Quantico

ABC's Quantico - Season One

I don't binge TV shows. Ever. Not on principle - I'm sure if I wanted to make a point it would be that I could binge TV shows - but I watched all 22 episodes inside 4 days, either sides of 10-hour night shifts and whatever sleep I could get in the day time, so to say this show was mind-blowing doesn't come anywhere near close to accurate. So let's talk about Quantico.

Simply to clarify, we all should be aware that Quantico is the famed FBI training facility - you want to be any kind of FBI agent, you gotta get through rigorous training there first. And if the TV show reimagines Quantico's training procedures with even half-decent accuracy, then over the show's first season we learn just how tough it is to make it.

What's the show all about?

Quantico's first season follows two narrative arcs: the first is the "New Agent Trainees" (NATs) as they go through their training; the second is nine months into the future, where our main character, Alex Parrish (Priyanka Chopra), is framed by someone within Quantico for the biggest terrorist attack in New York City since 9/11. Pretty juicy stuff - especially since a lot appears to have happened to all the characters in the intermittent nine months: while we're seeing friendships forged at Quantico, we're also seeing them nine months later in the exact same episode, after they've broken and altered sometimes irreparably.

Characters and Cast

One of the best things about this show is that it is perfectly cast. There are very few shows or films that aren't cast well, but it's just noticeable - and notable - when they are cast perfectly, which I think Quantico is. And that was pleasantly surprising, given I'd never heard of 90% of the cast.

Characters L-R; Alex, Raina, Shelby, Ryan Booth,
Natalie Vasquez, Elias, Caleb, Simon

The lead role of Alex Parrish, the FBI agent framed for a bombing in Grand Central, is played by Priyanka Chopra; her love interest and undercover trainee Ryan Booth is played by Jake McLaughlin, who manages to portray an FBI agent pretending to be a trainee FBI agent - and in the present an FBI agent - very smoothly; Yasmin Al Massri spectacularly pulls off playing two characters at once, the twins Nimah and Raina, the former of whom is particularly outgoing whilst the latter very conservative and religious; Graham Rogers is both suspicious and trustworthy enough to play the character of Caleb Haas, a man with a shady past who journeys from a trainee agent to trainee analyst back to a trainee agent again; Johanna Brady is innocent but resilient enough to portray Shelby Wyatt (and her alternating performances in each episode between trainee and confident businesswoman are stunning); Josh Hopkins and Aunjanue Ellis play Liam O'Connor, one of the teachers at Quantico, and Miranda Shaw, the Assistant Director of the Academy respectively, and are perhaps the most underrated performers, given that our final two main cast members are Anabelle Acosta, the hardened ex-cop Natalie Vasquez, and Tate Ellington, who plays my favourite character, the damaged war volunteer Simon Asher.

I couldn't have cast this show any better, and to be honest I probably shouldn't try because I have no experience.

Plot arcs

There are a number of juicy plot arcs throughout the first season and, although it might be reasonable to begin discussing the main storyline, I actually want to loop back round to it later on, so we'll begin on some of the smaller stuff.

Perhaps starting with the twins, whose inclusion comes at a price: no one must know they are twins. They must do everything half-and-half: when one twin is out training, the other is in her room being silent, doing nothing. Thus, their physical competencies must match, so if one is better at say press-ups than the other, that twin must pretend to not be as good to keep up appearances. And vice versa. This is an experiment Miranda is conducting under close scrutiny from FBI brass: can she train twins secretly to go undercover without compromising each other?

Caleb and Shelby hit it off right from the beginning, although it's one of those determined-to-hate-each-other-while-the-sexual-tension-builds relationships, and the reality of their lives eventually make their relationship difficult. Shelby has a sister in some country I can't remember, who Caleb discovers is a con artist. Shelby's parents died in 9/11, but she discovers they aren't dead, but Caleb then discovers they are also conning her for money. And Caleb used to be a part of a cult, whose members seem to meet mysterious fates if they kick up a fuss.

Vasquez is just a bit naff in comparison: she's an arrogant arsehole who turns into a quite nice person, and in the future timeline she helps Alex with trying to uncover who framed her, only to die shortly after. A shame, but really the show doesn't lose too much by offing her.

O'Connor's plot is very intriguing: his main use is being involved in a case years ago with Alex's father, where their actions led to a terrorist attack they were supposed to foil but couldn't, which Alex is determined to learn about, while in the future timeline he vigorously hunts Alex as the terrorist. Meanwhile, Miranda's personal life intertwines with work when her son is imprisoned, released and gets himself into even more trouble - and then dead - while in the future she tries to help Alex prove her innocence.

