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In Dublin, a former baggage checker at an airport gets his hands on a CIA hard drive with the locations of all the CIA detention facilities on the planet and their respective detainees. We're to believe this happened because the CIA really is stupid enough to run most of its sensitive hardware through the same airport consistently. The guy, by the name of Sean Cullen, gets snagged by the Dublin police and imprisoned. He escapes, of course, and meets up with his partner to get a key for where the device is stashed, and has the guy's own wife kill him. Double betrayal! With the key in his possession, Sean and the partner's wife, whose name is Marie, plan to sell the hard drive together and probably go off to some island with all the money and have monkeys for butlers and live like damn hell-ass kings.
Before the Blooms can put a stop to all of this, they have to establish their quarrel for the episode. Steven asserts that he is a human lie detector because Lizzy's been acting really proactive lately and he senses she's going to ask for money. He's right. Lizzy asks Sam for $700, supposedly to take classes to help with her culinary skills. Right. Sam gives her the money and hides it from Steven. To further drive home this whole lying and lie detection theme, we get a little bit more of Shaw's shady (he wears sunglasses) phone conversations with the mystery man who has an ulterior motive for reactivating the Blooms. Is that intrigue? Is this what passes for intrigue on this show?
Once in Dublin, The Undercovers hook up with Leo and Hoyt, as usual. They check out the prison where Cullen escaped and get a lead to a bar for a gang of former IRA members. Steven speaks to the gang boss after disposing of some goons and gets the name of Cullen's partner. Meanwhile, Leo heads off to sex Cullen's ex-wife. Leo's sexual espionage yields Cullen's alias -- "George Best." This proves useful when the trail goes cold. They're able to find a flight to London under the name of -- you guessed it -- "George Best."
In London, our operatives check in to the hotel where Cullen checked in with Marie. He leaves her alone after going over their plan for the exchange. The Undercovers bust into her room and detain her. Since she was to handle the exchange, Sam goes to make the deal in her stead at the London Symphony while Steven... plays the timpani with the orchestra. Everything goes south from there. The buyer gets impatient with Sam and takes her hostage, Cullen takes Leo hostage, and I get taken hostage by all these hostage situations. Steven intervenes in all cases, tranking the buyer and using a concussive blast device to blow up Cullen's car as he tries to get away with the money.
The hard drive is recovered, and Cullen is heading to prison, as well as the buyer. All of this lying talk prompts Sam to try to confess to Steven the real reason she quit the CIA. Steven says he has no interest in knowing the real reason, as long as part of it was the familiar story that they both quit because they were in love and wanted a normal life together. He does, however, wear a face of guilt as he hugs his wife's worries away. Hmm... could things finally be getting interesting?
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Pablo G. is some guy who lives in San Antonio, Texas. He co-hosts TWoP's original "Trailers Without Pity" with his brother Omar G. Check him out at Space Monkeys!, The Cowboys Blog, and follow him @PendejoJoe on Twitter.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We start out in Dublin. A guy in a hoodie out in the rain calls another guy, and we see that his name on the caller ID is Sean Cullen. Sean tells Other Guy he secured something and will be mailing him a security deposit key for where it's being stashed. Sean won't, however, reveal anything else, because the cops are onto him. They hang up, and a blonde woman asks Other Guy what's wrong. Meanwhile, Sean gets noticed by a cop car and is pursued by multiple cop cars until they finally corner him and make an arrest.
It's very early in the morning at Blooms' Catering. Sam and Steven open up shop and discover Lizzy has been hard at work on new recipes. It's currently only 7am. This raises a red flag for Steven. He suspects Lizzy's started drinking again, and he can make this accusation because he is the self-declared human lie detector. I smell a running theme!
Cut to Carlton Shaw sitting by himself at an outdoor cafe on the phone, wearing sunglasses and talking to the mystery man about the Blooms. It's essentially the same conversation from the pilot episode. The Blooms still have no idea why they were really reactivated by the CIA and Shaw suggests to Mystery Man that they be more straightforward about it. Mystery Man essentially says, "No." Ominous.
