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A picture-perfect, young married couple has their own catering company together. What a novel concept. This could be a quaint little show. Never mind that odd chase and shootout scene across rooftops in Paris to start this episode. What was that about? That must've been some television show the lovely Mr. and Mrs. Bloom were watching before they got back to preparing food in their cozy catering business, right? Moving on, it seems like there's trouble brewing in the kitchen between the happily bantering couple and their staff. Samantha Bloom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) has been overpaying her employees, her husband Steven (Boris Kodjoe) points out. It's hard not to over-compensate hardworking culinary experts, Samantha; don't sweat it. But on top of that, there's been a slight misunderstanding between Sam and her sister Lizzy (Mekia Cox) over the spread for a wedding where one of the parties is an Orthodox Jew. Lizzy has OK'd pork. Oh no! This one's going to be a sticky mess to get out of.
Now that we have our conflict, let's meet some more of the interesting characters we'll be spending a lot of time with. Before Lizzy and the Blooms can tackle their catering conflicts, an older man shows up at their door by the name of Carlton Shaw (Gerald McRaney). He's all gruff and business. (He must be one of their regular catering clients who is always causing trouble.) Shaw asks to speak with Samantha and Steven in private to offer them a job and begins implying he knows exactly who these people are. We've only spent five minutes with these two, and I think it's safe to say we all know exactly who they are, Shaw. They're the hottest couple to hit the catering industry since sliced bread and butter, that's who. Mr. Shaw plops a file folder down in front of the Blooms to tell them the guy that was being chased through Paris is missing and... WAIT. That was real?! Carlton Shaw is a CIA agent and the Blooms are retired agents, five years removed. Whaaa?! Well... my dreams of a fictional, clever culinary couple show have been dashed. Shaw puts on a guilt trip when grudgingly fulfilling his duty to try and recruit Sam and Steven to track down the missing Agent Leo Nash, which festers in their minds the rest of the night along with their shared realization of romantic stagnation until they both separately seek out Shaw to accept the assignment -- first discussing it, as any married couple would, in terms of, "Can we do this?" They decide they can and have Shaw's full cooperation and resources at their disposal. Here we go.
The Undercovers Couple's adventure takes them first to Madrid, Spain where they meet their sycophantic errand boy, Bill (Ben Schwartz), who helps them infiltrate a bank so they can hack into an ATM surveillance camera to get a clue about who Agent Nash was in contact with before his disappearance. Footage reveals the logo of a nearby dry cleaners. The Blooms break in and turn up info about a suit which needs to be ready for the wedding of the Spanish Defense Minister's daughter. They can't just walk into something like that, so, of course, they parachute onto the grounds of the wedding reception and work their way into the crowd, looking for a guy in blue pinstripes. They find him and identify him as Claudio Vega, a known weapons trafficker. Sam puts the moves on him to pry him away from his cell phone so she can plant a bug on it to download data from the device. "Sexpionage," she calls it. I thought I hated the word "sexting."
Meanwhile, Agent Nash is being tortured. During his chase at the Paris hotel, he stashed away a little toy robot USB thumbdrive, which had sensitive information, but he offers up documents little by little to the henchmen of Alexander Slotsky, claiming he wants out of the CIA. Schlotzsky's is the quintessential bad guy of the proceedings, and the guy Nash was supposed to be trying to capture before he was captured himself.
After searching through the data mined from Vega's phone, the Blooms find a phone call in which Leo Nash is offering up government documents to his captors, which doesn't help Steven's suspicion that Nash is a traitor. You know what else doesn't help that? Turns out Nash is Samantha's ex-boyfriend. Oh, snaps. It's really hard to convince any man that your exes weren't traitors and terrorists under the best of circumstances. Bill is able to help triangulate Nash's coordinates when he made the phone call, which leads the investigation to Paris and then eventually to Moscow, where Nash is being held captive. The Blooms infiltrate Schlotzsky's hideout and rescue Nash. The only problem is Leo was trying to draw in Schlotzsky's by pretending to be a traitor, and he was moments away from capturing the guy. Steven and Leo shoot their way out of the hideout, even evading a guy with a rocket launcher and three (!) rockets, while Sam pursues Schlotzky's in a car chase. How does she capture him? By blowing up his car with a rocket launcher. Don't use up your rocket allotment in the pilot, guys, please.
