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A greedy airline CEO calls Percy for help when one of his planes crashes after being overloaded with smuggled cocaine. Division sends in a crew to get the cocaine out of the crash site before anyone else can find it, but a hapless hiker catches the whole thing on video. The hiker calls freelance journalist Jill Morelli, who specializes in conspiracy theories. She's in the middle of a conspiracy herself when Division murders an editor she was meeting with and then frames her for it. Nikita rescues her, gains her trust and helps her get in touch with the hiker with the video.
Percy finally does something about all those suspicions concerning just how Nikita is able to get information on their ops. He suspects computer nerd Birkhoff who, when examined, is found to have had a transmitter implanted in one of his teeth back when Nikita kidnapped him. Sans tooth, he's cleared and allowed to go back to work. But Division still can't track Nikita or Jill, so they turn to the recruits to go through all of Jill's notes. They're told it's a training exercise to hunt down a terrorist, so Alex, Thom and Jaden do an extra-good job of figuring out where their target is. Alex freaks when she realizes she's just led them straight to Nikita, but manages to stealthily calls cops to the rescue while she's in the Ops Room.
Michael finds Nikita, and they face off. She proves how badass she is when she dislocates her own shoulder to escape his grasp. In the end, Jill gets away with the video, and even though she can't prove anything about the mysterious black ops, she does prove the greedy CEO was running drugs and earns Nikita as a friend. Unfortunately, with Birkhoff's sudden dental work, Nikita needs to find another way to keep Division's suspicious eyes off Alex.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see what our No Prior Knowledge vlogger thinks of Nikita, below!
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Tippi Blevins is not a highly-trained secret assassin. As far as anyone knows. You can reach her at b_tippi@yahoo.com or http://twitter.com/tippib.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!After Nikita explains the premise of the show, we join the recruits in the Charm School training facility. Alex jogs on a treadmill. In the operations room overlooking the training floor, Percy and Birkhoff are going over one Jill Morelli's stats. In short, she's a young freelance reporter who's big on conspiracy theories. Percy wants to know how she found out about one of their ops, but Birkhoff's at a loss. They look at overhead footage of an airplane crash site. Percy assigns a disposable agent to find out what Jill knows and how. On the training floor, Alex watches the ops room but can't get a good look inside due to the tinted windows. She flashes back to Nikita telling her she'll have to get close but she'll have to be sneaky about it. So she goes over to Jaden and picks a fight with her, allowing Jaden to pin her up against the ops room window. She takes a series of blows to the ribs so that she can see inside to the computer screens still showing Jill's info. Later that night, she goes to the perpetually abandoned computer lab and messages Nikita to check it out.
Somewhere in New York City, a middle-aged man is walking through a parking garage, chatting on the phone with his wife about his imminent arrival home. You know he's a dead man at this point. Jill Morelli ambushes him in the garage, chirpily calling out "Jeremy!" and scaring the pants off him. He's apparently an editor she's been trying to get in touch with. As they walk to his car, she tells him about the flight that crashed in the Appalachians. It's not news to him, but then she tells him about the black helicopters that showed up on the scene "just before a forest fire conveniently destroyed all the evidence." She knows she's onto something because when she called the airline, she was put through to CEO Henry Samson. Jeremy's already weary, but Jill presses on, gushing about how her mystery source has video, available for the low, low price of $50,000. Jeremy refuses to pay. As he gets into his car, the disposable agent from earlier shoots him through the head. Jill tries to scream but she's grabbed by another agent from behind. The murder weapon is forced into her hand and fired again into Jeremy's doubly dead head. She screams into the agent's gloved hand. "You just killed him," disposable agent intones. "And you're going to prison for the rest of your life unless we get that video." They inject her with a tranquilizer and stuff her into a van.
As they speed through the garage, Nikita steps into their path, long black trench coat flapping behind her like she's Angel or something. She whips out one of her big honking guns and shoots the driver through the front window. The van crashes into another car and comes to a stop. Nikita opens the back door, knocks out the other agent and grabs the unconscious Jill.
