On-Season Week 19

WEEK 19

We've dropped down to just five shows this week, losing Conviction, Elementary, Hawaii Five-0 and NCIS LA and gaining only Quantico. Incorporated airs its two-part finale and Lucifer airs its twelfth episode; after episode thirteen next week it will go on another hiatus and won't return until May. Bull and Scorpion also air.

Bull - 1x12 "Stockholm Syndrome"

"A mock juror sets off an explosion in TAC to orchestrate a proper hearing for her husband, who is five years into a fifteen year sentence for murdering a drug lord."

Someone was going to see the use in forcing TAC to run a mock trial for them eventually, and with "Stockholm Syndrome" Laurel Guthrie does. Although the opening sequence is meant to introduce Laurel as a character out of place among other mock jurors, the mock jury orientation actually worked better as a format shift to show exactly how the mock jurors are greeted, treated and even paid ($200 an hour, which Bull tops later with an extra $1000 hazard pay for being caught in Laurel's bomb blast). They even cover themselves with how TAC makes enough money to pay nearly 20 potential jurors upwards of $35,000 for that one day: by taking on cases of egregious CEOs and COOs warring over company rights. And finding out more about how TAC runs was always going to be interesting.
   But not as interesting as the Bull and Danny confrontation - which the script eventually got to after 27 minutes of making everyone agreeable to a mock trial held under duress. Bull worked as the prosecution, slamming Danny (the undercover agent who identified Laurel's husband Gordon as the killer five years ago) so that his narrative would convince the jury to find Gordon Guthrie innocent. It fractured Bull and Danny's relationship, but of course with the ending Bull made things right.
   Part of this was achieved before their heart-to-heart, however, for after the verdict of not guilty was delivered by the mock jurors, Bull pointed out that he had deliberately told only part of the story to sway the jury in his favour. By then revealing crucial details about Danny's testimony he proved that court cases weren't about truth but narrative (and that Gordon was guilty after all). Little admissions have been made in the previous eleven episodes about the importance of narrative over truth, but this was Bull's way of properly apologising for its deepest flaw: that all it ever does is spin a story to make us feel how it wants us to feel.
   VIEWERS: 11.08m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.3
   (A series low 1.3 for Bull)

VERDICT: Considering the importance of the case, the trial itself became secondary to the character impacts, and with it we had an opening into Danny's past life. 8/10

Incorporated - 1x09 "Burning Platform" & 1x10 "Golden Parachute"

"Ben struggles to comprehend that he is really Aaron. Spiga's hand is forced when extracting Dr. Sanjay Maraj doesn't go according to plan. "

In the first of Incorporated's two-part finale, the payoff we've all been waiting for finally occurs as Ben is promoted to the fortieth floor. That's not for lack of suspicion on Julian's part, and the episode ended with Ben being ambushed in his home - by Spiga? This after a lengthy journey, internally and literally, to show Ben that he is really Aaron, leading to him re-uploading his original identity.
   Laura is rocked by the truth that her mother Elizabeth killed her father because he defected, not because he was kidnapped, and is ordered to shut down her Red Zone clinic. This after Spiga's failed attempt to retrieve Dr. Maraj forced Elizabeth to order a drone strike that wiped out Maraj, the Spiga retrieval team and the Inazagi forces trying to recover their asset. Daaaaaamn.
   But that's not all. After all the security breaches, Spiga are cleaning house in Arkadia, meaning Ben/Aaron's promotion could not have come at a better time: it's now or never if he wants to save Elena, and with Theo about to head to a Green Zone fight a feisty ending is in sight.

