. But I think what is very important is that he knows this. And that, in itself, is a sign of growth. In his final confrontation with Paige he admitted to it. He knows this about himself now, he realizes his mistakes and realizes when he makes them. And even though he doesn’t know how to stop them yet, admitting it is the first step. But the road is still very, very long for him.

Consequently, the road for Walter and Paige as a couple is even longer. Even without Walter’s hampered growth, Paige still blames him for what happened with Tim and for his behavior. The road to Waige looks very angsty at the moment. It may have been just hard and full of obstacles before, but now it is full of angst, hurt, and betrayal.

Finally, Walter’s truly shining moment came with Cabe this week. After a not-so-stellar moment, when the team was getting ready to “kill” Cabe and everyone said something in support of him, Walter said “it’s been a pleasure working with you.” Of course, Paige would later call him out on it. But when the time came — as Cabe was pulled into the chopper — the EMT stopped Walter from joining him, saying only family could. To this, Walter replied, without hesitation, “he is my father.” And finally, as a recovering Cabe lay in the hospital bed with Walter by his side, Walter opened up, telling Cabe that he loved him.

The journey is still a long one for Walter and his relationships with not just Paige but everyone else on the team. He still has a lot to learn, and a lot more mistakes to make, but I choose to believe he is on the right track and as hard and painful as it may seem, I have faith in him.

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Scorpion 3x11 Review: “Wreck the Halls" (Attaboy!) [Guest Contributor: Yasmine]

“Wreck the Halls”

Original Airdate: December 19, 2016

"Wreck the Halls" is Scorpion meets Home Alone, only it gets a more bitter ending than the old holiday favorite. Instead of a family coming back together, this version has the family slightly breaking apart.

Following a string of holidays being overtaken by disasters, Paige decides that for Christmas, the team will get as far away from the garage as possible, leave every computer, phone and tablet behind, and have a normal Christmas in Cabe’s friend’s virtually-secluded cabin. And in that, Toby sees this the opportunity to give Happy the perfect joyous Christmas she never had as a child: decorations, tree, cookies, and perfect gift all included.

Up at the cabin, while Paige and Toby are busy baking cookies and putting up the decorations in preparation for Happy’s arrival — as she is coming up later with Sly — Cabe, Tim, Walter, and Ralph head out in search of the perfect Christmas tree. Out in the great outdoors, they come across three gun runners dragging a man who claims to be a federal agent into the middle of the woods and trying to kill him. Naturally, the team “rescues” the man and take him back to the cabin.

With no weapons to speak of, and with the gun runners on their tail, the team has to think out of the box, way more than usual, to fashion any sort of weapon or means of defense against the heavily-armed gunmen. They ultimately use anything they find in the cabin, and take apart the gifts that had been intended for each other in order to build their own Home Alone trap house and take down the gun runners. But once they do, and think they have saved the agent, they realize that he had lied to them. He takes Ralph hostage and makes a run for it. A three-way car chase ensues, and Ralph all but rescues himself, proving once again that he is steadily becoming the most competent version of all these geniuses and non-geniuses alike — which makes Tim’s ultimate departure mostly harming to the young boy’s growth.

The team then returns to the garage after yet another holiday gets hijacked by disaster. Following the day’s events, and a couple of altercations with Walter, Tim decides to take the job in Jordan and says his goodbyes to the team. A little bit more on that later.

This episode saw the return of Toby and Happy’s relationship to the storyline after almost disappearing for a few episodes (since it had been the focus for the opening few episodes, with the whole “Happy’s husband” storyline). With the B-plot — or the C-plot — of the episode focused on Toby trying to give Happy the first good Christmas experience of her life, this relationship is once again “remembered” by the writers and given some of the screentime it deserves. I know fans of the couple have been disappointed in recent weeks, and while this was probably not enough, it at least put the couple back on screen and pushed them slightly forward. Toby manages to track down the toy robot Happy had once wanted as a kid, and while it took some beating in the shoot-out at the cabin, receiving it “in parts so she could rebuild” is perfect for Happy. In return, Happy does step out of her own comfort zone to get Toby something. Again it’s small, but considering who she is and her insecurities, a keychain with a small audio player on which she has recorded “Attaboy” is the perfect gift for Toby, and very in-character for Happy.