Percy shows up at AirMerica's corporate HQ to meet with Henry Samson. Henry, having just learned of the editor's death, is nervous. "I paid you to keep this quiet," he says. Percy begs to differ: "No, you paid me to clean up after your plane crashed and collect the cargo." Henry goes on about someone videotaping the black helicopters and going to a reporter. Percy offers to destroy the video "at no extra charge" and frame the reporter. Percy also advises him to keep their dealings private, seeing as how someone interfered with their work the night before. Percy thinks it's a leak in Henry's company, even though this is like the third time now that Division's ops have been foiled. Henry says the leak is coming from Percy's side, not his. Percy looks mildly constipated.
Jill slowly comes to in Nikita's fabulous loft. She freaks out when Nikita approaches her with coffee. AAH! CAFFEINE! Nikita points out she would have already hurt her if that had been her goal. Jill's all "Buh?" and "Huh?" so Nikita explains that she used to be one of the bad guys, but she's not anymore. Nikita compliments Jill on her conspiracy blog, which is on the right track, generally speaking, even though the specifics are off. (Nikita is very careful not to mention Division or any of its principals by name throughout her dealings with Jill.) Jill just gapes the whole time. They figure out that Jill was targeted because of her investigation into the plane crash. Nikita promises to expose whatever it is "they" are trying to hide, but even Jill doesn't really know what that is.
Charm School Operations Room. Birkhoff and his crack team of nerds have put out an APB for Jill and have her apartment under surveillance. Michael scowls adorably as he takes all this in and tells Birkhoff to "widen the net" to the Tristate area. The team checks in from Jill's apartment and Michael orders them to bring everything back with them. Michael's so pissed off about Nikita interfering again, except the more he frowns, the fluffier and less menacing he looks.
Back at the loft of fabulosity, Jill tells Nikita about how some guy contacted her through her site a couple days ago. He said he said he had footage of the AirMerica crash, black helicopters and some "paramilitary mission." She had to drive out to Virginia to meet with him. He asked for $50,000 just to show her the video, so she went to Jeremy looking for the funds. "The guy's supposed to call me at one tomorrow," she says, then realizes in a panic it's already tomorrow. Nikita goes to her computer to look him up, but the guy never gave his name or number. (Also, Nikita has the Wilshire table lamp I've been coveting for months. Mmm.) Nikita took the battery and SIM card out of Jill's phone so that she couldn't be tracked, which also means the guy can't call in. Time for a plan.
Charm School Ops Room. Percy and Michael try to figure out just how Nikita's been able to stay a step ahead of them for at least three missions. "At some point, we have to consider the possibility of a leak from the inside," Percy says. Michael wants to check for a data breach before they go hunting for moles, the very idea of which offends Birkhoff. He pipes up from his computer station about how awesome his network is. "Only person who could dream of hacking into Division is me," he says. A trill of comically ominous music plays as Michael and Percy look at each other. They mention the time Nikita got in touch with him. He reminds them it was a kidnapping, but to no avail. Percy orders an agent to take Birkhoff down to see Amanda.
Nikita and Jill, wearing a disguise of conservative business attire, walk into an office building and make smalltalk with each other. No one pays any mind to these innocently babbling secretaries as they go into one of the empty offices and close the door behind them. While everyone's at lunch, they use the office to wait for the mysterious source's call. Nikita warns Jill that as soon as she turns the phone on, they'll be tracked, so she needs to get her source to give up the video fast. When the source calls in, Jill lies that she has the money. The source wants proof, so Nikita grabs the phone and pretends to be Jill's editor and plays a bit of hardball with him. He goes over how he was hiking when he saw the wreckage. Commando types rappelled out of black helicopters and gathered up big bags of cocaine from the debris. Too bad it wasn't weed; Tommy Chong would have picked it all up and then been super-mellow about it. He agrees to a meeting, telling them he'll be there the morning on the quad at North Virginia State. Nikita hangs up and crushes the phone beneath her heel, much to Jill's dismay. Michael and the Division goons pull up outside the office building. "Great spot to hide from a trace," he says. So... I guess he doesn't even go looking for her?