Returning stateside, The Undercovers deliver Leo Nash and Alexander Slotsky to the CIA. Shaw reluctantly is impressed and even more reluctantly he offers the Blooms their old jobs back permanently on any terms they wish. They accept under the terms they get to keep their catering business as a front and have all of the same access to the resources they had for this mission. That's J.J. Abrams' way of saying to you the viewer, "If you liked what you saw tonight, stay tuned. There's more where that came from." With the excitement back in their lives, Steven and Samantha go home and get it on. Sexpionage: Are your teens doing it?
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Before we get started, quick question -- Are we going to call Steven "Undercover Brother?" We are? That's so uninspired, guys.
We open the series zooming into a mirror in a fancy hotel room where there's a man asleep alone in bed. There's a loud crash outside his room, which makes the man sit straight up in bed instantly and hurry to block his door with a chair before jumping into a pair of jeans. Three men in rubber Halloween masks break down the door as the occupant of the room grabs a little toy robot and laptop before heading to the balcony. He pulls out a gun and shoots out a window one story below his balcony, turns and jumps off the balcony in the opposite direction. The men chasing him reach the balcony and are fooled only for a second by the commotion in the room with the shot-out window. They catch the misdirection quickly enough to fire a shot at our running man as he enters a window of another room. He finds his way to the roof of the hotel and pulls out his cell phone. "What the hell is this? Call your men off! I assure you my offer is real. I will deliver the files to you myself -- in person. The deal is still in place," as he runs under the giant, neon hotel sign and we see the Eiffel Tower off in the distance. Dude's in France.
When he has some distance between himself and his pursuers, he kneels down, pulls out his laptop and plugs the toy robot in. USB thumbdrives, these days... Remember when they were the size of small mozzarella sticks and looked like vibrators? No? Running Man transfers some files, deletes them, packs up his laptop again and takes off running. Where the hell are the guys that are chasing him? Running Man probably updated his Facebook status, too. "Just had time to transfer all of the new Maroon 5 album while outrunning these guys in Paris. Wifi FTW!" He ends up on another rooftop where he stops to stash the robot thumbdrive in a broken pipe and etches something onto the pipe. When Running Man takes off to do that thing he does -- which is running -- he's cut off by one of the guys in a mask who has a gun trained on him. No Longer Running Man turns to see the other two masked men burst from a door, their guns trained on him as well. Close-up of Probably Dead Man's weird and panicky heavy breathing.
Abrupt cut to a fish getting its head chopped off in a bright, colorful kitchen. The fish symbolizes Probably Dead Man, you see. A young, attractive woman walks her way around a huge and busy industrial kitchen. As she passes by her workers, she compliments them and announces, "Three hours, guys!" This is Samantha Bloom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Cut to her speaking with a man who has the hushed and understanding tone of a husband, as he tells her there's a problem with their budgeting of their catering business. Sam is paying her employees too much. She feels they deserve it because they're good people. Steven thinks something needs to change. Another young, attractive woman comes up to the couple with a problem. The butcher has run out of beef ribs and asked to use pork ribs, which this girl, Lizzy (Mekia Cox), said was fine. Samantha freaks out because this is for the Chan-Finklestein wedding in which Finklestein (we're to assume) is an Orthodox Jew. "Yeah, but she's Chinese. I kinda thought he'd... gotten over it," Lizzy flippantly deadpans. Sam's face shows more exasperation than the cumulative exasperation of Jon Arbuckle in the entire run of Garfield. The doorbell rings and Lizzy runs off to answer it. Steven asks if they can fire Lizzy as she walks off. "She's my sister," says Sam. Incompetence immunity! Lizzy gets to the door and -- oh shit! It's TV's Major Dad, Gerald McRaney! Lizzy is all bubbly and polite as she asks if Major Dad is part of the Chan-Finklestein wedding. "Do I look like a Chan? Or a Finklestein?" Maybe a Chanklestein?