Unfortunately, this episode also marked the end of Tim’s journey with Team Scorpion, and I say unfortunately, because I really disliked the way it happened. It could have been in done in such a way that no one needed to look bad in it, and especially not Walter, who was made to regress a lot, given the growth we have seen lately. Apparently, Tim’s choice the previous episode to stay with Team Scorpion was not something that Walter welcomed and, in return, he fell back to childish and immature behavior — including giving Tim a ridiculous desk and work space, photoshopping a team photo to cover his face, and ultimately clashing with him in the cabin and putting his feelings about Tim out there, which was something that Paige witnessed.

As Toby pointed out, this position is not right for Tim. He is a leader who needs to be in a position where he is leading, so the situation with Team Scorpion was never meant to last. But still, it is sad to see that a team that is always such a tight-knit family should have a member break out under such circumstances. As Tim says his goodbyes to the team, he also makes peace with Walter. But it is clear that these two would never really be friends and, in a way, it’s disappointing. Because they did make a great team together, whether they liked it or not, and learned a lot from each other.

And the whole Tim/Walter debacle, at the end of the day, is just a device to throw an obstacle in the way of Walter and Paige’s relationship — which is nonexistent at the moment, of course. After making much progress last week, Walter's behavior toward Tim and his fight with him served nothing but to drag him back and undo all the great work he had done in regard to becoming the man that deserves to be with Paige. She will undoubtedly blame him for Tim’s departure and it will be a long time before she can forgive him for his attitude. I hope the writers don’t forget the great work they have been doing with Walter’s character this year and that this only is a small bump in the road.

Another fun-filled, albeit with a bitter ending, episode of Scorpion, in which emotionally crippled Happy delivers one of the most heartfelt moments in her support for Sly and Ralph proves once again to be the real hero of the team.

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Scorpion 3x09 Review: “Mother Load” (Right Now Everyone in America is Getting Together and Having an Uncomfortable Dinner) [Guest Contributor: Yasmine]

“Mother Load”

Original Airdate: November 21, 2016

This week, Scorpion followed up its last episode with another family themed one. But in this one, we finally meet someone from Paige’s family. After almost two and half seasons of knowing nothing about her, Paige’s past is finally revealed. And, like most of the team, it turns out she didn’t have a perfectly wholesome childhood. I think that is something about her that makes her feel close to the rest of the team — the knowledge that while she may not be a genius like the rest of them, she does share that broken childhood and carries it with her.

My love for Paige grew so much this week after learning about her childhood and then seeing how she turned out to be such a strong and independent woman, an excellent role model, despite what she had to go through.

As the team was preparing for Thanksgiving dinner, they got a last-minute job to check on the foundation of a building. It turns out, though, that the client had used a fake name to get the job and it’s Paige’s con artist mother, Veronica. Also, the job isn’t about the foundation of a building but about a nuclear reactor she found in the building. Naturally, it ends up being Team Scorpion’s job to relocate the reactor, since it’s a holiday and the people whose job it is to do that are all away for the holidays.

In order to accomplish the task, Team Scorpion has to resort to using marshmallows, turning Toby into a human piñata, turning themselves into shock absorbers, driving through a golf range and confiscating both a churros truck and a floating Super Fun Guy. But they eventually do get the job done, sending the reactor to take a dive into the Pacific. Oh, and they also get involved in a gun-loaded car chase because, as it turns out, Veronica lied about practically everything.

The emotional weight of this episode was carried by Paige, and Katharine McPhee did a wonderful job at it. After her initial hostile reaction to seeing her mother, it is up to Toby to take Paige aside, where she opens up to him about her past. She tells him about growing up with a con artist for a mother, who spent a lot of time in prison. This forced a young Paige to lie to people about where her mother was, making up stories that she was away on business. And worse yet was the fact that Paige's father eventually left his wife, taking Paige with him. But he never stopped loving Veronica and ultimately died heartbroken because of the woman.

This was the first we have heard anything about Paige’s past, let alone learn that her father is dead, how he died, and what Paige had to go through as a child. Like I said, it just goes to show just how amazing Paige is for turning out the way she did, and being the amazing mother that she is.

Paige and Veronica’s relationship — Paige’s justified anger and her not wanting anything to do with her mother — carries throughout the episode. And as Veronica’s lies are exposed one after the other, Paige is proven again and again to be right about this woman. Even though Paige is initially adamant that Veronica will never meet Ralph, at the end of the day Veronica extends an olive branch and — with the help of Cabe — Paige tries to make an effort to cross the bridge by introducing Ralph to his grandmother. It was very much like what Walter did last week with his family.

I don’t know where the show will be taking this, or if Veronica will be a bigger presence in the coming episodes. Paige has always been the one to carry the team emotionally, and so this insight into her past is a big development not only for her but for everyone else moving forward.

Another relationship that has taken an interesting turn is the one between Tim and Walter, as the two seem to have found some common ground in order to work together. I personally hope that is real and not just an act because I kind of love that friendship, or the potential of that friendship. It helps for Walter to have a guy friend who’s not a genius. However, Veronica looks like she’s going to cause some trouble there. In the beginning of the episode, she plants some seeds of doubt in Walter’s mind as to the usefulness of Tim on the team. And at the end, she takes him aside to talk to him about his feelings for Paige and to let him know that she’s rooting for him — that she will help him get Paige back. I don’t know what her endgame there is, but something tells me it’s not that good. I still do not trust that woman.

Cabe, meanwhile, has the possibly of a flourishing relationship on the horizon. But that looks like it’s going to be a tricky one. With Sly running for elections, Cabe has become smitten by the campaign manager of Sly’s opponent. After weeks of running jokes about him being old, Cabe finally catches a break (or at least Toby finds a new topic to tease him about), when Allie starts flirting with him. Cabe’s initial reaction is cluelessness about it. I’m excited for Cabe and this new storyline. He spends so much of his time taking care of this dysfunctional team that he deserves a break.

And what does Cabe do about this? He chooses to become Sly’s campaign manager. Talk about creating your own obstacle in pursuit of a potential love interest!

These characters do not like to make it easy on themselves, do they?

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Scorpion 3x08 Review: "Sly and the Family Stone” (Blood Doesn't Make Family, Love Makes Family) [Guest Poster: Yasmine]

“Sly and the Family Stone”

Original Airdate: November 14, 2016

Scorpion this week went back to one of its core values and themes, and focused on family — family in all its positives and negatives and all its different forms and shapes. This episode also focused a lot on Walter, his being the most exciting journey this year, and made it hard as possible for him this week by forcing him to go back and face his past. Literally. The team, most of them at least, went back to Ireland for Megan’s memorial. And by doing so, Walter had to confront his past — his tortured past — his family, his village, and everything that made him the broken child that he was and formed the man he grew to become. And to be fair to Walter, being a genius and being so different is hard enough, so having to grow in a place in which no one understood him, let alone accepted him, must have been a nightmare.

The Walter vs. his past conflict was prefaced by the inevitable Walter vs. Tim battle. The brains vs. the brawn battling for Paige’s affection, if you will. Ralph and Toby pick up on this beforehand and try to derail the conflict by tricking both men into thinking the other needs their help in the category in which they lack. And it is all done for one noble goal: Paige’s happiness. While their ruse is eventually exposed, Tim and Walter do have to work together, have each other’s’ backs, and find a new common ground to reach an understanding and end the rivalry between them.

The trip back to Ireland starts awkwardly and uncomfortably for Walter, as expected, but not so much for Sly, who we all assume is meeting the extended family of his late wife for the first time. But apparently Sly is loved by everyone back in Ireland, much to Walter’s dismay. And while the younger genius is loved and accepted and listened to, Walter is still estranged, ostracized, bullied, and misunderstood. He does not make things easier on himself when he announces to the village that the lake is going to explode due to carbon dioxide collecting at the bottom. The village ignores him and laughs at this. Only his team stands by him. While Sly and Paige join the procession to the cemetery, Walter, Tim, and Cabe stay behind, and — with the help of Toby and Happy (who had stayed in the garage) — they try to solve the problem before catastrophe hits the village.

Things get complicated — as they always do — and with tensions high between Tim and Walter, the lake does explode, sending a cloud of CO2 toward the cemetery where everyone is gathered. Again, Walter has to convince the village, his father, and simultaneously try to figure out a solution to the problem. Of course they do, eventually, but not without both Walter and Tim having to risk their lives in the process. This brings both men closer than they’d ever been, and they realize that the skills that they both possess are necessary to keep this team effective, efficient, and the best at what they do.

Saving the village also came at another price: Walter having to confront the bullies who had made his life hell as a child. Per Tim’s advice, Walter fights back (joined then also by Tim), only to have the fight stopped by Walter’s mother.

And just after that fight, as they revealed Megan’s cenotaph, the tears hit me. I was not expecting that at all, but they just rolled down and the entire scene that followed — the talk of building bridges and closing gaps — was so beautifully done. I did not expect this episode to make me cry, but it did.

At the end, Walter leaves home having extended an olive branch to his bullies and made a promise to his parents to stay in touch better.

Eventually, Walter is going to have to embrace his past and his family. But before he does, he is going to have to go through a lot. This episode was the first step. Acceptance and bridging the gap was necessary and it was done beautifully. His past and his family represent the rest of the world to him — a world that does not understand him or accept him or appreciate him for who he is, and a world he, too, does not understand. His journey is to find that common ground, that bridge on which they can both exist without him having to change who he truly is, but at least change how the world see him and show himself in a way that the world can understand and hopefully appreciate what wonderful human being he is.

And it is along this journey, and on this bridge, that Walter will be able to find Paige and be with her. But what is great about this relationship is that even when they are not together in the romantic sense, she is there to guide him through it, every step of the way.

Because ultimately Team Scorpion is a family who will do absolutely anything and everything for each other. No sacrifice is too big.

And speaking of sacrifices: back at the garage, Happy was finalizing her divorce with Walter, hoping that by the end of the day, she and Toby would be married via popping into courthouse and getting it done. Happy isn’t the most romantic person. Toby deals with the situation with subtlety and finesse. But he doesn’t want a courthouse wedding — Toby wants a big wedding with all their friends and family. Happy agrees to his wishes because, after a small moment with Cabe — who tells her that his wedding day was the happiest day of his life — she realizes she cannot deny Toby that.

At the end of the day, this show reminds us of what truly matters: family. And family are the people who love you, who are there for you always, and who are ready to sacrifice everything for you, no questions asked.

This was another fun episode of Scorpion that hit just the right spots emotionally and carried the characters into the next steps of their journey — whether small like with Happy or, in Walter’s case, a huge leap that propels his story into the next phase.

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Scorpion 3x06 Review: “Bat Poop Crazy” (This is How Every Scary Movie Starts) [Guest Contributor: Yasmine]

“Bat Poop Crazy"
Original Airdate: October 31, 2016

Scorpion’s holiday episodes are always great, there’s no question about it. The Christmas episodes never fail to deliver, and their season one Halloween episode, "True Colors," remains one of my favorites of all time. And this season, with "Bat Poop Crazy," that tradition is kept alive. What’s not to love when you’ve got awkward geniuses dressing up in obscure outfits, a genius kid high on sugar, and Sylvester being scared of absolutely everything at every turn?

The case this week was, again, non-government related. Instead, the team took a job to rescue a diseased bat population that would require them to spelunker into a cave — almost blindly, since the maps they have are practically ancient — and spray the bats with a fungus cure that is also, conveniently, fatal for humans. On paper, it all seemed feasible. But of course, things never go as planned. They find the zoologists that were supposed to help them had been attacked by the bats, with one of them having caught rabies and the other missing somewhere in the caves. So the mission goes from a relatively simple one — just don’t tell Sly I said that — to a complex mission of saving the first zoologist’s life, finding and rescuing the second, and, of course, curing the bats. And they do all that just in time to go back to the garage and throw a Halloween party and try to deceive the U.S. government with regard to Happy and Walter’s fake marriage.

As a matter of fact, the hardest mission they all had was just that — trying to make this fake marriage look real. And it is virtually impossible, as Walter himself admits. Both of these geniuses have no clue what it is like to be in a normal relationship and, as hard as the rest of the team tries, they still look miserably awkward when they try to pretend. After the photoshopped honeymoon album, this week they work on a fake Halloween album and try to build a believable Halloween favorites list. And while Happy manages to make up a few, all Walter can provide is “favorite Halloween drink is water.” Toby and Paige put Happy and Walter through a process of putting on costumes and taking pictures — awkward pictures — to create this fake album that should span from 2010 to 2016. But unfortunately, when the time came, the album failed to deceive the government employee tasked with their case because these so-called geniuses failed to notice the reflection of the 2016 calendar in what was supposed to be their Halloween photo from 2010.