Back at Blooms' Catering, Steven thinks he's figured out why Lizzy is acting so strange. Lizzy needs money. Of course! Human lie detector! Again, to undermine Steven's claim to fame, Mr. Carlton "Liar" Shaw shows up behind him. He starts going over information about Sean Cullen. Sean was a bag thrower at Shannon Airport in Ireland. The CIA apparently uses this airport almost exclusively to move sensitive hardware, and Cullen got his hands on a hard drive with the whereabouts of CIA detention facilities and their detainees. With this information, any terrorist organization in the world could track down their incarcerated comrades and try to free them. It'd be chaos! The plan is for the Blooms to go to Dublin and question Cullen without letting Irish authorities know they're operating there.Cullen, meanwhile, is in his jail cell as a guard walks the green quarter-mile to check on all the prisoners. Sean grabs a plush monkey toy and tears off one of its button eyes. Inside the monkey there's a white powder which Cullen promptly starts to eat. He begins convulsing. The guard finds Sean lying unconscious on his bed with a pool of blood coming from his mouth. This is why we can't have nice things.
Cut to Cullen in a hospital bed. His vitals machines start beeping and he suddenly wakes up and grabs the attending doctor. He reaches for a nearby syringe and injects it into the doctor's neck, grabs the doctor's coat and hat, and walks out of the prison right past security. He hops into the doctor's car and drives off. Let this be a cautionary tale to all you doctors out there.
At The Undercovers Home, Sam is with Lizzy making final arrangements for her and Steven's trip to Ireland. Lizzy will be taking care of the unfortunately named dog, Waldorf, again, which she'll cheerfully do. Then, suddenly Steven's prophecy comes true. Lizzy asks Sam for $700, but it's totally cool because she's going to use that money for cooking classes. So, you know, it's totally like an investment in the business. Lizzy even has stolen one of Samantha's checks and filled it out for her! This is what being sisters is all about. I'm almost certain this exact scene was in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, even though I never saw it. Sam agrees to give Lizzy the money, but on the condition Lizzy keeps this from Steven. Just as she's saying this, Steven walks in and can sense the awkward tension. Lizzy leaves abruptly, and Steven just takes a big ol' bite of an apple without saying a word.
Dublin postcard over Irish punk music. The Blooms arrive at the prison where Cullen was locked up and say they're there to investigate from the Department of Irish Accents or something. That's great, says the warden, because the chief inspector is already there checking out the scene. The Undercovers go tense at this development, but it turns out it's just Leo being conspicuous as all get out. Like, all of get out.
Title card. I love that the closed-captioning for the title sequence says, "Intriguing music." Commercials.
Back in prison, the Blooms scold Leo for being so brash, but it's just Leo going "balls out." That's not something that should be unexpected at all. Defensive Leo sounds a lot like a young David Duchovny here, but alas, if Leo were Duchovny we wouldn't have the show we currently have. But then again, maybe I spoke too soon, because Leo alludes to confiscating Cullen's porn from his cell. Sam finds the drug monkey and notices the white powder. Leo asks, "Where's Hoyt when you need him?" and Bill immediately responds through their earpieces. Do these people always have these earpieces? Where can I get one? "Comically," Hoyt has mistaken an Irish accent for a pirate accent. Steven asks Hoyt to please stop saying, "Matey." Thank you, Steven. They take a sample of the white powder and transmit it to Hoyt for analysis. It's a compound called "Darvix," which mimics a seizure. Well, I could've told you that.
Leo, Sam and Steven speak with the prison warden about the possibility of any further leads. There's no lead on who delivered the monkey, but Steven just happens to have some photographs of a tattoo on Sean's neck, which indicates he's part of a gang of former IRA members. The warden comments that Leo should be careful about his fake chief inspector job with Steven's up-and-coming sleuthing. It's so easy to be usurped in the Department of Irish Accents.
Hoyt is stenciling a fake of the gang tattoo onto Steven's neck while Cullen is off somewhere shaving his head to reveal his tattoo on his neck. Cullen's in a track suit and slips on some shades. Let's hope he's on his way to a soccer riot or something.
In a hangar/warehouse, Leo and Sam walk and talk as they prepare. He asks if she ever told Steven why she left the CIA. It's a throwback to a similar conversation Leo had with Steven, and the answer is the same. She hasn't told Steven and she doesn't want Leo to, either. The tension is cut by Steven entering and asking if Samantha wants to raid an IRA bar. He's got a picture of Cullen's ex-wife, which is enough to distract Leo probably for the rest of the episode. He eagerly declares they need to check her out. Hoyt will be his wingman. This should be good.