Lizzy informs the Blooms that Major Dad is there to see them, so they enter into a small conference room where he's waiting for them. He gets up to cut off their introduction. "I know who you are. Are we secure in here?" Samantha's taken aback. "We are," she hesitantly responds. Major Dad locks eyes with Steven and says, "Then let's close the door, hm." Steven obliges, shuts the door and asks, "So what does that mean? 'You know who we are.'" MD plops an open file down onto the table with a photo of our Probably Dead Man. His name is/was Leo Nash and he is missing... probably dead. Steven and Samantha are still playing dumb and ask who exactly Major Dad is. He pulls out his CIA badge and tosses it onto the table. He is Carlton Shaw, an agent of 32 years. He'll always be Major Dad. Right now, however, he asks for help locating the missing Agent Nash. The Blooms remind him they chose to resign five years ago when they met each other and want to know why none of the perfectly still-active field agents can handle this. The reasons the Blooms are wanted for the job: Sam worked with Nash closely and Steven trained with him. Plus, Operation Black Swan is still in effect. Wha? Steven asks what Black Swan is, which surprises Shaw. Sam explains that she and her husband agreed to never discuss classified operations and have so far been able to stick with it. Impatient Major Dad: "Allow me to unstick you." If I had a nickel every time...
Continuing, Shaw explains to Steven that Black Swan is the operation to capture the dangerous and at-large Alexander Slotsky (affectionately called "Schlotzsky's" by me). Nash was heading up this operation and was very close to making a collar before he failed to make a scheduled meet. Steven thinks Nash simply went on a bender since it completely fits his personality to do so and go missing. Before the Blooms can outright decline the assignment, Shaw begins packing up and gives a speech about how he should've known better than to expect the help of two people who abandoned the opportunity to serve their country. Hey now. Hurtful. Steven takes exception to Shaw's tone and the lecture about patriotism. Shaw makes it personal. He heard about how they "had difficulty maintaining a relationship while remaining separate field agents." He continues on, "...My heart broke for you. You deserted the rest of us. And so now it's the job of a career agent to beg two caterers to help with national security." We slowly zoom in on Major Dad's face. "Well you know what? I've got difficulty with that. But I did it, didn't I?" He slams the door behind him. Boom.We're outdoors at night with children running around. The Blooms are working a wedding. Samantha figures they might get out of there early. Steven looks longingly over at the newlywed couple on the dance floor. Is that Chan and Finklestein? These two are so enigmatic. I want to know more about Chan and Finklestein. J.J. Abrams, you tease! Will they hyphenate? I have to know! The Undercovers look on and ponder when was the last time they danced together. They danced the whole night at their wedding at which Leo Nash was in attendance, apparently drunk the whole night. Undercover banter ensues -- Sam: "Remember Leo that night?" Steven: "Drunk with sunglasses on?" Sam: "Half the night." Steven: "Well sunglasses half the night, drunk the whole night." Sam: "...That toast he gave." Steven: "Still don't understand it." Sam: "It was sweet." Steven: "It was rambling. Erratic. Just completely ridiculous." Sam: "A lot like Leo." I'm dizzy. This is going to happen a lot, isn't it?
At home in the terribly mundane house of The Undercovers, the two get ready for bed. Sam's indulging in some peanut butter straight out of the jar while Steven brushes his teeth, pausing for a moment of self-reflection in the mirror. Get it? Mirror? You're too young. They hop into bed together. Steven rolls over to spoon Sam and asks if she feels like it. You know... it. Samantha does, but has to decline tonight, citing exhaustion. They agree to make a go of it tomorrow night and roll over to face opposite directions. I dig how realistically this all went down. Guy wants it. Girl s
ays no. OK, bye! We have a shot of each partner's face as they ponder their stagnation and standing offer of secret agent intrigue. The only thing that could lay this on any thicker would be if they had True Lies playing on the TV in the background. Espionage saves marriages.
It's daytime and Steven drives alone in his vintage roadster. He rides an elevator up to Mr. Shaw's office and starts laying down conditions for his return before Major Dad can open the door more than halfway. "Despite your tone, I will help you find Leo Nash, but only under specific conditions, the most important of which is that my wife can never know about my involvement. Ever. You understand?" Shaw opens the door all the way to reveal Samantha. Steven is sleeping on the secret agent couch tonight... which I guess is a submarine or something. Steven: "Hey, honey. Hey." Sam: "My wife can never know?" Steven would've told her at Christmas, apparently. Shaw already appears exhausted and asks if they're in or not. Please say no, please say no, please say no... They say they're in. Curses!
