Scorpion recap: Fish Filet

Bullies are the worst. They make you do their homework and force you to go to prison and won’t even let you use their gang hanky when you got some allergies that need some attention. And there’s no sure fire way of dealing with them. My dad used to tell me to fight them, but I found it way easier to simply avoid eye contact for five years and then vaguely mention them in a Scorpion recap years later — in short, I have no advice for Ralph.

You see, Ralph is being bullied into doing his classmate’s homework, so Cabe and Happy tell him that he should fight the bully. Sylvester, siding more with me, tells him that he should simply run away. As #TeamScorpion offers their advice to Ralph in his time of need, something even more important hits me: Happy might actually be doing Ralph’s voice work. No, listen. They literally have the same voice. It’s just a theory, but it’s one worth investigating.

The team can’t settle on any plan of action for Ralph because Adriana Molina and her friends come to #TeamScorpion with a new case. This case just happens to involve a cryptic message written in gang language comprised of symbols only legible by top gang leaders. If this case proves anything, it’s that your mom was wrong, and even though it’s probably still a bad idea, it takes more than a bad decision to join a gang — it takes a firm grasp of hieroglyphic-type lettering.

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If the team doesn’t figure out this language, three judges will be assassinated at midnight. The warden wants to infiltrate the code manual from within, but if he does, that could cause suspicion. Instead the team decides that Sylvester and his photographic memory are their best chance. Paige helps him into his prison jumper, and Cabe tries to brush him up on “prison speak.” There’s no amount of preparation that could prepare Sly for prison, except for the temporary neck tat they give him. If that doesn’t do it, nothing will.

Sylvester immediately jumps into the books, and the team is annoyed that he hasn’t found something. But then, he pulls a copy of Gray’s Anatomy and notices that pages have been ripped out. That’s when Sly and the team realize that these pages that are torn out contain the gang language and must be hidden in the infirmary — the natural place one hides pages of prison gang speak.

From the outside, the team determines that Sylvester needs to choose a gang member to disrespect so that he can be taken to medical and find the missing pages. Toby and the team choose a gigantic man named Ten-Ton for him to confront, and after insults don’t work, Toby tells Sylvester to take his gang colors and disrespect them. That’s when Sly takes Ten-Ton’s “gang hanky” and blows his nose in it.

The plan works, and Sylvester gets clocked. Unfortunately, he also loses the transmitter that allows him to communicate with the team. He demands an x-ray and uses the time alone to find the pages for the special gang manual. His success is short-lived, though, because the warden, who is Sly’s only get-out-of-jail-free card, shows up after a mysterious issue with his diabetes.

NEXT: Lights out for Sylvester

That leaves Sylvester alone in the cafeteria with the owner of a disrespected gang hanky. Ten-Ton confronts Sly to tell him that at 10 p.m., he’s going to “turn his lights out.” If you’re not up on general prison jargon, that means “kill him.” Even when Cabe calls a favor into Adriana Molina, she can’t help. Mind you, she could illegally transport seven people to Cuba but can’t pull one guy out of a domestic prison. It’s whatever. That’s when the team decides to kill Sylvester.

The best chance of access to the prison is through a pipe that contains biohazards leading to the morgue. That’s when Toby comes up with the idea to pretend-kill Sylvester through a strange drug that makes him appear dead. The only issue is how they’ll get the drug in. That’s when Walter contacts his new friend, Ray, who happens to have connections inside the prison pharmacy. That’s why Ray is okay with Walter being the community service superstar — he already has a skill set. Ray and Paige break into the prison as lawyers to set Sylvester up with his “death pills.”

The issue is that even if the plan to kill Sly works, he’s still missing the legend that decodes the gang language. He figures that it must be hidden in the gang leader’s wheelchair, but he only has until 9:45 p.m. to get it because Ten-Ton is going to come kill him at 10 p.m. Sylvester takes the meds, but he starts to die before he can get to the wheelchair to steal the legend back.

When Sylvester wakes up from the drugs, Cabe and Walter have broken into the prison to set him free, but he still doesn’t have the legend. Sylvester refuses to leave without the legend, though. Toby blacks out the camera, and Sylvester retrieves and studies the legend. He’s attacked by Ten-Ton, but then he breaks his finger and decodes the first judge’s name. The assistant warden attacks Cabe and Walter, but Sylvester manages to decode the last two judges’ names before they escape.

As the case wraps up, Adriana Molina appears and commends the team with a smarmy smile, and that’s when Cabe tells her that she’s a disappointment. It’s Cabe’s fiercest moment this season — he even calls the team his family. Happy’s friend from da club shows up and tells her in “club speak” that he’s really into her. Toby hates it and attacks a punching bag. And Sylvester’s time in the pin finally gives him the courage to tell Megan that he loves her.

Oh, and Ralph is accepted into Harvard and MIT and a number of other places because he’s way smarter than you and me. He applied to high-level colleges so that he’d become famous and bullies would leave him alone. If he stays on that trajectory, he can even buy his own fleet of hankies when allergy season hits.

That’s it for the week! The case was much less international than we’ve seen this season, but a trip to prison for Sylvester is about as foreign as it gets. All that’s left to do is to put away your destroyed copy of Gray’s Anatomy, wash off that temporary tattoo, and prepare for next week.