*

Dream fake-outs are a bit lame, but simulation fake-outs can be terrific. As it is, "Burning Platform" wrapped up its lead-in cliffhanger of Ben being kidnapped in his own home by revealing it to be a Spiga simulation designed to test his loyalty, a test Ben passed after allowing Inazagi to shoot Laura dead before him rather than give up Everclear.
   Unfortunately, that loyalty didn't quite translate into real-life, as Ben used his extraction deal with Inazagi man Phillip Brill to secure a future for Hendrick and his daughter in exchange for the Everclear technology.
   The surprisingly low-intensity finale then did away with the current threads and introduced new ones: Elena refused to escape with Ben/Aaron because she and a "maid" were trying to bring down Spiga themselves and considered using Ben as an asset (a very cool and unexpected twist, although Elena has not once been made out to be the damsel in distress Ben/Aaron has imagined, and now I don't trust her at all); Theo's Green Zone fight (aesthetically pleasing having taken place in a shallow pool) went wrong and led to him giving up Ben Larson as an asset to Terrence in order to save his boyfriend's life; and Laura defied Elizabeth by warning her not to interfere with her Red Zone clinic; whilst as Ben and Laura moved into their new home, Laura was revealed to be finally pregnant.
   The episode did well in setting Ben and Laura up into a new life that will span a potential second season, whilst muddying the relationships between Red and Green Zone characters enough that the second season will have plenty to fight for.
   VIEWERS: 0.547m (1x09) & 0.409m (1x10)

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.23 (1x09) & 0.16 (1x10)
   (A vast difference from penultimate to finale, but those ratings bring Incorporated's season average up to a 0.16 demo share. Fingers crossed that will be enough for a season two!)

VERDICT: Low-intensity (there was no Spiga-Inazagi war, unfortunately), but what a set-up if we get season 2. Finally we saw a significant amount of Elena beyond her service to the primary plotline. 8.5/10

Lucifer - 2x12 "Love Handles"

"A serial killer appears in LA with an unusual motive; Maze advises Chloe to act more spontaneously, but her actions confuse Lucifer; "Charlotte" searches for allies to help her reveal to Lucifer the truth about Chloe."

Love, revenge, money and to cover up a crime: the four staples of what drives people to commit crimes. But for Dr. Jason Carlisle, the serial killer who stole the poisons at the end of the previous episode, his motive a superb break from those staples: he's killing to prove to everyone that he is human. After having his life ruined by the media because he chose to retrieve his laptop from the car crash he was in rather than save the other person, he decides to prove everyone else would make the same choice by poisoning people and threatening someone to maim themselves or that person will die. It's a powerful message, and an incredibly out-there concept that worked.

The email Chloe rashly sends Dr Carlisle
to draw him out

   Along the way to solving the murders, Chloe's infatuation with Lucifer leads her to act a little more like him in the hopes he will find it funny (ie making sex references at a crime scene), after Maze advises her to let loose. Early on she decides this was a poor choice and rightly so: seeing Chloe so far down the Lucifer rabbithole was cringeworthy. Once they settled back into their usual roles things normalised, and when Chloe chased Dr Carlisle to apprehend him Lucifer was able to save the final victims - by being immune to a poison gas since he is the Devil. Finally, the fact that he is the Devil played into an Earth-bound episodic plot.
   Also finally, the shitstorm that has been brewing in when will Lucifer find out that Chloe was a miracle sent by God hit us all when "Charlotte" finally found an ally to help reveal all to Lucifer: Maze. He was naturally broken, his ideals of a normal relationship with Chloe ripped apart by the revelation, but as he went to confront her the cliffhanger reveal showed us what we all might have expected: Chloe has also been poisoned. And with one episode left to go before Lucifer's next hiatus, what will be the moral dilemma that Lucifer will have to face?
   VIEWERS: 4.17m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.2
   (The second highest ratings Lucifer has achieved all season)

VERDICT: An out-there concept surrounded by ticking time-bombs in Lucifer's world that built towards the second midseason finale. An absolutely sublime episode, although the cliffhanger was a little predictable. 8.5/10

Quantico - 2x09 "Cleopatra"

"Despite no longer being undercover at The Farm, Alex tries to assimilate her way into Owen's good books; the recruits are tasked with learning how to seduce and recruit an asset. In the present, Alex is interrogated by the FBI after escaping the terrorists."

