Scorpion - Charades - Review

Scorpion aired an extra episode this week following the NFL Championship game. Due to the overrun of the game, my review will be a bit briefer than usual. Hopefully, fans DVR’d or were able to stay up late to catch the episode. “Charades” was written by Rob Pearlstein and was directed by Christine Moore, whose other credits include Rizzoli & Isles, Elementary, and NCIS: Los Angeles.

The episode begins and ends with the charades of the title. Paige (Katharine McPhee) walks into work to find Happy (Jadyn Wong), Toby (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and Sylvester (Ari Stidham) playing charades, and I love that them playing a game of some kind has become a regular thing. The episode centers around interpreting what people are really feeling or meaning by their gestures and body language. Even when people speak in the episode, they often aren’t using their own words. For example, Walter – and then Paige – use Leonard’s (Mackenzie Astin) voice, and Paige feeds Walter what to say to Fatima (Nazneen Contractor).

Walter (Elyes Gabel) spends most of the episode denying that love is real – “it’s imaginary” and “not real.” Yet at the end of the episode, Walter proves love exists in three separate ways. As he says goodnight to Paige, he strokes Ralph’s (Riley B Smith) hair as he talks. He then says, “As my mother would say, ‘sweet dreams’ – no doubt an endearment of love as she tucked him in every night. And finally, he tells Paige to re-record their answering machine message because he’s recently realized how pleasant her voice is – and she’s spent a lot of the episode feeding Walter romantic lines to woo the villainess. It’s also ironic that he tells her to have sweet dreams when the episode also opens with Paige having a disturbing dream about Walter.

Paige is dreaming that she’s just had sex with – she thinks – Drew and is concerned it will confuse Ralph – and then Walter comes out of the shower. Ultimately, Paige goes to the resident psychiatrist, Toby, for advice about the dream. She’s worried that love will make her do something crazy like it did to Fatima and Leonard. He tells her at the end of the episode, without knowing the specifics of the dream, to ask herself what’s most important to her. Of course, it’s Ralph, so Toby tells her to take care of the thing that’s most important to her – make sure that whatever she decides to do, it won’t hurt Ralph. I really like how the show has foregrounded Walter’s affection for Ralph. If there’s one person who would never want to hurt Ralph, it’s definitely Walter.

Love factors in to the rest of the episode. When Cabe (Robert Patrick) brings them a case from the CIA, they have to decode an encrypted message. It seems to be a love letter – at least to Paige, but the rest of the team don’t believe it is. It’s hilarious when Paige is right! It’s even more fun when we learn at the end of the episode that Fatima really was in love with Leonard. She might have started out pretending, but she actually did fall for him.

I loved the scene in which Paige tries to coach Walter on flirting, and then tries to prepare him for if Fatima tries to get close enough to steal his keycard! Possibly the best part of that scene was watching Sylvester’s face as he watches! I also loved the scene in which Walter is trying to be Leonard and failing miserably and Paige takes the phone from him and nails it.

The scene at the CIA was also a fun was as the team had to check out the tech lab. I loved how jealous Happy got of both the CIA Agent’s tech and Toby chatting Agent Marchand (Jennifer Lee) up. It was also fun watching the tech pop up later in the episode. It was a nice touch to have Toby wearing the bullet deflecting shirt, only to then find it on Cabe to save his life. The gecko-gloves were a bit of a disappointment – and that entire scene was more than a little ridiculous – and not terribly well executed. I did like the subtle way that Cabe slipped Walter the universal lock pick though.

I loved Walter McGyvering himself out of the plane with whiskey and an oxygen tank. The hole in the plane was a good effect, but that had to be the world’s longest runway! And if he was touching Fatima when she was electrocuted, he would have been too. I’m wondering if the rescue worked better on paper than when they actually saw what kind of plane and truck they would have to work with because I just kept wondering why things weren’t getting sucked into the airplane’s engines.

All in all, the episode was fun – though definitely not the series best when it came to the core case. We do see Walter and Paige growing closer. After all, did anyone think Walter was talking to Fatima when he said he liked hearing “her” talking in his ear?! I also liked that Happy was clearly jealous of Agent Marchand, and it was sweet when Toby fully intended on breaking Happy’s fall. Once again, however, the show did ignore some of the previous plot points. I still think that Sylvester got over his fear of being in the field a little too easily. We don’t really see any fallout from the previous episode when Ralph was in jeopardy either. Although, we do see that Walter spends time with Ralph reading a comic with him rather than giving him puzzles or more grown up seeming activities. One explanation for this may be that it seems that this was supposed to air as episode 15, not 14. Perhaps we’ll see some of this issues addressed in tonight’s episode.

What did you think of the episode? Are you convinced that Walter really doesn’t believe in love? Were you satisfied with the development in Walter and Paige’s relationship? I apologize for the lack of decent screencaps, but getting this review up before tonight’s next new episode meant that there were no screencaps to be had yet! Let me know your thoughts about the episode in the comments below.

About the Author - Lisa Macklem

I do interviews and write articles for the site in addition to reviewing a number of shows, including Supernatural, Arrow, Agents of Shield, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Forever, Defiance, Bitten, Glee, and a few others! Highlights of this past year include covering San Diego Comic Con as press and a set visit to Bitten. When I'm not writing about television shows, I'm often writing about entertainment and media law in my capacity as a legal scholar. I also work in theatre when the opportunity arises. I'm an avid runner and rider, currently training in dressage.