Charm School. Amanda questions Birkhoff. It all seems very pleasant and polite so far. Eventually, Amanda asks if Birkhoff ever had feelings for Nikita when they worked together. Birkhoff protests that it's against the rules to mingle with the recruits. Amanda reminds him that Nikita's not a recruit anymore, a circumstance that Birkhoff tries to blame on Amanda, saying she failed to turn Nikita into a perfect, obedient agent. Amanda, with her iciest smile, calls for an agent to take Birkhoff for a brain scan and full body cavity search.
Ops room. Michael wants some of the recruits to help in going over the contents of Jill's apartment. Percy allows it, but balks at giving them too much information, lest the recruits realize Jill is a good guy. "Tell them it's a training exercise," Percy says. So crates full of documents are wheeled into the computer lab and team leaders are instructed to form three-man teams. Thom picks Jaden and Alex in order to give them a chance to show "visible improvement," and thus save their lives. Michael comes in and tells them they're going over the belongings of a domestic terrorist who's scheduled to meet with a munitions expert. Their task is to find the munitions expert and where they planned to meet.
Alex and Nikita are in a roadside diner, taking a break from their road trip. Nikita theorizes that Henry Samson is smuggling cocaine in order to keep his airline from going under, like so many others have. Hey, as long as they pass the savings on to passengers, what do I care? I hate paying those extra fees for checked luggage. Jill presses Nikita for information about the "commandos" from the crash site, but Nikita tells her to stick to what she can prove. "Why are you protecting them?" Jill asks. "I'm protecting you," Nikita says. About this time, two highway patrol officers walk in. Nikita tries to get them out quietly, but one of the officers IDs them. Nikita quickly dispatches the burly fellows, much to Jill's obvious and logical shock.
Charm School. Michael updates Percy on what we just saw and then together they go in to visit Birkhoff in the medical lab. He passed the lie detector test, but an X-ray shows there's a small transmitter implanted in one of his molars. Since his face had already been beaten all to hell at the time, he didn't notice a little extra dental pain. Percy orders the tooth removed. Birkhoff poops himself a little.
North Virginia State campus. The source hasn't showed up, probably because he saw Jill on the news and got scared. Nikita thinks for a second and decides they need to track him down themselves.
Charm School. Thom, Jaden and Alex are going over a pile of information for their "training exercise." Alex notices there's a lot there about a plane crash. "Maybe she caused it," Alex says. Thom wonders how Alex knew it was a woman. Alex holds up a journal still whiffing of grapefruit and vanilla candles. They figure out from some notes that there was video of something in Virginia on the Appalachian Trail. Thom is impressed.
Campus. Nikita works her mental mojo and exposits a bunch of stuff, the upshot of which is that the mystery source is an ambitious hiker and college student. They decide to hit the sporting goods stores in the area.
Charm School. Jaden calls over Michael. "Alex here seems to have it all figured out," she says, clearly hoping Alex will crash and burn. But Alex details their findings, including two movie ticket stubs in Blacksburg, Virginia. Alex is sure that's where the terrorist and munitions expert met, since driving all that way to see an Elmo movie is "way weird." Michael leads Alex to the ops room, where she tells Birkhoff about her findings. Michael tells him to check the movie theater for night vision cameras. That's... convenient. At this point, Alex realizes the work she just did was for an active mission and not just a training exercise. Oops. The source, one doomed Benjamin Prentiss, even used his credit card to buy popcorn. Michael allows Alex to stay in the ops room as a reward. Birkhoff brags about his network some more and doesn't notice when Alex moves his can of Red Bull closer to his hand.
Nikita and Jill show up on Benjy's doorstop. Naturally, he's none too pleased to see them and starts flailing and begging for his life. Nikita tackles him and tells him not to be such a wuss. Heh. She advises him to give them the video before the guys from the black helicopters show up. He sweats a bit, but eventually shows them the video. The black ops gather up the coke, douse the scene with fuel and then set it on fire. Nikita tries to upload it to a newspaper, but the wifi is jammed. The phone, too, is cut off when she tries to call the cops to intervene.
Michael and the goons pull up in their SUVs outside. The music starts rocking out so you know a fight scene is about to happen. Wussy Benjamin sees the goons walking up to his house and makes a break for it, shouting, "They're in there!" He gets two bullets in the chest for his efforts. The goons cart off Benjamin's body just as cop cars pull up, sirens blaring. Nikita orders Jill to copy the video onto her flash drive. Michael and the goons get back into their SUV and wait it out. "Where they hell did they come from?" Michael asks. In answer, we cut to the ops room, where Alex is typing something into a computer while a distracted Birkhoff is cleaning Red Bull off his keyboard. Lucky for him, it doesn't fly away. Division has surveillance cameras everywhere but in their own ops room. Birkhoff checks his computer and tells Michael it's just the local cops looking for the reporter.
Inside the house, Nikita tells Jill to go out with her hands in the air. Then wave them like you just don't care. The plan is that some of the commando guys will follow the cops and leave fewer behind to attack Nikita. Jill does as she's told and is put into a cruiser. Cops clear the house and then just... leave. No need to check for evidence of any sort, boys! Michael and the goons go in, sure that Nikita is still there.
The goons go in first, guns at the ready. Nikita pops out of the shadows and whacks one of them across the face; he goes down. The disposable agent and Michael continue prowling around, looking for her. Michael commends Nikita on implanting the transmitter in Birkhoff. Nikita's disembodied voice snarkily wonders if Percy canceled Birkhoff. Sadly, no. Michael: "You put him in danger, Nikita; that's not like you." Nikita says he doesn't know her and the disposable agent follows her disembodied voice to a closet. He opens fire through the door. Michael joins him, but all they find in the closet is a speaker. Nikita drops down from the stairwell near Michael and grabs him. She's got a gun to his head. The disposable agent aims at Nikita. Michael elbows Nikita and twists out of her grasp. Nikita shoots the disposable agent in the chest. A fistfight between Nikita and Michael ensues. She punches him a lot until he grabs her arm and twists it. "The more you try to do this, the more you hurt yourself," he says. "You have no idea how much pain I can take," she says and, with a sudden jerking motion, dislocates her own shoulder. This shocks Michael just enough for her to gain the upper hand, knock him back, and escape.
Charm School. Thom is waiting for Alex when she returns to her quarters. He has a gift from her from their trainers - a CD player and some music. There's a sweet, slightly awkward moment between them before Thom starts to wander off. Awkwardly. Alex calls back to him that their "terrorist" got away. Thom consoles her, but he doesn't seem that sad himself. Or maybe his ruddy cheeks just always make him look pleasant.
Percy watches a news broadcast about Henry's arrest and how he was supposedly "in cahoots with the Vargas cartel." Cahoots? I think you need a more sinister word than that when you're talking about drug cartels. The broadcast goes on to mention the video that's been released, so Jill got the job done.
Nikita's in her loft with my future lamp behind her. She types at her computer, sending a message to Alex about how she'll need to find another way to keep Division from suspecting her now that Birkhoff's buggy tooth has been yanked.
Sometime later, Jill is walking through the parking garage where this all started. Nikita walks up behind her, startling her. Jill's got a new job with the paper thanks to the video and is all smiles until Nikita tells her she needs to stop digging. Jill's frustrated that no one can stop "them." "I'm going to stop them," Nikita says. They hug warmly. When they part, Nikita holds up the voice recorder she just pinched from Jill's pocket. She drops it to the ground with a smile and crushes it beneath her heel. Aw. Sweet.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see what our No Prior Knowledge vlogger thinks of Nikita, below!
Want to immediately access TWoP content no matter where you are online? Download the free TWoP toolbar for your web browser. Already have a customized toolbar? Then just add our free toolbar app to get updated on our content as soon it's published.
Tippi Blevins is not a highly-trained secret assassin. As far as anyone knows. You can reach her at b_tippi@yahoo.com or http://twitter.com/tippib.