Back at The Undercovers Kitchen, the Blooms pore over secret documents in their little office which overlooks the kitchen proper and, you know... has walls made out of glass so everyone can see them poring over secret documents. No leads on Leo. What did they know about him? Without any leads, Sam can only come up with her personal knowledge that Nash had a safe house in Madrid. Steven lets his curiosity get the best of him and asks Sam how many operations she went on with Nash. The first question about their formerly exclusive pasts prompts Sam to ask if they're really going to do this. They wonder together if they can do this, the thing they agreed to walk away from five years ago so they could lead a normal life. "Maybe our normal life could use some excitement," Steven points out. True Lies! True Lies! They agree that they'll do this one operation in the name of finding their friend.
Shaw drives in his sedan and gets a call on his Bluetooth headset. Good Major Dad. Teach those values. Hands-free driving is the law in some states and saves lives. The Blooms are on the other end, making demands. They need a flight to Madrid and a field agent working the background for them. Done and done, says Shaw. The Blooms are visibly excited. Shaw deadpans, "I'm tingling," hangs up and dials someone else. The voice on the other end asks, "Do they seem to have any indication why they're really being reactivated?" Shaw: "None whatsoever." He hangs up. Keeping secrets: totally what a secret agent would do.
A postcard of Madrid morphs into a frame of our scene. The Undercovers roll up in a shiny Mercedes. They check out Leo's safe house, going through every possible cabinet and document. They turn up a receipt from the day before he disappeared. It points them to Cafe Central. Sounds... central.
Staked out at the cafe: Ridiculous hat for Steven and aviator shades for Sam. These guys are good. They look around, discussing where they could find their best source of video surveillance for the area. They agree it would be from an ATM at an adjacent bank. A guy wanders into frame to ask in Spanish if they want a rose for Samantha. Steven waves him off, but the guy kneels down into frame with the most ridiculous thin fake moustache. "I'm not Spanish. At all. Except maybe a little on my mom's side. I'm Hoyt. Bill Hoyt. I'm your contact agent." And just like that we have our annoying sycophantic comic relief character. At least he's self-aware, though. "And I know I can be more sycophantic later, but what an absolute thrill it is to be working with you, Mr. Bloom!" Great. He goes on and on about how much he idolizes Steven and studied his file in training, going as far as to call Mr. Bloom a legend. Bill starts asking Steven about "the Senegal incident" in a very locker room tone of voice and Steven is obviously uncomfortable talking about this in front of Sam. Undercover Brother cuts Bill off to tell him he needs intel on the bank. Bill is on it. He just hopes he lives up to Steven's incredible standard. His words. He hands the rose he was carrying to Steven and leaves, but not before turning to Samantha and saying, "Nice to meet you, too," as an afterthought. Samantha's amused and curious about the Senegal incident, but irritated Steven wasn't going to buy her a rose. He hands her the rose. "Do you feel like breaking into a bank with me?"
Tardy title card. Like, seriously... We're fifteen minutes in. A montage of Bloom espionage plays within a giant CGI wedding ring, which becomes the capital "C" in "UnderCovers." Yup. Commercials follow.
In the bank, and in Spanish (including a nice touch of Spaniard lisp accents) the Undercovers try to convince the concierge that they are there to upgrade the security system. Sam blames the disconnect on fictional airhead Belicia and insists the guy can check with the central office. His call is intercepted by Bill who actually speaks pretty decent Spanish. He also blames Belicia and name-drops a guy named Mr. Torres, which strikes a chord with the manager. He shows the Blooms to the security server room. When he leaves them alone, they immediately hop to and crack into the video surveillance system to find the ATM camera. Just then, Mr. Torres happens to call the manager, who diligently informs his boss that the security upgrade is being taken care of. Security upgrade? What security upgrade!? We watch Bill eavesdrop in his surveillance Smart Car (seriously) with his mouth agape and eyes filled with terror. He immediately dials the Blooms. Meanwhile the manager guy is sprinting to the server room as the Undercovers begin recording a clip of Leo Nash making a transaction at the cafe. Sam answers the call from Bill telling them to get out of there. Just then, the manager opens the door to find... an empty server room. And we find ourselves watching a very Mentos-esque slow-motion escape of Steven and Samantha running through a very sunny back-alley with huge Colgate smiles plastered on their faces. The whole thing is so full of glee, I can't wait to buy Lea Michele's take on this scene on iTunes.
