Scorpion recap: The Fast and the Nerdiest

Tonight’s big question: Can people change? For our team of geniuses, who knows really?

Team Scorpion seems to be pretty on track for the moment. Sylvester is still on track to accomplish the most important mission of the series: getting on The Price Is Right. Happy and Toby are still navigating the waters of new relationships, but Happy is still distant and Toby seems to be gambling again. Walter is still emotionally void and keeping Paige at arm’s length, and Paige and I… Well, we’re still one collective ball of emotion, attempting to understand HTML and how chemical bonds work. Sigh. But this week specifically, Sylvester finally made it to The Price Is Right, and he’s not just going on the show to be TV famous. He’s in it for the money to name a hospital wing after Megan. And after his first big win on The Price Is Right (poor Drew Carey), he’s about halfway to the money he needs.

The Backstory

After the show, a man named Mick (played by Eric Roberts) wanders into the warehouse looking for Cabe. Mick and Cabe grew up together in Brooklyn. He’s come hoping to trade out information with the government, but in doing so, he could get some other people in serious trouble. He’s working with another guy named Patrick Grady on a smuggling operation and overheard a phone call about some biohazards that are being trafficked across the border. Team Scorpion is not chill about the plan, so Cabe takes the team aside and explains that Mick is a childhood friend who went to juvenile for Cabe. Cabe trusts Mick, and the team should trust Cabe. Yeah, Mick has been a bad seed, but some people can change, right? RIGHT??

The Mission

Scorpion agrees to investigate the area for the toxic materials, but Walter makes it clear: If there’s nothing there, they’ll dip out, and it’ll just be too bad for Mick. Mick comes out to give the team the signal to enter the building, and then he takes off. As Happy, Walter, and Toby enter, Walter admits that he has a bad feeling about the plan. That’s when the lights go out and bags go over their heads. Is Walter the best at dating? Nein, fräulein. But the man does know his way around some suspicious deals. As the trio gets driven away in a van, Cabe asks Mick what the hell he did, but Mick is super relaxed about the whole thing. He says that Cabe has to let it play out if he wants to see Happy, Walter, and Toby again.

The Execution

At the biohazard headquarters/fancy-car warehouse, Walter and the team convince Grady to let them into the operations database to check on making his fancy cars faster. While Walter is searching, Toby strikes up a conversation with Grady about his cars and drag racing. With Toby’s gambling habit rearing its head again, he pitches a bet that Walter can beat Grady in a drag race. At first, it seems like Toby is just out of control, but it allows Happy to search and find documents proving that there are bio-weapons being manufactured and where they’re located. Sly and Paige find the site, and he reads the DNA coding of the bio-weapon, revealing that it’s a common cold string, designed to attack a specific gene of the Aztec people, killing them in a biological genocide centered in the Aztec civilization. In layman’s terms, you can’t fix this cold with some OJ and a shot of NyQuil.

While everyone is doing their job, Walter’s only job is to hold off Grady and his impending race. Walter’s ego gets the best of him, though — he may win the drag race, but Grady’s men find Happy rifling through the bio-weapon documents right as she discovers the vital information. Grady confronts the team and demands to know who they’re working with. Toby caves and admits that it’s Mick, but Grady refuses to believe him and pistol whips him across the face. As Grady counts down, Cabe drives his SUV into Grady’s building and rescues the team. But Mick has taken off because his whole plan was to double cross Cabe and his team. Oh, Eric Roberts. You’re crazy.

NEXT: All’s fair in love and biohazard trafficking

The Revised Execution

Mick has stolen the bio-weapon and headed off to the worst Aztec vacation ever, so the team shifts its focus to finding Mick before he makes it to the border. Determining that Mick has actually stolen the bio-weapon for the money for him and his lover, Lorraine, the team tries to find where she is waiting for Mick. They get to her, but Grady has, too. He has two guys in the motel room next to hers, waiting for her to leave. Casually, Cabe and Walter rewire the television wires leading to Lorraine’s room to broadcast a message to her, attempting to get her out of the room. It’s kind of like when your favorite show gets interrupted for a tornado warning, but more personal and timely.

Cabe tells Lorraine to trust him. Walter throws a rope up to her room that she ties to the air conditioning unit. The two pull the window unit out, and she slips out the back window before Grady’s guys can get to her. They get back to the warehouse and explain to Lorraine that this is bigger than Mick or any of his past deals. Almost on cue, Mick calls and essentially laughs in Lorraine’s face and says that he’s not coming back for her because this is his final deal. His $5 million deal. Lorraine does not take it well. She practically throws the phone across the room, and all I could think was, “It took all the time between seasons 1 and 2 for Paige to set that speaker/phone system up. HOW DARE SHE.” I don’t know why I’m so defensive. First Taylor Hicks, then Megan Hilty. When are we finally going to stand up for Katharine McPhee? I digress.

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Team Scorpion isn’t too worried about the phones, though. They’re worried about Mick and that crazy biohazard he has in his car. Only problem is that Eric Roberts (let’s just call a Mick by his real name, shall we?) is driving a car that’s leaking oil, meaning he’ll have to stop by the gas station before he hops on that boat taking him down to the Aztec village. Sly and the team are able to locate him, and Cabe hops on the chase. Walter and Cabe finally catch up to Eric Roberts, but to stop him, they engage in a game of chicken. If we’ve learned anything about life, though, it’s that games of chicken only end well on Footloose and pretty much no where else.

As the cars speed toward each other, Eric Roberts gives up on his pursuit and spins his car to a stop. Super casually, Cabe saunters over, pulls him out a gunpoint and arrests him. He tells Cabe that even after all of this, Cabes’ still the best friend he’s ever had.

The Conclusion

As the day end, the CDC plans to destroy the weapon, Lorraine is free (thanks be to science!!), and Cabe apologizes to the team because he endangered them with Mick’s tomfoolery. Then Walter apologizes for his ego and endangering the team by racing. But Toby won’t apologize for his gambling.

It’s all a joke, until Happy pulls Toby outside and breaks into cry-screams about how she can’t just wait around until Toby pulls the rug out from underneath her. She starts to walk away, but Toby pulls out his picks for the weekend game, his scratch-off ticket, and some other gambling papers (I don’t gamble, my bad) and burns them to prove to Happy that he’s in it. She questions him, but he says that he’s betting on Happy, and that’s the biggest best of his life.

Paige’s Feel Board

• “I’m about to smack a bad hand into your low pair.” —Happy, shutting down Toby’s commentary about poker
• WEIRD OBSERVATION: Do you guys think that Cabe looks like an old Ralph? I just thought about this tonight. I need validation.
• I don’t like this “people don’t change” talk, because I’m pretty sure that Paige and Walter still aren’t together, and well, that needs to change.
• Do you think we’ll ever learn more about Cabe’s history with the arts and that painting he was working on?

That’s it for now — we’ll have to wait a couple weeks before jumping into the last chunk of the season, but what are you thinking? Any hope for a Waige reunion? Can Quintis survive the odds? Do you think Cabe prefers pastels or watercolors? It takes more than a genius to figure that out, and I’m hardly even proficient at spelling, so who knows. Guess we’ll just have to wait it out.