Scorpion recap: US vs. UN vs. UK

Let’s be honest. There’s the kind of kid who gets picked first for dodgeball, and there are the kids that, well, aren’t. It’s fine because somehow, each generation, those kids seem to find a reason to keep living on. Sometimes they grow up to recap Scorpion each week. Sometimes they become mathematical geniuses or behavioralists, and sometimes the future is unknown. That’s the case for Ralph this week, who’s performance in gym class wasn’t quite up to par with his other studies. But this week isn’t about being the best in gym class… It’s about overcoming gym class — or whatever big struggle is in your way. Let’s discuss.

The Backstory

The episode opens back at the hospital with Megan. She’s weak, but the doctor says that “most of the mucus has been sucked from her lungs.” It’s a painfully grotesque reminder at how awful MS. is. Walter wants Megan’s intubation tube replaced when her lungs start to fill again. You might be wondering why she’s being intubated to begin with after she demanded not to be last week. Walter got a court order and made the call himself. Sylvester is taking him to task, but Walter isn’t budging at all. He promises that Megan will get better now that he’s in charge.

Back at the garage, Ray really is training Ralph to be a better athlete by going through physical training. He does his best but gets toppled by a swinging punching bag. Paige helps him up and admits that she wasn’t always picked first, either. Katharine McPhee knows a thing or two about not coming in first place, yet still managing to come out a winner… Taylor Hicks, what’s good??

The Mission

But like we said, the big challenge this week is not gym class. It’s the mission that British Agent Olivia Cromwell (played by LOST’s Penny Widmore, also known as Sonya Walger) and Agent Gleason deliver. This week’s criminal is Jonas Madaky, an ambassador who travels with diplomatic immunity. He sounds super harmless until you find out that he moonlights as a weapons trader who equips child soldiers. No big deal. He’s giving a speech at the United Nations in New York, which is ultimately a cover-up so that he can sell more weapons. #TeamScorpion’s job is to break through a three-step security clearance and get to the room that Madaky and his U.N. connection are in so that Gleason, who speaks an incredibly rare language, can incriminate him for arming child armies. I know. It’s a lot.

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Katherine Cooper has returned this week, in a blaze of casual pant-suit glory, and asks how the team could ever pull this off, so Walter explains. There are three rings of security:

• Ring 1: The NYPD, which apparently operates on horseback. The team will place horse urine with pheromones to get these horses hot and bothered.
• Ring 2: Full-body scanners keep the team from entering with the materials necessary to bypass ring three, so Walter suggests that they get Paige pregnant (calm down Waige fans). She sports a fake belly.
• Ring 3: What’s inside the fake belly? Fake hands that mimic actual U.N. members. They use the fake hands to get past the palm readers, which is not to be confused with palm readers like Miss Cleo.

Once the team breaks in, Happy and Gleason are smuggled into a tunnel. A security guard catches them, and Gleason goes BONKERS and pulls a gun, takes out the security guard, and announces that the team is actually there to assassinate Ambassador Madaky.

The Execution

Katherine Cooper finds out that the team has been pegged to assassinate Madaky. Gleason, suddenly way more chatty, starts briefing the team. They pinpoint Madaky to the 15th floor, but Gleason needs the team to break into the high-security door that stands between Gleason being a kind, sprightly British bloke and a full-blown assassin.

Walter jumps into action, rationalizing that he’s only responsible for opening the door…not the murder. But Walter freezes, staring at something on the screen — the scene cuts away and cuts back as Walter explains that the door is unhackable. It’s too late anyway because Madaky is on his way out, the negotiation is finished, and he’s making his way to the elevator.

Happy and Toby run to the roof and shut down the elevator with Madaky in it. They turn it back on, and as the doors begin to open, Gleason shoots into the elevator and attacks Madaky’s bodyguard. Madaky’s guard turns the gun on Gleason and shoots him in the stomach twice. Goodbye England’s lethal rose. Madaky has his bodyguard throw Gleason in the incinerator chute, never to be seen again.

NEXT: A bunch of bologna (bombs)

Back at the hospital, Megan wakes up and almost immediately begs Sylvester to never let her be intubated again. Sylvester explains that Walter has a court order, but Megan cries a single tear and Sylvester promises that he’ll find a way. And that’s when he pulls Ray in, who offers up a couple Band-Aids. We’ll see what that means.

After Gleason was tossed in the incinerator, Walter gives an uncharacteristically impassioned speech about focusing on the mission, and the team strangely follows suit. In response, the team decides to use salami and other ingredients to make a small bomb that will blow Madaky up. It sounds like a bunch of bologna, but it’s not. It’s salami. Get it? It’s lunch meat humor!

As Happy finishes up the bologna bomb (let’s just call it that because how funny does that sound?), Toby is tasked with keeping the speaker at the United Nations distracted so that the bomb can be placed. He does this by getting Ray on a headset and using his astute knowledge of Polish to translate the speaker’s speech? That’s right. No character mix up here. As that happens, Paige accesses Madaky’s room and is doing his “makeup.”

Happy sneaks in, attempting to be Paige’s assistant Ursula, and drops off the bologna bomb in Madaky’s briefacse. The speech ends, and Madaky takes the stage, but the bologna bomb that was set to explode mid-speech doesn’t explode. Agent Cromwell gives up on the team. As Madaky’s team is leaving, Scorpion rushes to catch Madaky. A series of traps stun members of Madaky’s team, but ultimately Madaky escapes into his limo. When the privacy window rolls down, Gleason is on the other side. Even Madaky is shocked, but Gleason simply says, “I’m a ghost. Boo.” Oh, Gleason.

The Actual Execution

It turns out, the first three rounds of Gleason’s gun were real, but the rest were blanks planted by Happy. Paige made wonderful fake blood for Gleason’s “death” out of corn syrup and food coloring when she excused herself. Gleason positioned his demise to be right by the incinerator, and then Happy and Toby made their way down and blocked the incinerator so that Gleason didn’t actually fall into it. And when Walter was planting the bologna bomb, which was actually nothing more than a stun device, he hacked Madaky’s bank accounts. When Madaky asks who they are, Toby says, “We’re the ones you picked last in gym class.”

And you know how that door they needed to hack was unhackable? It wasn’t unhackable. The team had discovered that Olivia Cromwell was working with Madaky and changed the plan then and there. Cromwell pulls her gun and places it against Katherine Cooper’s back. But Katherine Cooper, being way more of a badass than we realized, calls Cromwell out and tells her to shoot. Katherine Cooper grabs the gun and puts it to her chest and pulls the trigger. The chamber is empty. How’d she know? She unloaded it herself because she figured out that Cromwell was dirty.

The Conclusion

Walter and Paige share an emotionally intimate moment, per usual, before she gives him a ride to the hospital, where Megan is still off intubation. And she’s married. To Sylester. YOU GUYS, RAY MARRIED MEGAN AND SYLVESTER. The wedding overrules Walter’s court order and allows Megan to not be intubated anymore.

Lost for words, Walter just looks ahead and walks over to Megan’s side, thanks her for always being there, and apologizes for failing her. Completely delusional, he asserts that Megan won’t quit fighting until he’s done with his research, and so he leaves to save her life because he doesn’t “treat death casually.” He may have forgiven Sylvester and lost control of Megan’s medical rights, but the war over Megan’s life is anything but over.