Back at Leo's hideout, Sam and Steven watch the recorded video of Nash while Bill incessantly offers Steven various cheeses. This guy is not going to get old. Sam spots something in the video. She enhances a small portion of a freeze-framed image which appears to be an upside-down logo. The three of them crane their heads in unison to make out the logo for Mareno Sastre which spins, righting itself and transitioning us from the image to the actual sign for the dry cleaners shop.
From across the street, Sam watches the shop owner through a monocular as the man locks up and leaves for the night. Sam accuses Steven of thinking they're really on assignment to capture Leo as a traitor, which he doesn't deny. Steven and Sam pick the lock of the back door of the dry cleaners. Steven feels the need to critique Sam's lock picking technique. Oh uh. Trouble in paradise. Steven's just frustrated that they're stuck doing this while Leo is probably "having the time of his life."
Cut to Leo getting punched in the face. He insists to his captor that he is done with the CIA and he wants out. He'd like to tell Slotsky that in person. The henchman isn't swayed. He walks around behind Leo's chair and breaks one of Leo's fingers. Leo sees he needs to offer up something here, so he tells the guy he has hidden a laptop in a train station in Madrid with part of the document they want. It can be found in locker 318. Leo's captor is intrigued.
The Undercovers go through the records in the dry cleaners and only turn up record of one appointment. Luckily, it appears to be the right one because it was an hour before Leo was at Cafe Central. It's for a blue pinstripe suit needed for the Cabrera wedding which will be in two hours. A quick background check reveals Cabrera is the daughter of the Spanish Defense Minister. There's no way they're just walking in the front door of this wedding. Sam calls Bill. "It's th
e wife of the man you love," she greets him. Classic. She tells Bill they need a flight ASAP.
Cut to Bill sprinting out of an Air Force cargo plane in a hangar as the Blooms drive up in their sedan. Bill apologizes profusely for the size of the plane, to which Steven and Sam just walk through him, saying it's fine. On the plane, The Undercovers argue over whether Leo would turn traitor or not as they prepare to jump out of the back bay door. Sam is so sure he wouldn't, but people change, says Steven. Not Leo, argues Samantha. How can she be so sure? She dated him, she says, as she leaps out of the plane. Steven turns to Bill to ask what she said. Bill repeats it so Steven can snap at him before leaping out after Sam. Bill calls after Steven to let him know he has perfect form. "You're nailing it!"
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And Steven really was nailing it because both he and Samantha land effortlessly on their feet. He continues the conversation. Samantha claims the relationship didn't mean anything despite having dated Nash for eight months. The two are arguing with huge smiles on their faces. Steven keeps a smile as he walks off, telling Sam he'll meet her inside.
Inside the mansion, Steven walks around and grabs himself a glass of champagne while he speaks to Samantha through his virtually invisible earpiece. He stops and is genuinely stunned when he spots his wife walking into the room in a beautiful golden gown. All she can talk about is how expensive this wedding must've been. Steven spots the guy in blue pinstripes and snaps a photo of him with his cufflink camera. Yup. On the plane, the photo is instantly on Bill's computer where he runs a cross-check and turns up the guy's identity as Claudio Vega, a weapons trafficker linked to Alexander Slotsky. Vega starts walking in the direction of Samantha. She tells Steven she can get him if she employs "sexpionage." Oh brother. "What does sexpionage even mean?!" cries Bill over radio. It means the end of civilization. Samantha tells Steven just to be ready for a wireless transfer. She walks up to Vega and strikes up a conversation about the wine in his glass and opens herself up to being taken to the bar. "Somebody's a little too good at sexpionage," Bill remarks. Samantha walks off with Vega as Steven looks on.
Leo is negotiating with his captor again. He asks if he can call the guy Boris even though he has no idea if the guy's name is even Boris. Potential Boris is unimpressed with what he found on the laptop Leo had him pick up. There's only one page of the secret document. Leo promises the rest of the document if Boris is able to deliver Slotsky (mmm... deliver Schlotzsky's), as well as the pride of a job well-done and probably kudos from his boss. Potential Boris plays hardball. If Leo gives the rest of the document, Boris will bring Schlotzsky's. Leo caves and tells Potential Boris it's in Paris.
We're in the wine cellar at the wedding. After a little flirting, Sam is finally able to pry away Vega's phone and places a bug on it. Steven sits off somewhere secluded in the mansion with his laptop and continues to communicate with Sam and Bill as he tries to download all the files on Vega's phone, mocking Vega's flirtation. Vega's advance on Sam moves a little quickly and he undoes her dress, dropping it to the floor just as the download reaches 100%. Having been informed the download is complete, Sam immediately slaps Vega with no real provocation. "You went too far," she says. Claudio is stunned and utterly confused. He thought he was going to get laid. Samantha starts to put her dress back on while Vega stammers and calls her crazy. "Loco," she agrees and snaps her teeth at him before walking off.
Samantha has met up with Steven and they walk briskly side by side out through the reception as she describes how dirty she feels about what just happened. She asks if Bill is cross-referencing the info they've downloaded and Steven suddenly just freezes. He leads Sam straight to the dance floor without answering her questions of what's going on. "I want you to remember the last time we danced." Is he going to kill her!? Oh... he's just being romantic. Bo-ring. But as cheesy as the ensuing dance montage is, it really is an unbelievably sweet gesture from husband to wife given the circumstances. I wish my secret agent spouse would take time from tracking down MIA field agents to dance with me.
Back on the plane (How exactly did the Blooms get back onboard? Did they use skyhook like in The Dark Knight?), the Undercovers go through the data on Claudio Vega's phone until they find a phone call from Leo Nash which was placed in Paris. Off to the City of Light we go!
Postcard transition to Paris. The Undercovers end up on the rooftop where Leo was captured. After some cursory searching, Steven spots the pipe where Nash stashed the USB drive. It has a New York Yankees logo etched on it. As Steven reaches into the pipe, a gun is jammed into the back of his neck.
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Back on the Paris rooftop, Steven is able to get the drop on the gunman. After a few punches, he separates the goon from his gun. When Steven goes for the gun, which is near the edge of the roof, he gets knocked over the side and hangs from the edge. The guy tries to step on Steven's hands, but Steven is able to pull out a knife and stab him in the foot, buying enough time to climb back up. He punches the guy and knocks him out cold. Sam comes up, completely oblivious to Steven's recent badassery. She asks if he's OK. "Better than that guy," he quips. She shows Steven that she found the little robot USB drive. "Oh. That's great, honey. That's awesome!" he says, giving her a thumbs up and big smile before collapsing.
Driving along in the Mercedes with the French thug handcuffed in the backseat, Steven talks with Carlton Shaw over the phone, who is pacing around his office in shirt, tie and boxer shorts. Shaw wants the Undercovers to turn in the thumbdrive to Langley and let the CIA handle it, but Steven is defiant. He thinks that's a waste of time when they can figure out what's on there themselves. Meanwhile, Samantha's phone rings and it's Lizzy, reporting there are all sorts of problems with some food for "the new Mrs. Finklestein." This guy works quickly. He's already re-married!? The henchman in the backseat of the Mercedes interrupts both phone calls to demand in French that they loosen his handcuffs. Samantha snaps back at him in perfect French, "Can't you see I'm on the phone?!" She turns back to her phone call and gives Lizzy some instruction. Shaw, on the other phone call, agrees to give the Blooms another 48 hours on the mission or they'll be detained. Steven to Shaw: "Thank you so much." Lizzy to Samantha: "Ugh, thank you so much!" Shaw to Steven: "Thank you so much."
A mousey nerd of a man pleads to Alexander Slotsky who is out of frame. We pull back to finally meet Schlotzsky's who looks like some sort of cross between Rod Stewart and Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner. His unflinching and menacing presence fills the foreground of this shot as he stares blankly into the camera and the pleading mouse man goes out of focus over his shoulder, obviously distressed. He had sent Petrov, the guy Steven encountered on the rooftop in Paris to retrieve the USB drive, but has not heard from him. Mouse Man asks for the opportunity to track Petrov down. Schlotzsky's says "OK," then turns and shoots Mouse Man. Emotionless, he turns to Boris and says, "Tell Mr. Leo Nash I'm ready to see him." That's good villainy.
Near Notre Dame de Paris, Samantha is beaming at how beautiful the city is. Steven takes her hand and tells her he has someone he wants her to meet. "Eight gigs, six levels of encryption," is his greeting in French to a rather portly man running a book stand. They exchange pleasantries and Steven introduces him as Henri to Samantha who regards him as the best crypto man in Europe. As opposed to the best crypto-fascist man in Europe... that
would be me when, I'm on holiday. Undercover Brother hands our man Henri the USB drive. It will take 6 hours to decrypt the file on there, but Henri says he could tell them instantly where the computer is located and where the file originated, meaning we can know now, right this instant where Leo Nash's laptop is located. Henri runs the trace on the laptop's IP address, which is located in Moscow. The Third Rome!
Postcard transition to Moscow at night. Undercovers pull up in a tiny, yellow Russian car and get out in full black skulking attire. We pull back to see they are entering a large power plant. They set up shop in a tiny room where they lay out and turn on all their gear. Samantha pulls out a little netbook which is connected to a small camcorder Stephen has trained on an adjacent building. The netbook displays on its screen the heat signatures within. There are five heat signatures on the first floor and a sixth one by itself on the second floor in a chair. Samantha runs a vascular scan and identifies the signature as Leo Nash. Huzzah! Just then, Steven's phone vibrates. It's Henri. Undercover Brother walks into the foreground and looks distressed as he responds to Henri in French with no subtitles, leaving Samantha to keep asking what's going on from over Steven's shoulder. Steven hangs up. Leo's USB drive had a U.S. Defense Department memo with classified weapons system information. Steven says Leo was planning to sell it and he's a traitor. Steven's mind is dead-set on going in there alone to get Leo and he tries to convince Samantha to stay behind as back-up. This argument turns into a discussion on how they ended up in this situation and then turns into reminiscing of this being how they both were when they first met. They kiss, Steven promises it's going to be OK and he turns to leave. Before walking out, he turns back to Sam and pauses. "Nice meeting you again." They share a smile, but it fades off Samantha's face as she watches her husband disappear out the door into the darkness.
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Steven runs through the mostly deserted power plant. He's in radio communication with Samantha through his earpiece and she's tracking him with her thermal camera and netbook combo. I could really use one of those in the kitchen. You know... know exactly when the chicken is ready. That would be sweet! Samantha's phone vibrates and it's the Queen of Unnecessary and Annoying Phone Calls, Lizzy. The Chan-Finklestein wedding went off without a hitch... except that they got hitched. Thank goodness. They even made Lizzy "an honorary Chinese-Jew." Jealous. Lizzy thanks Samantha for trusting her to handle the wedding herself. Steven over radio reminds Sam to remind Lizzy to feed their dog, Waldorf. Lizzy says she won't forget because Waldorf is the only man who loves her. I... don't think that's a joke.
Sam has to hang up with Lizzy because she sees a heat signature up ahead of Steven. She tells him to hold up so he can time his attack on the guy based on what she's seeing remotely. Steven is able to elbow the guy in the neck with perfect timing as he rounds the corner and diffuses him quickly. Steven finds himself looking at Leo and they share an awkward exchange of "Hey." Leo thanks Steven for rescuing him, but doesn't want to be rescued because Schlotzsky's is on his way there right now. Steven proceeds with untying Leo because he's mostly still convinced Leo could be a traitor. Steven hears something behind him and pulls his gun. It's Sam. Leo's happy to see her and makes googly eyes at her while she insists to Steven she couldn't let him rescue Leo alone. Leo explains to Steven that he admittedly gave up a single page of a top secret document, but it was worth it if it means capturing Alexander Slotsky. He punctuates this point by turning to Samantha and complimenting her jacket and adding he's noticed Steven's hostility. Samantha tells Leo she has told Steven about their past relationship, which Leo insists was 9 months, not 8 as she had been claiming. Just as Leo begins to make things even more awkward by bringing up how he and Sam used to sleep together, Sam notices a henchman up on a catwalk and both she and Steven pull guns and fire in unison, taking him down. They begin moving and Leo is immediately shot in the leg. They take cover while Steven ties a compress onto Leo's leg. Sam has picked up a walkie-talkie from one of the henchmen and overhears that Slotsky is on his way. She orders Steven and Leo to try and get out while she goes after him. Steven weakly protests, but Sam simply says it's her turn. They kiss while Leo has a look of disgust on his face. "What? Get a room," is all he can muster. This whole show needs to get a room already.
Leo and Steven hobble down a long hallway together like it's a three-legged race only they have guns drawn and they are firing their way through henchmen. Samantha gets the drop on a guy who is packing up a rocket launcher. She kicks him twice, breaks his arm and then kicks him in the face from under his arm before making off with his rocket launcher. That's exactly how my last girlfriend broke up with me, so please, give this guy your empathy. Leo and Steven, meanwhile, are almost at the end of that long catwalk when someone calls to them from behind them on the other end in Russian. It's a henchman with a rocket launcher. He fires it at them and they hit the deck with the rocket not even narrowly missing them. You know, if Schlotzsky's outfitted his henchmen with practical weapons, they could have this whole thing under control by now without breaking a sweat. Slotsky hops into a small SUV and takes off while Sam hops back into the little yellow car to pursue. The three-legged racers have made their way up onto a higher catwalk and so has the guy with the rocket launcher who fires yet another rocket at these guys. At least this one had a chance of maybe possibly hitting them or blowing some shrapnel at them. Maybe? In pursuit of Slotsky's Range Rover, Samantha pulls out her gun and begins firing out the window. Schlotzsky's pulls what looks like an MP5K sub-machinegun and fires out the rear windshield, nearly shooting Sam's face off. Sam's had enough of this near-face-losing shit. She looks down at the passenger seat at the rocket launcher she confiscated and begins arming it somehow while driving. Then, somehow she shoulders it out of the window, then somehow holds it steady enough to score a perfect hit, which somehow does not blow the car to smithereens, just flips it. Somehow.
Leo and Steven finally exit the building. Steven apologizes for doubting Leo. Leo apologizes for sleeping with Sam. Zing! Steven assumes Leo is lying about being sorry about that, and Leo confirms Steven is right. But just when you thought you'd seen enough rockets, that henchman bursts out through the door behind Leo and Steven and tries one last time. They both turn and shoot him, he screams like a little girl and fires the rocket straight up into the air. We cut to a shot of the rocket detonating in the sky like fireworks from the site of Slotsky's Range Rover's demise. Somehow, Slotsky is alive and crawling out of the wreckage. Samantha walks up to him. "Alexander Slotsky? Samantha Bloom." He spits at her. She gives him a swift kick to the face, knocking him out. Now that's what I call "swift justice." Mmhmm.
We cut to the door of a U.S. Air Force cargo plane opening and Leo Nash stepping out with a cane, followed by the Blooms. Nash refuses a wheelchair from an Air Force official who insists he's following orders. Steven thinks he should do what he's told for once, but this is Leo's first time being back in America in five years. He wants to walk on this soil. Bill Hoyt shows up in a suit and tries to tell Steven what a pleasure it's been working with him, but Steven cuts him off, so he turns to Samantha and tells her she's amazing as well... for being married to him. Leo turns back to thank the Blooms for having his back and he jokes about Samantha having his number still if things don't work out with her and Steven as he hobbles off. Har har.
Back in Shaw's office, he is actually complimenting the Undercovers for their work rescuing Leo and admits his surprise they captured Slotsky as well. Steven thinks Shaw owes Sam an apology, but instead Shaw offers them a job to continue their work with the CIA. They insist they'll need to maintain their catering company and basically have all of the same resources they had for this mission. Shaw cuts them off before their demands get ridiculous because, as he admits, he has been advised to accept any terms they propose. Yay! More of the same!
Back at the formerly stagnant love nest of the Blooms, Steven is in bed reading a magazine and comments on how the bed feels so much more comfortable than when they left, but he trails off because Samantha walks in wearing a sexy nightgown. She stands in the doorway seductively. Seriously, do women just look better in doorways or what? That's so not fair. Samantha crawls onto the bed on top of Steven and begins kissing him between words. She says she liked working with him and likes the idea of them still discovering new things about each other. Discovery is good, says Steven. Careful, Sam, you're going to talk yourself into some sexual corners here. She takes this opportunity to ask what happened in Senegal. Steven laughs and asks if this is sexpionage. Yes, Steven; unfortunately, it is.
-- Pablo G. is some guy who lives in San Antonio, Texas. Check him out at Space Monkeys!, The Cowboys Blog, and follow him @PendejoJoe on Twitter.
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Pablo G. is some guy who lives in San Antonio, Texas. Check him out at Space Monkeys!, The Cowboys Blog, and follow him @PendejoJoe on Twitter.