Simon, as I've said, is my favourite character. He has an even shadier background, having volunteered in Gaza and seen and done some unimaginable things, and pretends to be gay, which actually gay trainee analyst Elias Harper can see through, and calls him out on. Unfortunately for Simon, he grows feelings for Raina, but it soon becomes clear he's into murkier things. We learn early on in the future that he was kicked out of Quantico, and it's clear he's done something to piss off Nimah. His story is all about redemption for things he's done - and we'll see how perfectly it's wrapped up later.

Alex and Booth are the big love story besides ... Calby. Sheleb? Hyatt? Waas? None of those ship names sound good. But Alex and Booth's relationship at Quantico is crazy complicated, as Booth isn't actually a trainee but an undercover assigned to monitor her. This sours the relationship and later on at Quantico Alex starts a relationship with a new recruit, Drew Perales, an ex-NFL player who has a grudge against them and soon the FBI. In the future animosity is borne between Alex and Booth because of how their time at Quantico ended, leading to Booth furiously pursuing Alex at O'Connor's side.

The attack

So now to Alex's framing. She enters Quantico as an idealistic young woman determined to make the world a safer place, But we know that somebody inside (is it a faculty member, is it one of her fellow NATs?) has their eye on her, preparing her to take the fall for a terrorist attack in nine months' time. Everybody seems to have left Quantico hating each other for one reason or other, and everybody around Alex seems to have one motive or other for committing a terrorist attack and wanting a scapegoat, but who the hell could it possibly be?

It's thought to be Elias Harper, the gay analyst who is kicked out of Quantico for fleeing from a bombing scenario to save his own life - apparently the FBI has a die-pointlessly policy. Alex and a few others corner him in a hotel where he's set another bomb to blow, and has Simon Asher tied down holding onto a dead man's switch - but Elias claims he was only doing everything (putting Alex in the frame for the original bombing and this next one) because the real terrorist threatened to kill him. Not wanting to go to prison for treason, he decides to casually fall out of the hotel window from a few floors up. The bomb in the hotel is defused, and Simon lets go of the switch - only for it to be revealed the hotel bomb was a dummy, and the real one was in the FBI Command Centre (where they were hunting the damn terrorist) and has just killed 31 FBI agents, including the Deputy Director Clayton Haas - Caleb's daddy.

Despite Elias's claims he was coerced, no one really believes him besides Alex, so she creates a few serious enemies when she suggests the real terrorist is still out there. Apparently the government don't like to think they've done terrorist-catching wrong.

With Elias dead, terrorist person needs a new unwilling soldier, so he straps a bomb vest to Vasquez, who is promptly killed in an explosion, casting undue pain and suspicion upon Alex. Booth puts out a warrant for Alex, as she was the last to see Vasquez, and eventually, when Booth stops acting like an arse, he works out Alex was telling the truth. So now they have to find the real terrorist.

The terrorist

Priyanka Chopra giving her thoughts on the terrorist

As hilarious as Priyanka Chopra's theory was, I can confirm her character Alex is NOT the terrorist. Because, after 19/20 episodes of wondering who the terrorist is, the terrorist drops the voice modulator he's been using to hide his voice and is revealed to be Drew Perales. It turns out Perales' fiancee was collateral damage from O'Connor's sideways mission in Omaha. I think a lot of people felt cheated at this point: Perales had come into the show halfway and people felt robbed that they'd wasted so much time suspecting other characters when the real terrorist hadn't come in yet. However, I felt that Perales would have been a perfectly acceptable and believable terrorist, given his burgeoning hatred for the FBI, in spite of his late entry. Of course our NATs and other NATs would interact at stages, and his motive was particularly strong.

But it wasn't him - and I always suspected that from the start. Why would the terrorist suddenly drop the modulator? Obviously to frame Perales, which apparently our FBI heroes are too stupid to figure out.

The REAL terrorist

The real terrorist has Perales and Simon Asher locked in a hotel room with another bomb (this terrorist is very unimaginative), as the FBI heroes realise it's Perales. But they are too late to get there: while Simon escapes the room, Perales is caught in the explosion. Now they are forced to consider he wasn't the real terrorist. No shit guys. Excellent work there ...

So who was the real terrorist?

Hold your breath people.

It waaaaaaaaaaaas...

Liam O'Connor.

