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There's a formula for a biological weapon which has been hidden in a painting at an art auction in Italy. A notorious and enigmatic bio-arms dealer by the name of Xerxes is suspected to be using this whole auction as a machination to securely acquire the formula. The auction is so exclusive that the only believable way for it to be infiltrated by our favorite operatives is for Samantha to assume a past alias as the wife of a British field agent named Clive. Clive Owen!? Not quite.
The problem with all of this is Steven knows Clive. Hates the guy. That hate is probably amplified by the fact Steven has to play background on this mission with Hoyt while this guy cozies up with Sam. To top it off, Hoyt falls for Clive's beautiful blonde partner Tessa and starts talking Steven's ear off about her while Clive starts telling Samantha about Steven's past. Turns out Steven dropped out of an elite training program for the CIA. At this point, you're like, "So? He obviously became a CIA agent anyway," and I totally agree with you.
Once settled at the site of the auction, the plan is to forge a counterfeit of the painting that has the formula and replace it so that the formula never falls into the hands of Xerxes and they can capture him when he makes the purchase. The plan naturally does not unfold as intended. Hoyt and Steven get captured while trying to make the swap of the painting and are driven off-site to be executed. They escape death in time to make it back to the auction and tail the guy who made the purchase until he explodes. Yeah, the guy is blown up by Xerxes, and it's every bit as ridiculous as the idea of a foot chase ending with a person blowing up. Clive goes MIA during all of this, which leads them to suspect Clive is Xerxes, but Samantha finds him with a gunshot wound after an encounter with Tessa, who turns out to be Xerxes and has escaped.
Steven, Sam and Hoyt track Tessa/Xerxes to Hong Kong. Hoyt's so pissed off that he almost maybe would've tried to give his heart to this girl that he insists he take point on capturing her. They chase her on foot through back alleys until Hoyt cuts her off and clubs her with a pole. Textbook espionage. He makes sure as he detains her that she's aware of the romantic life with him she threw away to be a no-good, lying, international terrorist. Scratch that -- a no-good, lying, lucky, international terrorist.
Steven reveals to Samantha what the story about him being kicked out of that special training unit was all about. He had hacked into the CIA database to get the name of a girl he saw there, was ratted out by Clive and subsequently kicked out. Turns out the girl was Samantha. Aww... that's so sweeTUPID! The best secret past we're going to get is the story of the first time Steven saw Samantha? Balls. Big, retarded, testicular torsion balls.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!"The Australian Outback" is the caption for our establishing shot of a deserted landscape. A small bus drives toward us from the horizon down an empty highway with that cliché, wavy heat effect, "Aussie Excursions" emblazoned on the sides. A twitchy and nervous guy sits in the back of the bus among excited tourists. After some suspicious eye darting, Nervous Guy inconspicuously pulls out a gasmask and straps it on. He then pulls out what looks like a smoke grenade, arms it and tosses it up the aisle. It lets out a toxic gas which knocks everyone, but the driver, who should've had the most time to react since he was furthest away from the origin of the gas makes sure to swerve the bus out of control for a while instead of immediately pulling over like any sane person would do. The bus finally comes to a stop. Nervous Guy gets down, pulls out a cell phone to let a mystery person on the other end know that his creation worked. All of the passengers are dead. What we just witnessed could've been the most effective anti-flatulence medication commercial in history, but instead it's another ho-hum setup for a device or weapon our Undercovers will surely bumble their way to recovering.
Bloom Catering. Big Chef Charlie stands with pause over a pot of boiling water with live lobsters in his hands. Lance is being decidedly less stereotypically gay than in his big coming out party and tells Charlie to just do it quickly like a Band-Aid. There's a woman cook with the two men who is asked by Steven when he enters where he can find Samantha since they have a meeting with Shaw.
Sam's in a storage room with Lizzy talking about a guy she's hesitant to date because he's a drummer for some band that's really big in Eastern Europe. Her anticipatory anxiety won't let her risk falling for someone who can become famous and leave her behind. I'm not sure what she's worried about; she could definitely be reality TV material. Steven enters to remind Sam about their meeting with Shaw who is as irritated as usual when they meet him. He's ready with photographs of the victims of the bus poisoning in Australia. Evidence at the apartment of Nervous Guy shows that he plans to sell the toxin to an infamous and elusive weapons dealer named Xerxes. The CIA suspects the formula will be transferred by being printed underneath a painting which will be auctioned off in Tuscany. The auction will be too exclusive for the Blooms to infiltrate together. They will be operating in conjunction with MI-6 with Samantha resuming her old cover as Amanda Yorn, the fake wife of Agent Clive Garrity. Steven balks at the mention of Garrity. He makes it clear that he does not like the guy at all. Shaw sits back bemused at Samantha's disbelief that Steven could dislike as charming a guy as Clive. Steven to Shaw: "She's married, so what's my cover?" Shaw just laughs.
Tuscany postcard. Steven is visibly irritated as he and Hoyt sell their cover as valets at a swanky hotel/resort. Clive and Sam pull up in a fancy car and it becomes immediately obvious why Steven hates the guy. He's wearing an ascot. An ascot! Also, he's pretty douchetastic, really relishing the entitlement of his cover. However, the guy seems genuinely happy to see Steven, so he can't be all that bad. Can he?
Somewhere else outdoors at the resort we find ourselves at the check-in area for the auction, where Nervous Guy drops off his painting containing the formula. He turns and calls Xerxes to let him know it's been dropped off. He drives off in a black van and rocks out to some tunes until he encounters an empty car parked across the middle of the road. Nervous Guy gets out to investigate. There's nobody around, so he goes back to his van and runs into a guy who looks like Donald Trump who shoots him with a silenced handgun. Now we know why he was so nervous. He's been gun fired.
24-karat title card. Commercials.
Steven brings Clive his stuff and tries to lay down ground rules about how the weekend with Samantha should go, but Samantha walks in from the balcony to cut off the aggression. Clive's about to reveal parts of the Blooms' pasts to each other, but they let him in on their pesky, little secrecy pact. He finds it charming. Steven just wants to get on with things, but Clive says they're waiting on Tessa. Tessa?
Out in the hallway, Hoyt arrives at the hotel door at the same time as a blonde woman dressed as a French maid. This is Tessa, Clive's partner, and Hoyt is instantly in love with her and all awkward about it.
All of the operatives gather in the hotel room to discuss the plan. It's simple, really. Just find out which painting is the one containing the formula by finding forged entry documents, swap the painting with a forgery and arrest Xerxes when he makes the purchase. They can achieve step one of this plan by accessing the auction director's computer. Hoyt has a device which will scramble the surveillance video feed temporarily so it won't draw the full suspicion of a blackout. He shows it off to Tessa and gets a chuckle out of her for his intentional pun of the surveillance system being "state of the art." Tessa's easy.
At the reception before the auction, Sam talks to an older couple. The man in the couple keeps staring obviously at Samantha's cleavage. If this were a cartoon, his eyes would be bugging out of his head and his tongue would be unraveling onto the ground. When Sam sees that Clive has gathered his intel, she offers her business card to the couple, intentionally dropping it so she can spike the man's drink with Flurazepam. When the guy finishes his drink, he has a mild heart scare, which causes enough of a scene to move security from the entrance to the main building. While everyone freaks out, Steven scrambles surveillance so Sam and Clive can get in.
As Samantha and Clive make their way into the building, Clive starts asking Sam if she really knows nothing about Steven's life. They make their way into the director's office and sit behind her desk as they hack into her iMac. Clive claims Steven was bounced out of CIA training. Hoyt overhears this and starts defending his idol to his love, Tessa, which prompts Steven to ask what the conversation is about. He demands of Hoyt access to Sam and Clive's channel and Hoyt dutifully obliges. Steven overhears Samantha asking questions about Clive's claim and butts in to the conversation. Everyone's eyes go wide, Hoyt freaks and tries to switch back to exclusive channels, but accidentally taps them all into the perimeter security channel. The guards all go on alert and head to the surveillance room. The video feed for the office is the only one down so they know the disturbance must be in there. Naturally, the guards arrive in time for an empty office. Sam and Clive are hiding in an air vent in the floor.
Commercials.
Steven comes to get Clive and Sam out of the vent... well, Sam at least. Clive gets left behind so Sam and Steven can argue about what was going on with that conversation. Steven digs into Samantha for buying into Clive's agenda and going back on their agreement to not ask questions about each other's past. In the process, Steven lets it slip that he ordered Hoyt to let him in on their comm channel, which lets Sam know Steven didn't trust her. Clive catches up with the Blooms and suggests Sam tell Steven something about her past to even up the score. Steven walks away and Sam gives Clive a dirty look.
Nightfall at the hotel. Hoyt cross-checks all the submitted artwork with the files Samantha and Clive were able to retrieve from the director's office computer. He finds that the painting "Decima" is the one that does not belong on the list. He excitedly goes to tell Tessa his findings and instead finds her on the phone with someone, giving out numbers. Not suspicious at all. Hoyt walks in and she starts acting all jumpy and overexplainy. Again, not suspicious at all. He shows her the painting and she immediately recognizes the name
"Decima" for the Roman goddess. You know, Xerxes was part of that whole Persian and Greco-Roman era. Not. Suspicious. As they look over the artwork, Tessa and Hoyt almost kiss. Surely it would be Hoyt's first kiss, but alas, it's not meant to be.
Hoyt goes to lament to Steven about his failure at love and life. He thinks Tessa's like an onion -- the more he peels her layers, the more he wants to cry. Homeboy is in love with an onion. Who are you to judge? Hoyt realizes him and Tessa would never work out. Steven advises Hoyt to just go for it as Sam enters and overhears. Hoyt exits, which gives Sam and Steven a window of opportunity for some sexy time. Getting it on with the help has always been a fantasy of Samantha's. They kiss and make-up and then get it on. Somehow, this fades into Steven and Hoyt waking up in the room together to find the forgery painting has finished printing. They're off to go make the switch.
It's still dark out. Skulking out in the courtyard, Hoyt follows Steven's lead. Everything's going great until that Donald Trump lookalike and his spiky-haired henchman come up from behind and hold them at gunpoint. Trump: "Take them off premises and kill them." Seriously, this needs to be on the Apprentice.
Commercials.
It's the day at the auction and Sam is worried that she hasn't heard from Steven. Clive thinks there has to be an explanation. The explanation is Steven and Hoyt are tied up in the back of a van being driven to their final resting spots. Steven manages to undo their handcuffs with a wire key. They climb out of opposite sides of the truck and make their way to the driver. Driver pulls a gun and shoots at them both, but he can't really shoot at them both at the same time, so Steven finally catches him aiming at Hoyt and punches him out. He grabs the driver and tosses him out of the truck so they can commandeer the vehicle. Hoyt feels like the Sundance Kid. If only.
Back at the auction, Clive suddenly remembers he forgot something back at the room, which sucks because the auction is just about to begin. What doesn't suck is Steven and Hoyt's would-be killer left his cell phone in the truck, so they're able to call Samantha to warn her that the painting up for sale is the real painting with the formula. Steven describes Donald Trump to Samantha, who she believes she saw Clive talking to at the reception. Sam spots him sitting in the auction crowd on the phone receiving instructions for bidding. There's nothing Sam can do to prevent Trump from winning the auction, but Steven and Hoyt enter the auction just as Trump is collecting the painting. They try to trace the phone call Trump was on, but the area the caller is located in is too secure. Samantha remembers a conversation she had with Clive earlier about their hotel room being secured thusly, which leads her to believe Clive might be Xerxes. Sam goes after him while Steven and Hoyt stay behind to follow the buyer. Sam pulls her gun and enters their hotel room. She finds Clive lying on the floor with a gunshot wound to the gut. He's able to impart that Tessa shot him when he walked in and saw her on the phone. Tessa is Xerxes. Twist! What is it about the gunmen in this show never finishing the job so they don't get ratted out?
Commercials.
Tessa walks out of the hotel looking like a model in a hot, black dress and shades. She hops into a Mercedes and drives off. Sam's called an ambulance as she applies pressure to Clive's wound and gives all the details to the 911 operator. He's in pretty bad shape, but nobody with a major speaking part dies on this show.
Steven and Hoyt tail Trump in their bright white waiter suits and somehow are never spotted. Buyer takes a call from Tessa and is pissed that he has the formula and she is nowhere to be found. She corrects him that he doesn't actually have the formula and there's been a change of plans. The painting starts beeping and he blows up. Like, KABOOM! Seriously. In a giant plume of fire. A man. Blows. Up. Steven gets a call from Sam after witnessing this. "I don't know what the hell just happened, but the painting is gone. It just blew up and so did the guy." We'd like an explanation, too. Sam figures Tessa switched out the painting herself before the auction. Steven's confused about all of this until Sam explains Tessa is Xerxes. Hoyt overhears this and his heart breaks.
Florence, Italy. Our American operatives are meeting with Shaw, who says MI-6 will be taking over the case. Everyone's pissed. Shaw says Tessa had been using vacations to meet with prospective buyers for the formula. This clicks with Hoyt that she had been giving confirmation numbers out when he overheard her phone call. In fact, he even remembered both 7-digit numbers so he could maybe stalk her later. Oh, Hoyt. You so crazy. Sam realizes the numbers are actually coordinates. They resolve to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong postcard. There's a man in his office looking over the painting. Steven steps out from the shadows with his gun drawn. The man tries to call to security but Steven's already taken them out. That was easy.
Commercials.
Steven grabs the painting from the man and asks where Tessa is. She's in the parlor across from the plaza waiting for the money, he says, because he probably doesn't want to be shot in the face.
In the parlor, there are a bunch of old people playing mahjong. Tessa sits alone at a table and sips tea. Outside, the Undercovers plan their approach. Hoyt wants to take point on this because he's still heartbroken. Inside, he finds that she's gone from her table and has gone out the backdoor. Steven spots her outside and just yells, "HEY!" She turns and shoots at him. I mean, what was he hoping to accomplish by just yelling like that and giving away his position? This episode's foot chase ensues. Samantha's able to cut Tessa off in an alley with her car, but Tessa shoots out the windows. She turns to run the other way when Hoyt jumps out from a nook and clubs her really hard with a pole. Like, he probably needlessly broke some of her ribs, but, hey, all's fair in love and war. He picks her up off the ground to collar her and leans in to her ear to let her know that if she wasn't a criminal they could've had a future together. Looks like she dodged a bullet.
At Undercovers House, Sam takes her file folder of her sham marriage alias and burns it in the fireplace. Steven takes a seat beside her and just starts telling the story of his dismissal from training without being prompted because he feels he deserves to tell his side of the story. He was part of a special unit in which only 10 people qualified. He spotted a girl he thought was cute and hacked into a database to find out what her name was. Clive knew about this and ratted Steven out, getting him kicked out of the program. It turns out the girl he risked his career for was Samantha. I won't even dignify this reveal with a sarcastic, "Big surprise." Steven implies it was no coincidence he was able to meet Samantha the year at headquarters after finding out her name. They kiss. What kind of small-time bullshit is this? We really don't need any more affirmation that these two love each other, OK? We need some intrigue, please. K, thanks.
-- 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.
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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.
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