A huge missing link in the story right off the bat is how did Alex escape the terrorists and end up in FBI custody? Unless I'm forgetting something, the midseason finale ended with her discovering Ryan was a terrorist, so with no explanation of the jump from that to FBI custody the jump itself is hard to swallow.
   But if you can overlook that, the rest of the episode was a stunner, and it was jam-packed with twists and turns. The episode started off with a recap: Alex's interrogation enabled the writers to smartly remind the audience of everyone's position at this point, which also led to some clues about other characters. We already knew Owen was dishonourably discharged from The Farm, but did we know he was currently in federal prison? If we did, then clearly I'd forgotten, but if we didn't how did he get there?
   But that interrogation also led to the revelation that the AIC was not a terrorist group but a black-ops unit working outside of the law, and was in fact the target of the terrorist attack not the perpetrator. Shut the front door! As stated "so one group of rogue agents was taken hostage by another group of rogue agents?" I can get with that!
   And then Miranda pulls Alex from custody and tells her this: "I am one of the terrorists. And after the conversation we're about to have you will be too." Ohhhhhhhhhh boy.
   In the past, The Farm's lessons about seduction lead Léon to nearly burn Shelby's cover Jane before she convinces him Jane isn't a falsehood. But then he spots Nimah, Shelby's handler. And Harry learns about Ryan's secret AIC phone - but Alex only wanted Ryan to think it was his? What is this glorious madness?
   VIEWERS: 2.90m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 0.8
   (Monday's tick up looked a lot better before the adjustment down from a 0.9. An improvement, but it still might not be enough.)

VERDICT: This was one hell of a way to return from a midseason break, and it turned everything on its head at the right moment. 9/10

Scorpion - 3x14 "The Hole Truth"

"A sinkhole forms while Scorpion attempt to fix hundreds of micro-leaks which have formed in an important South California water pipe, threatening to topple a silo full of toxic chemicals."

Scorpion may be a bit topsy-turvy episode to episode, but the overall plan is being executed well. Paige's decision in the previous episode to let Walter sink or swim when it comes to interacting with normal people goes disastrously in "The Hole Truth", but it's timed well enough that the distance allows her to help her mother Veronica recover her stolen money and escape the bad guys who have come to LA looking for her. Veronica leaves with her characteristic verve, after making some very unsubtle hints that Walter and Paige still have feelings for each other.

   In the main plotline, Michael Beach turns up to play the Chief of the workforce dealing with the pipe. Although some obstacles along the way were typically contrived, most were genuinely troublesome progressions of a dire situation, partnered with some wonderfully inventive solutions. And it has to be said that for once I actually had my heart in my throat wondering what might happen to some of the characters.
   Revolving back round to Veronica's departure then, and it has to be said that the "make the bad guys believe she's dead so they'll go away" trick - while failing at all to convince me Veronica had died when she fell into the sinkhole - actually managed to trick the audience in some ways. While the way she survived was obvious (it was the same way they stopped the silo falling in: stretching safety nets across the gap), the flashback of Paige demanding Walter's help to pull it off was unexpected, since following his inability to communicate with normal people the writers made us believe Paige was actually pulling him aside for a telling-off.
   And it was also very funny, too.

   VIEWERS: 7.77m

   DEMOGRAPHIC SHARE: 1.3
   (Both tick up)

VERDICT: The departure of Veronica was cocooned around an episode that was just strong. Its main plot was excellent, its subplot with Walter was well-timed and well-executed - and Veronica left as well. This was the culmination of a half-season build-up and was superb. 9.5/10

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

Scorpion - Paige (after finding the stolen money her mum left her): "Guys ... I'm gonna need help opening an offshore account ..."

LAST WEEK'S ROUNDUP: On-Season Week 18

NEXT WEEK'S ROUNDUP: (will be posted here when complete)

Final thoughts

Well, there we have it for a very short Week 19. All the focus has to be on that Incorporated two-part finale: the set-up for a (potential and as yet unconfirmed) season two was phenomenal and helped by the huge 0.23 rating for the penultimate episode, a figure better even than Incorporated's premiere after taking into account its early online release!
   But Quantico's return can't go unmentioned: a game-changing episode met with increased ratings on a new day of the week. A third season renewal? Probably not, but this does muddy the waters!
   Lucifer pulled in grand ratings but Bull hit a season low - both with excellent episodes. Scorpion's ratings ticked up a little with an episode that might just be noted as the turning point for the characters come the end of the season!

So that's it! Next week Powerless premieres, Conviction airs its season (and possibly - probably - series) finale, Lucifer airs its midseason finale episode and Hawaii Five-0, MacGyver and NCIS LA return! Bull is the only drop-out.

Thanks for reading everyone. Looking forward to the next couple of weeks - on top of Powerless's premiere, we've also got A.P.B., Making History and The Walking Dead on the horizon so everybody strap in!

Sam