It seems like this storyline will be carried in a bit further and honestly, it is very entertaining, so I do not mind a bit. I love that we quickly moved past Toby being angry at Walter and Happy about this and actually spending his energy on resolving it. I am worried about one thing though: I keep wondering if they will use the pregnancy as part of this ploy to cheat the government, if they will pretend it is Happy and Walter’s baby. I really hope they won’t. It would make sense to resolve their problem, but I sure hope they don’t; it would just be wrong.

So when the fake photos failed, what did almost save them — or at least not break all their hopes — actually came from Walter, and it came from him taking another step in his attempt to become the best version of himself he could be. The way they are treating and developing Walter’s character this season has been an absolute joy to watch. It has been small baby steps, sometimes even so small you could miss them, but it has been steady and careful and just the perfect way to build a character and make him reach his ultimate want.

In the beginning of the episode, Toby asked around for happy Halloween memories, reaching to Paige for that since she is the “normal” one in the group. And when she gave him a generic story, he immediately picked up on her lie. Paige has some secrets! After appearing to be the only one who has had a “normal” life, we are starting to meet a different side of Paige. Toby was the one to pick up on this, of course, but what was great was that he did not pry. Instead, he confided in Walter about this. In a move that shows incredible growth — and such better understanding of how human interaction works — Walter manages to get Paige to open up to him. That scene was so incredibly sweet, maybe my favorite Waige scene all season, because it showed just how much Walter has evolved and how much he cares about Paige, how any pain she feels, he just wants her to share with him in hope that this will make it lighter on her. And Paige shares the heartbreaking truth about her Halloweens as a child, and what Walter does with this information is amazing.

In the end, in an attempt to salvage his fake marriage, he re-imagines this story, partly to help Happy out and mostly, he retells the story in a way that makes it better, that turns it from a sad childhood memory to a cherished one. And he does that just for Paige, so that she can replace that pain left by the story with something more beautiful, filled with love instead of loss and heartache.

This revelation about Paige was really touching, and I think it opens the door for them to give us more about her and her history this season. It also sheds a lot of light on why she is an amazing mom who wants to give her son everything.

And speaking of being a great parent, both Happy and Toby got a taste of what it’s like to be one this week. Toby’s task was a bit less obvious. Upon finding the zoologist, rabies and all, Toby has to drive him to the closest hospital for treatment and ends up with a delirious grown man rambling about birthday cake and acting rash and impulsive. But Toby being Toby, he handles the situation with snark and smugness to save the man.

Happy, on the other hand, had the most difficult task of all. Unable to join the team in the cave, she stays back in the garage to back them up and to keep an eye on Ralph, which is the hardest thing to do when the little genius is on a sugar high and attempting every hazardous method to carve pumpkins. And I don’t say this enough, but can we please have Ralph appear more often? The kid is growing up to be so much fun, and I wish he featured more.

By the end of the day, Happy is overwhelmed, having experienced what it really means to be a parent, to be responsible for another human being. The last scene between Toby and Happy may be my favorite Quintis scene ever. They were both so honest, so vulnerable, so supportive and so open about their fears and the future. Of all the things that Toby has ever said, “we’re gonna make it... we have each other,” just may be my absolute favorite.

And finally, my favorite part of the whole episode. Sylvester. Of course, the team does not inform him of the mission until the very last minute because it’s Sylvester and dark caves and bats. His freak out begins the moment he finds out and does not end until the very last minute. The comedic element here is priceless. Ari Stidham plays Sylvester with so much honesty and purity, it’s absolutely a pleasure to watch him. Sylvester’s panic, his one liners at every step of the way, made this episode what it is. But it was not just that. Every time they put Sylvester in such situations, you know it will lead to him having to save the day, and he does that — twice in one episode. There hasn't been much focus on Sly this season, and I am still waiting for his arc. Still, I am not complaining because even when he is just left to hold things a bit in the background, he can still steal the show.

So in conclusion, it was another great episode from Scorpion this week. We got Walter character growth, we got baby steps for Waige and a beautiful moment for Quintis, Ralph got to have a bigger, more fun role for once, and Sylvester got to save the day even if he hated it. And of course, another joke at Cabe being old... those jokes never get old.

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