In a garden area, Leo and Hoyt follow behind the woman in the picture dressed as U.S. fighter pilots. Yup. Leo reminds the woman, whose name is Fiona, that his name is Goose. Thanks for opening up old wounds, Leo. The story is that they are old buddies of Cullen's. Fiona is skeptical about all of this, because Sean hated Yanks. They follow her into her flower shop and pass by a rack full of the same stuffed monkeys as the one Sean had in his jail cell. Leo asks if Fiona ever sent him anything in prison, but she claims she hates his guts and wouldn't ever send him anything. Leo sees he's going to need to get a little sexual and asks her out for a drink and tells Hoyt to get lost.
At that IRA bar, the Blooms enter in full black leather, head-to-toe. Steven tells the bartender he just got out of prison so the bartender hands him and Sam shots on the house. Steven casually asks about Sean. The bartender gives Steven a weird look, turns to the rest of the bar and announces that Steven's looking for a guy named Sean who just got out of prison. Everyone laughs. That's the type of thing that can really lower a field agent's self-esteem. A crusty drunk guy sitting to Steven reiterates in a not-so-polite way that Sean is not present. Steven nods, smiles, stands up and quickly slams the guy's head into the bar. The bar reacts in a half-way impressed way like they see this all the time, but grudgingly approve. Steven tells the bartender he'll just wait until Sean shows up.
The blonde chick who was with Cullen's partner when Sean was running from police leaves a piano lesson or something at night and gets snagged from behind by Cullen. Her name's Marie, and she's had better nights.
Some time has passed at the bar, and now the bartender has gotten word that the gang boss wants to see Steven in the back. This sounds promising. Two goons show up behind Steven and Bartender instructs Steven to follow. Sam gets up as well, but Bartender stops her. No girlfriends allowed. Surprisingly, Sam doesn't respond with something corny like: "I'm his wife," and stays put.
In the back, Boss Man invites Steven to take a seat. He does and the two goons immediately restrain him and put a knife to his neck. "Why don't you tell me who you really are and what you're doing in my bar." Instead, Steven kicks one of the goons in the head and knocks the other guy back with his chair. He gets up, disarms the guy with the knife, knocks him out, takes the knife and stabs it into Boss Man's desk. "Like I said, I'm looking for Sean Cullen."
Commercials.
Boss Man and Steven are still staring each other down. The two goons have been fired for getting their asses kicked and Boss Man starts asking questions. He knows Steven can't be from the prison because he just got out of there himself. Steven tries the angle that Cullen stole from him and he wants to get even. Boss Man is like, "Get in line," but he reveals that the plan for the hard drive involved Cullen's partner from the airport, Brian Murphy. Steven thanks Boss Man for the info with a double fist tap on his desk and walks out silently.
In the Undercoversmobile, Hoyt is overly concerned about how things went for Steven back there. The Blooms ignore Hoyt, and Steven brings Sam up to speed about Brian Murphy. He knows Boss Man wasn't lying, because he is the human lie detector, after all. Hoyt gets excited at the mention of this because he read about Steven's skill in his file. Bill runs a check on Interpol and Shannon Airport for Brian Murphy. Sam asks where Leo is.
Cut to Fiona straddling Leo in her undies and being way too talkative about Sean. Is talk of ex-boyfriend terrorists Leo's fetish? I can't see how this can be hot otherwise. Fiona leads Leo to the bed as he stares at her barely clad butt and her tramp stamp. "Wow. What kind of crazy man would cheat on you?" Probably all guys, Leo. She responds, "The kind of guy that would check into cheap hotels under the name 'George Best,'" a reference to the Irish soccer player. Before Leo can hop in bed, his phone goes off. Steven: "How'd she check out?" Leo looks over at the bed and smiles. "She's clean." Steven: "Hoyt seems to think she was hung up on her ex." Leo: "She's over him. Trust me. Bye." Hoyt has found out Brian worked at Shannon Airport with Cullen and knew about CIA planes coming through there. He lives in Smithfield.
The Blooms are picking yet another apartment door lock. They open the door to find Leo's already there waiting for them and has already swept the apartment. Steven's miffed that Leo always has to be the first on the scene. Leo says he's just picking up the slack until the Blooms get their spy legs back. Steven's also a little bit irritated that Leo just waltzed into the flower shop and was able to sleep with Fiona. Leo denies sleeping with her, but Sam calls on Steven to do his human lie detector test. Steven immediately says Leo slept with her, and Leo freezes with astonishment. Hoyt buzzes in over radio to say he found something important. What he found is the package for a pay-as-you-go phone, which he can use to track the SIM card with its UPC barcode. When Cullen makes a call they can trace the phone's location.
Our four operatives sit around their staging area, waiting for that call. When it finally comes, Hoyt intercepts. It's a call to Brian to arrange a meeting to go get the hard drive together. They'll be meeting at a dock. Brian says he's got the safety deposit key they need, but we tilt down to see that what he's really got is a gun. Our Operatives need to get a move on because the dock where they're meeting is on the other side of town.
Brian arrives at the dock. He gets out of his car and draws his gun. Cullen appears with his gun drawn, as well. Sean tells Brian to put his gun down or he'll put a bullet in Marie's head, whom he pulls out from his car. Brian's beat, so he puts his gun down and tosses over the safety deposit key. Sean lets Marie go. She walks toward Brian, picks up his gun, turns to Cullen and smiles. She turns back around to Brian and shoots him. Whatever happened to divorce?
The Undercovers arrive on the scene too late. They find blood and eventually find Brian's body. Way to be on the ball, guys.
Commercials.
The trail has run cold now back at the staging area, but Leo thinks to search for anyone trying to get out of the country under the name of "George Best." Naturally, the lead checks out and a flight has been booked to London under that name. We get to see London this episode, guys!
London postcard transition. In a fancy hotel lobby, Leo and Hoyt eye a hot hotel receptionist. Leo figures he can get Cullen's hotel room number by means of seduction. Hoyt wants to try "hacking her mainframe." That is the actual euphemism both he and Leo use here. Hoyt goes up to the woman and throws on his British accent. He's actually relatively suave, but overdoes it a little bit when he uses the same line Leo used on Fiona. The receptionist seems to relish delivering a cold rejection to Hoyt who picks up his phone and walks away. Leo greets him with condolences for the crash and burn, but Bill cuts him off to show he downloaded the hotel registry to his phone while the receptionist was focused on rejecting him. Leo is stunned, as I think we all are. He phones the Blooms to let them know they are booking the room directly above Cullen's.
Cullen and Marie are in their room going over their plan. When the buyer gives Marie the money, she's to send a blank text to Cullen so he knows to turn over the drive. The text will be blank, in case the authorities are monitoring them. Clever Trevor.
Quick, close-up unpacking of gadgets. The operatives set up a camera for a video feed into Cullen's hotel room, with Hoyt and Steven in one room with the camera and Sam and Leo in another with the feed. They realize Marie is now with Cullen. This prompts Leo to wax philosophical to Sam about how all married people are liars. He thinks this includes even Sam and Steven. Samantha takes offense to this, but then Leo cites their secrecy pact as nothing more than a device for lying. Just then someone enters Marie's room with a big gift box. Leo is sure this is the money drop, so he charges in to make the arrest. Turns out it's just a box with an evening gown and a ticket to the London Symphony. Womp womp. To save face, Samantha tells Marie, "We should probably talk."
The interrogation of Marie doesn't yield much except that the symphony will be the site for the deal. Marie only gives up that she is to send that text to Cullen, but she lies and says the text will be "Beatrice," her middle name. Sam asks what dress size she is.
Cut to Samantha entering the lobby of the auditorium in Marie's gown at the symphony. Hoyt loads Steven up on gadgets. There's a pneumatic tranquilizer gun that looks like a really long pen and a concussive blast device that looks kind of like a mobile hotspot. Hoyt will remain in the hotel room in charge of keeping an eye on Marie. Steven assures everyone that he has his place backstage at the symphony figured out. Sam starts to get impatient when she doesn't spot Steven. He assures her over the earpiece that he's fine. Sam then sees him take the stage and... then take his station at the timpani. Really?
Commercials.
Steven plays timpani as he tells Leo and Hoyt to stop buzzing in his ear. Marie is handcuffed in the hotel room with Hoyt and can overhear what's going on. The buyer shows up in Sam's balcony with ten million in negotiable bearer bonds and begins demanding the hard drive. Hoyt taps into Marie's cell phone so Sam can text Cullen. Sean gets the "Beatrice" text and realizes the plan has been compromised. He checks his gun. Sean texts back "A40" to Sam, but there's no visual on him or the drive. Buyer has grown impatient so he snatches the phone from Sam, pulls his gun and tells her to come with him. Steven readies his pneumatic trank and tells Sam to step to her side when the strings come in for the song. She does and Steven scores a direct hit on Buyer. Hoyt sees Cullen's signal is really weak which means he could be underground in the parking garage. Leo, always trying to be first, heads down there and gets taken hostage by Sean. He finds Leo's earpiece and smashes it. Sam gets the drop on Cullen, but he has Leo as a human shield. He produces the hard drive from the trunk of the car and demands his money in exchange for Leo's life. Samantha, however, refuses to negotiate with hostage-takers. Convenient. Steven leaves his timpani station, so you know this is getting serious. He goes up to the balcony to secure the money and slips the concussive blast device into the case. Hoyt asks Steven if Samantha's bluffing as Steven hurries down flights of stairs. Steven says she isn't. Human lie detector!
Commercials.
Back to the standoff. If Sean shoots Leo the CIA will shoot Marie, Sam tells Sean. All Cullen cares about is his money. Marie hears this and cries. This guy's favorite joke must be Mitch Hedberg's: "I don't have a girlfriend, but I know a girl who would cry a lot if she heard me say that." Steven arrives on the scene with the briefcase of money. Samantha's completely oblivious and can't believe Steven is offering to pay Cullen. Steven ignores his wife and hands over the case. Leo's a little confused, too, but Steven says this'll be no different than what Leo did to him in Belgrade -- the worst 90 seconds of Steven's life. Sean drives off with Leo and the money and lets Leo know he will indeed be killing him. That's awfully courteous, that is. If you're going to kill someone, at least tell them first. It's all I ask. Steven grabs Sam to prepare her for the concussion blast. Just as the timer's about to go off, Leo leaps out of the car, rolls, gets up and runs as all the glass in the garage bursts. Cullens car explodes in a blast of glass and comes to a halt. Leo gets up with a huge smile on his face and yells over his own deafened ears that Steven's got his spy legs back. Steven calls him an idiot to his face since he can't hear anyway.
Debriefing. Cullen and Buyer are going to prison, naturally. Shaw's only question for the Blooms is how Sam knew the briefcase was going to explode. Steven answers for her that, of course, she just knew her husband so well. Sam looks like a deer in headlights at the realization she wasn't able to read the situation.
Back on the home front, Steven sneaks up on Lizzy at Blooms' Catering. He offers Lizzy money for taking care of the dog, but she declines, despite her wide eyes at the sight of the cash.
At home, Steven sits on the kitchen counter as Sam washes dishes. "We need to talk," he says. Sam immediately responds that she has a confession, which triggers the most half-hearted, "Ah-ha!" out of Steven. The whole thing about lending money to Lizzy and hiding it from Steven comes out, but what she really wants to confess is the real reason she left the CIA. She thinks they need to dissolve their secrecy pact. And just when we think this show's finally going to throw us a bone, Steven declares he doesn't want to hear the real reason, as long as it also includes that she left because she loved him. To Steven, everything before they met was just a prelude, he says. Sam suspects Steven is just giving her a pass because he doesn't want to talk about his past, which totally has to be what's happening, because as they hug, Steven looks guiltily over her shoulder with a possible hint of treachery thrown in there as well. Where the fuck has this been?!
Watch the episode below, discuss it in our forums, then check out our list of the best spy couples ever!
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Pablo G. is some guy who lives in San Antonio, Texas. He co-hosts TWoP's original "Trailers Without Pity" with his brother Omar G. Check him out at Space Monkeys!, The Cowboys Blog, and follow him @PendejoJoe on Twitter.