FBI – Season 5 Episode 15 “The Lies We Tell ” Recap & Review

The Lies We Tell

Episode 15  of FBI season 5 starts with a middle-aged couple walking along the street, casually talking about their plans. The husband, John, suddenly spots a man and draws his gun and asks the man to stop. The wife is surprised and the husband gets distracted leading to him being shot.

Elsewhere, Jubal invites Isobel for a team outing but she turns him down as she has a date. They get an alert and Tiffany and Schola head to the scene. John was an off-duty Diplomatic Security agent and the police are not sure why he initiated a confrontation.  The wife is shaken and her witness testimony is all over the place. She thinks that the man who shot her husband was related to his last tour in Croatia. The team immediately starts looking into his last tour to find out more.

They also check the surveillance footage at the crime scene but they are unable to get anything helpful on the culprit. Isobel reaches out to the State Department but Agent Morales refuses to be forthcoming about John’s last tour.  Agent Morales keeps giving them short-ended answers and refuses to clarify anything. He insists that even though he wishes for the killer to be apprehended, they are on different teams.

They get a hit on the city surveillance camera of the killer getting out of a taxi at a motel. Tiffany and Schola visit the motel and are joined by OA and Maggie. The killer’s room is empty and it looks like the killer and his roommate left in a hurry. OA spots a grenade in the room which then goes off. The team barely manages to make it out alive!

Following the explosion, the evidence in the room is wiped out except the few that Maggie managed to grab. Isobel is pissed about the bombing and confronts Agent Morales who still refuses to help. He insists his hands are tied and he can only assist if the FBI gets a tangible lead. Until then, he can’t say anything about John’s work without the consent of his superiors. Jubal is frustrated with this response but the case must go on.

A look into the evidence Maggie saved confirms that the killer is from Croatia. Analyst Kelly Moran discovers something in the surveillance footage of the motel. This clue leads them to a company known as Hudson Genetics. OA and Maggie visit the lab and they learn that the killer, Luca Cilic was fired two days ago after he tried to access a restricted area.

As they talk with the CEO, an alarm is set off. It turns out that someone stole something from the lab and they need to evacuate immediately. After evacuation, the CEO reveals that they had been developing a synthetic virus, a super strain of COVID-19. Maggie and OA demand to see the surveillance camera and the CEO identifies the thief as Leavins. Leavins is one of the professors at the lab and it makes no sense that he would steal his work.

Isobel and Jubal call Agent Morales and inform him of the recent ongoings of the case. Agent Morales asks to talk off the record. He tells them that John was a spy and  Luca is a member of a religious cult group in Croatia. The cult is looking for independence from the current regime but Morales can’t tell them why John was watching the cult group.  Analyst Elise Taylor interrupts the meeting and informs them that they have successfully pinged Leavins’ phone.

The team rush to capture Leavins and finds him in the middle of a drop. Unfortunately, before they can secure the virus Luca manages to grab it and flee. They arrest Leavins and bring him in for questioning. Leavins admits that he was forced by Luca to steal the virus. Leavins wanted to come to the police for help but it was too late to save his family – Luca had already taken his wife.

The team traces the phone used to send Leavins the proof of life for his family. Leavins doesn’t know much so he is not much of a help but the FBI still hope they can save his family. Leavins only wants to talk after the FBI saves his wife. The FBI are not able to get to Leavins’s wife in time but Isobel lies to him that they saved her.  However, Leavins is not fooled by their words and demands proof.

Isobel asks Analyst Ian Lim to make a fake video of Leavins’ wife to persuade him to talk. Maggie is against this idea but she has no choice but to follow Isobel’s lead. After seeing the fake video, