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A renowned particle physicist in North Korea steals a device purported to be able to alter the state of solid matter. Is it like a blow dryer, or something you can use to melt ice cubes? We don't know. We never see the device used. When North Korean authorities catch on that he's stolen the device, Physicist's Daughter is kidnapped. Physicist wants to defect to America, but on the condition his daughter is found and reunited with him so he can get her out of the country.
The Blooms are on the case and are quickly able to snag Physicist at a symposium in Geneva and get him to safety, just as the North Korean authorities are about to detain him. They keep him stashed in a hotel room while they directly disobey Carlton Shaw's directive to stay out of North Korea to find Physicist's Daughter. It's no fun when the Blooms' bumbling will be behind Shaw's back. I guess we just need to imagine his theoretical exasperation this time out.
Once in North Korea, the Undercovers find that two French intelligence operatives are on the scene to try and swoop in and get Physicist to defect to France, because word got out that the CIA would not operate in North Korea. They offer to work jointly with the Blooms, and once Physicist's Daughter is extracted from the North Korean police, they quickly pull a double-cross. Even the Blooms saw this coming and were not competent enough to outmaneuver it. It'd be nice if the times where our heroes aren't perfect they aren't also completely inept.
The French operatives hold Physicist's Daughter hostage for ransom of the glorified blow dryer, but the Blooms beat the crap out of them, as they are known to do, and reunite Physicist and Physicist's Daughter, convincing him to defect to America. USA! USA!
But you know what the downside is to all of this? Samantha missed Lizzy's commemoration of being sober for 90 days. It's hard balancing the world-saving duties of a secret agent with affirming your screw-up of an alcoholic sister. Can I get an empathetic "Uh-huh! That's right"?
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.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We begin tonight with Lizzy on the phone. That's odd. What could possibly be interesting about Lizzy without the Blooms around? Lizzy: "At some point they're going to figure it out." Oh. Oh my. But really, these shady phone conversations with mystery men about the Blooms' real reason for reactivation need to stop. The more interesting mystery is how this show is still on the air. Lizzy has to get off the phone because Sam calls to her, and Lizzy pretends that she had been rummaging through Samantha's closet for clothes. She comes out with a few dresses to model so Sam can help her decide what to wear for her celebration of 90 days being sober. I wish somebody would celebrate when I'm sober. Then the celebration would never end. Lizzy wants to wear a black dress, but black dresses are obviously something Sam would need for her super-secret doings. Sam lies about needing it for going to dinner with Steven for their first date anniversary trip to San Francisco. Are we sure Lizzy has been sober this whole time, because at this point she must be drunk not to catch on to San Francisco being a big lie. Steven walks in and is more polite than usual in congratulating Lizzy's sobriety, even offering a hug. Lizzy reiterates how important it is to her for Samantha to be in attendance for her celebration. Sam looks her in the eye and tells her she's not going to miss this. That means she's going to miss this.
North Korea at night. We appear to be at some sort of military installation. A man in a ski mask lurks in the shadows outside and watches guards walk by. He times his movement to theirs and sneaks into a building using a key code. Masked Man runs through staircases and hallways and opens up another door with another key code. A guard happens to notice Masked Man on surveillance and sounds the alarm. Masked Man enters yet another room with a key code. So the only way this whole stunt is impressive is if this is not an inside job and this guy does not work for this installation. The last room he enters is a server room. Naturally, Masked Man needs to enter one more key code to open up the cabinet containing our coveted device of the week. He snags it just as guards enter the room. There's no trace of Masked Man except for an open window. Masked Man hangs from the ledge under the window as a guard peers out and then walks away. The window just below Masked Man happens to be open and another man helps him climb in and change out of his skulking attire. Underneath, Masked Man is Business Man, wearing a suit and looking rather nerdy and anxious. The room he has crept back into is a small, run-of-the-mill office with two work stations, and Business Man takes his desk across from his friend just as guards throw open the door. Business Man sits at his desk calmly, but sweaty as the head guard informs him and his co-worker of the break-in. The head guard totally suspects Business Man and just stares at him for a long time until Business Man cites the A/C being broken for his sweating. If it weren't for the window bit, that would be the most impressive part of this whole heist scene.
Business Man returns to his humble home and is greeted by his teenage daughter named May. BM is stressed and tells his daughter to pack her things. He grabs a photo of his wife and we cut to a dark alley where BM and his daughter quickly walk to meet up with an older woman. The woman's name is Sun, and she will be taking care of BM's daughter until he can come for her later. He kisses May goodbye and watches his daughter go off into the shadows with Sun.
Title card with a ring to it and commercials.
The Blooms arrive at the hotel room where Carlton Shaw waits to brief them. Steven muses at the fact Shaw is always disappointed to see them, even though he's the one who arranges their meetings. He's more disappointed than usual, because he ordered a quesadilla 35 minutes ago which has yet to arrive. I never thought I could empathize with a character as much as I do Carlton Shaw. It's time for him to throw a file folder in front of the Blooms. Business Man is Shin Won, a North Korean particle physicist who has worked with North Korea's covert weapons program. The CIA has gotten word that he wants to defect. The Blooms' mission is to confirm he does, in fact, want to defect by connecting with him at a particle physicist symposium he'll be attending in Geneva. Device of the Week is called the "Delta" and its neat trick that it does is changing states of matter. Pff... I can do that. Food goes in, gas comes out. The plan is for the Undercovers to go undercover at this symposium as scientists to gain Won's confidence, and then I guess reveal that they lied about being scientists.
Back home, Steven lies in bed reading aloud Won's profile to Sam, who isn't listening. She's worried about missing Lizzy's thing and upset at the fact they'll miss their date night because when they get back they have a double date planned, which she claims to have told Steven about already. Steven: "Just because you say, 'I told you about it,' doesn't mean you told me about it." Score one for dudes everywhere. Steven mentions he has 8 hours to learn a year's worth of schooling on particle physics. He turns talk sexy by asking Sam if she'd like to know about String Theory. His version of String Theory involves grabbing Sam's pajama drawstrings and pulling her close to him. Steven's sexy time makes me wish I were an annoying secret agent wife... or I guess gay. The Blooms end up all over each other on the bed as we pan down to Shin Won's open file. Photo of Won does not approve.
Geneva postcard. Steven sports glasses and a tweed coat as he walks through the symposium. A fellow nerd approaches him and asks, "String, quantum or particle?" Is he hitting on him? Is that, like, the nerd version of, "What's your sign?" Steven answers, "String," which prompts Nerd Man to bring up a famous String theorist. Steven's at a loss because he sexed his wife all night instead of boning up on physics. Yes, boning. Luckily, Bill Hoyt is on stand-by and can look up info on the guy, who it turns out wrote a paper on the Higgs-Boson attraction as relates to dark matter. That was the guy? Nerd Man pompously dismisses the paper while Hoyt expresses his love for it in Steven's ear. Steven expresses similar admiration in a move to disgust Nerd Man and make him walk away. Sam shows up with a French accent posing as a hospitality rep. The plan is to wait until Won's lecture is over and then cut him off at an elevator and snag him. Brilliant. What's actually semi-brilliant is the exchange following Samantha's compliment of Steven's glasses. The compliment prompts him to reply, "Smart's the new sexy," and Hoyt to debunk with, "Trust me, it's not. Chem engineering/poly-sci double major. And, technically, I'm still a virgin." Won enters the room with his security detail. Steve says this isn't going to be easy.
Back in North Korealand, the authorities have captured Won's co-worker and are interrogating him about the whereabouts of the device. They show him a cutting tool and he rats out Won. Some advice, guy: fingers grow back, but trust never does.
At the symposium, Shin Won is giving a Powerpoint presentation. Sam is standing by at an elevator to grab him after his Q&A, but one of his security guards gets a phone call about the stolen device. The security detail interrupts the Q&A just as it's starting. The guy who got the phone call grabs Won. "The State is displeased. Come with me." Steven gives chase as the men lead Shin Won to a service elevator.
Commercials.
Steven's able to slip into the elevator with Shin and the guards. Hoyt remotely takes control of the elevator as Steven secretly pulls out a stun gun. The elevator halts and the lights go out, giving Steven the opportunity to quickly stun the two guards. Hoyt unlocks the elevator doors so Sam can pull them open. Shin seems to know what's up. "Are you the ones they sent for me?" Steven: "Are you ready to do this?"
In a Geneva hotel room, Hoyt greets Shin with a freshly poured glass of soda as he and the Blooms enter. Hoyt is totally fanboy about this, but Won snubs the offer, which Hoyt sycophantically rationalizes as the soda not even being cold and he already having put his fingers in it. One of these days, Hoyt, bam, zoom, straight to the moon. To illustrate for us that Won has only one thing on his mind, he lets the Blooms know he's ready to lay down his conditions for his defection before they can even bring it up. He wants to be reunited with his daughter. The Undercovers, however, don't have approval to operate in North Korea. He'll only defect and reveal the whereabouts of the device once his daughter is extracted from North Korea. Conundrum!
Video conference with Shaw. He simply won't clear the Blooms to go to North Korea for fear of facilitating a national incident. Hoyt butts in to get some face time (don't sue us, Apple) with Shaw because he really believes Steven can go undetected in North Korea. Because we all know a 6-foot-tall, ridiculously attractive black man wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb in North Korea. Shaw threatens to send Hoyt's ass on assignment to Botswana. Oh please, oh please, oh please, Shaw. Please! The directive handed to Steven and Samantha is simply to convince Shin Won it's in his best interest to cooperate and forget about his daughter as a bargaining point, which we should guess just isn't going to fly with this guy. Steven's idea is to bribe the guy with a nice car or something, because daughters can be replaced by Mercedes. Sam's got a better idea: ignore Shaw's directive. Would've never thought of that. Sam tells Shin they got permission to go get his daughter.
Pyongyang, North Korea postcard. The Blooms stand in line at customs at the airport. They're noticed by some guards and asked to state their business. Sam answers in French that they are food inspectors, but their bags are checked and passports confiscated anyway. Their full story is that they are food inspectors there from Canada by request of Minister Wang. They're granted stay as long as they take a tour guide with them.
Meanwhile, North Korean police raid Sun's apartment. May hides in the pantry and eavesdrops on the police questioning Sun. When she realizes things are heading south, she grabs a piece of charcoal and writes a message on the floor, then spills rice over the message to cover it up. Just as she finishes this, the police throw open the pantry door and grab her.
The Blooms sit in the backseat of a car being driven by their seemingly incompetent tour guide. He blabs on and on while Sam and Steven pull out a half of a cell phone each and sneakily piece it together. Steven slips in an earpiece and makes a call to Hoyt. Hoyt's back in the hotel room probably geeking out because he's playing chess with Shin. Their advice for losing the tour guide is to go to the Kangdong Market, which is always crowded. Once there, the Undercovers get out of the car and start looking for a way to get mixed in the crowd. The tour guide suspects this is what's going on, so he goes up to some police officers and starts pointing the Blooms out. Sam cuts open a bag of rice and everyone in the market goes crazy trying to scoop it up like it's gold coins. In the midst of the brouhaha, Sam and Steven are able to scale over some empty crates to freedom.
Back at the North Korean police station, however, they have May and are interrogating about the whereabouts of her father. Trouble is she really doesn't know anything. They threaten her with the fact that family of traitors get sent to re-education camp. It must suck being threatened and tortured when you genuinely know nothing. Way to go, dad.
The Blooms are at Sun's apartment and are once again picking a lock. This time, they acknowledge that they both share a visceral satisfaction from the nuances and challenges of picking each lock. They have a little kiss at the success of the unlocking, which is probably the most effortless and natural moment these two have shared thus far. Inside, it's immediately obvious the place has been ransacked. Just as Sam finds the mess of rice, Steven hears someone coming. The two set up to ambush whoever it is, and just when you expect this episode's hook-up with Leo Nash, the Blooms come face to face with a strange man and woman we've never seen before. "Who the hell are you?" asks Sam. Indeed.
Commercials.
The two strangers are French intelligence and they also happen to be married, or at least that's what their story is. Their names are Marcel and Camille. Shin Won apparently wasn't entirely faithful to America and hedged his bets on his defection with the French as well. Samantha uncovers the writing underneath the spilt rice and it's just the name "Captain Nahm." Sam, however, inexplicably chooses to share this information with Camille. Steven takes Sam aside to tell her he doesn't trust Marcel and Camille. Uh... too late. This becomes a married couple discussion about how Samantha makes plans without Steven's consultation because Sam proposes they use the French as cover to get in and extract May for themselves. Marcel and Camille interrupt the bickering to propose a joint effort since they'd be keeping tabs on each other anyway. Added benefit is Marcel is familiar with Captain Nahm's police station. He will help the Bloom's infiltrate.
On the way out of Sun's apartment, Sam gets a text from Lizzy asking where she is, because the ceremony has started. Sam can't stand the idea of continuing to lie to her sister. "Sometimes living this double life isn't so easy," she whines to Steven.
The four operatives pull up in a car to the location of the police station. It has a textile shop front. Marcel is certain that Captain Nahm has May in there. They set up at an outdoor restaurant to map out their plan to infiltrate the station. They'll split into two groups of two and wait until dark.
Inside the station, the interrogator pulls out the cutting tool that got Shin's partner to squeal before. The difference is May stays quiet, which essentially and literally means that Shin's partner was weaker than a teenage girl. Good to know.
It's go time. Camille enters the front of the shop pushing a load of textiles. She's stopped by the shop manager and argues with him while Sam sneaks out from under all the clothes. Meanwhile, in the back of the station, Steven and Marcel set off a car alarm and wait for the guards to come out the backdoor to check on it. They promptly knock the two guards out. Once inside, Marcel shoots a guard and begins untying May while Steven takes out another guard. A guard comes out of nowhere and appears to be ready to shoot Marcel when Sam shows up and knocks him out, but the Blooms turn around to find that Marcel has already disappeared with May. Curses!
Commercials.
In The French Getaway Car, Marcel calls Shin and lets him speak briefly with May. It appears Marcel and Camille have gone rogue and want the device for themselves. They'll make an exchange with Won, his daughter for the device, if he meets them at a train station in the morning.
The Blooms get back to the hotel room the morning, and they're pissed off. Hoyt is just waking up from some glorious sleep, so Steven takes it out on Hoyt for not preventing the double cross. To top things off, Shin is gone. It's all OK, though, because Hoyt bugged the hotel room. There's audio of Shin's phone call with Marcel which details his plan to meet at the train station. Sam leaves immediately to head to the train station. Steven and Hoyt stay behind to watch surveillance video of the symposium to try and figure out where the Delta might be. From the video of Won's presentation, it becomes obvious that he didn't need a remote to change the slides on his presentation, and the remote-like thing in his hand was the device. He stashed it in the podium before his security detail rushed him off the stage. It should still be in there.
At the train station, Shin's grabbed by Marcel and led into The French Getaway Car. The French agents demand the whereabouts of the Delta, but Shin refuses unless they let his daughter go. Marcel pulls a gun on Shin and tells him he's in no position to negotiate. Shin offers his life in exchange for May's, but really Marcel just wants the Delta. Shin reveals that it's in the podium and they should be able to go get it right now. Marcel gets out to go after it and tells Camille in French before he leaves to kill Shin and his daughter when he calls.
In the symposium, there's a presentation going on in the conference room already. Marcel stands by off to the side of the stage as Hoyt and Steven make their way into the seating area. Hoyt's geeking out over the presentation. When Q&A opens up, Steven asks if he can come up to the podium to demonstrate a mistake the speaker made. Marcel immediately recognizes Steven and his ploy and makes a break for the stage. He beats Steven there and grabs the Delta. Steven and Hoyt give chase.
Commercials.
The chase leads into the hotel kitchen. Marcel gets knocked over by the crowd of cooks and lies on his back in wait with his gun drawn for Steven and Hoyt. He fires shots at them and they ducks behind some counters. Steven slides his gun to Hoyt so he can give covering fire while he gives chase.
Outside the train station, a police motorcycle pulls up with its siren turned on behind The French Getaway Car. Camille looks panicked and tells Shin and his daughter she'll do the talking, but it's just Sam posing as a cop. Before Camille can realize this, Sam sticks a gun in her face. Camille is able to fling the car door open and disarm Sam, but Sam slams Camille's arm in the car door, disarming her. Cat fight! Samantha beats Camille's ass, punctuating it by yelling, "Lying! Conniving! Bitch!"
Hoyt and Marcel are in a gunfight, which distracts Marcel enough for Steven to jump out from behind some shelves and get the drop on him. After a couple punches, the Delta falls out of Marcel's pocket. He grabs a cleaver and swings it at Steven, but Steven comes out on top in the fistfight, as always. Hoyt picks up the Delta and gives some really serious consideration to pushing the big red button before Steven tells him to stop thinking about it. Oh, Hoyt. You so crazy.
Back in the hotel room, Shin sits with May and apologizes for putting her in danger. She's rather mature about the whole thing and understands why he did it. She forgives him. Now I understand why Teen Mom is so popular. This girl is so wholesome and boring. Sam watches the scene and interrupts to let them know they have to go. Shin thanks Sam.
Debriefing time. Shaw is pissed he had to work so hard to spin this whole debacle. The good thing is North Korea has refused to acknowledge Shin Won's defection to save face. Sam points out Shaw should be happy that they were able to recover the device as well as save Shin and his daughter. Shaw pretends not to care and then stops the Blooms on their way out to reluctantly say, "Hey... Good job." He's really a teddy bear once you get to know him.
Blooms' Catering. Lizzy's visibly upset as she works on some food prep on her own. Sam sizes her up from a distance and goes up to her to apologize for missing her celebration. Lizzy's mostly upset because Sam is her only family. We're let in on the fact that their father is likely dead and they have no idea of the whereabouts of their mother. Sam promises it won't happen again. They hug it out.
Out at a fancy restaurant, the Blooms finally share a quiet, romantic dinner. Samantha says they're going to be able to lead a normal life. "I just want to feel everything here is still real," whatever that means. Steven concedes that he's OK with Samantha making decisions without him, and Samantha concedes that she can be more patient. Yech. She can especially wait for their couples' night. "The last couple that broke bread with us double-crossed us and tried to kill us." That they did, Sam. That they did. The Bloom's toast to dinner for two being all they need tonight and sip their wine together. I never thought I'd miss episodes always ending with the Blooms getting it on.
Watch the episode below, discuss it in our forums, then check out our list of the best spy couples ever!
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.
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.