Yes, in the closing scene of the penultimate episode we learn, as Miranda is shot by the person she's gone to meet who she knows is the terrorist, by Liam O'Connor. It was a stunning reveal, proving that ABC can still produce good TV, and set up the finale very very nicely. I was glad of the reveal, as I'd thought it would be held until the finale, but after this I just had to watch it.

The finale starts with a four-minute montage of how O'Connor managed to pull off the Grand Central bombing and frame Alex. It was a comprehensive explanation, each short scene showing how he got the little titbits of information he needed (such as how he stole the bomb plans from Simon), and what he did to cover his tracks. But for me, seeing it didn't make sense. It just didn't feel full of answers, it felt kind of lazy. Personally, I needed it spelt out for me, I needed O'Connor later in the episode to properly explain how he did it, not just why he did it.

But back to the finale. Of our characters, Miranda is the only one who knows, and O'Connor has her locked in the trunk of his car. He's kidnapped Booth as well, so eventually the NATs realise what's going on. Slowpokes.

Then they have to stop O'Connor from bombing the next set of Quantico graduates with a nuke. Well, at least he's branching out.

They rush to Quantico and Alex confronts O'Connor, who is using Booth as a human shield. However, he takes a potshot at Alex, who hits him while he misses her. Booth, in some mad Matrix-style slow-mo, grabs O'Connor's gun in mid-air and shoots him twice. So now O'Connor's dead, but there's still the nuke. However, before I discuss that, I want to mention O'Connor's motive.

Motive

O'Connor seemingly wants to destroy the FBI by destroying its reputation and its training academy, then move to D.C. where he has a job offer and rebuild the FBI in his own image - and he wants to do this because he feels disillusioned by what he has been asked to do in the past: cut corners and encourage the bad guys to commit crimes, which is what he had to do in Omaha by giving the terrorists the guns they could kill with.

Now, doesn't that just seem a bit lame? I mean, I totally get his disillusionment - but framing your partner's daughter for a terrorist attack, then building a nuke to destroy Quantico? I'm calling overkill, but that's just me.

Actually, that's not just me. Because while O'Connor being the terrorist made perfect sense, I can totally see why plenty of people were disappointed. They wanted it to be one of the NATs - Shelby, Caleb, Booth, the twins, Simon, Elias, Vasquez - but instead it was O'Connor. I did, too, however, I don't think people can really argue against O'Connor being the baddie: it was made clear early on that whoever the terrorist was had high-level access to Alex's records and no NAT could have had that while at Quantico. So while O'Connor's motive needed to be stronger, he was really the only plausible terrorist.

The nuke

OK, now back to the nuke, which is still in Quantico. Our main set of NATs find it, but they can't disarm it. While they argue, Simon sneaks out of the building, gets in a van and drives off, leading to the most emotional character death scene I think I've ever seen.

Simon's story has been all about redemption, for the bad things he did in Gaza, for the lies he's told everyone (such as being gay), for the way he was kicked out of Quantico - he has the burden of terrible things weighing on his heart and his conscience, and throughout he's done what he can to make up for them. But it's not until the end that he does, when he takes that nuke, knowing full well that to save everyone he has to sacrifice himself.

Some people were unhappy Simon had to die - myself included - but I don't feel it was the wrong thing to do. Tate Ellington is an unbelievable actor and delivers Simon's constant anguish and guilt flawlessly, and he was the one character I didn't want to die. But then again, Simon's character needed this redemption, and this was the only way he could get it. It was a more deserved and well-handled death than Root on Person of Interest (since I keep mentioning her), and I cried at this scene. Occasionally, I still do.

Here's the video. If you don't think this is the most beautiful death scene ever show me one that's better.

Obviously, I have not been able to explain every detail here since the plot is so complex, so it's best you watch the show yourself and love it. It's an absolute thrill.

Final thoughts

So now we have a weird conundrum. You see, to me, Quantico felt like a one-season show. That's odd of me to think, given how much I loves me mah TV, but I always thought this was one of those shows that would live a short but grand life and expire on a high. The good die young.

However, it's coming back for season two. Season one ends with Alex being offered a job at the CIA, and her answer is left ambiguous (obviously, though, she'll accept). Now, the CIA has approximately zero point nothing to do with Quantico training facility, so I don't know how season two will shape, especially given the rest of the characters are still involved with the FBI in some way. How will it pan out? Which mains will return? I genuinely have no idea, but perhaps that is what's so exciting about waiting for Quantico in particular to return in September.

Thank you everyone for reading, see you next time!

Sam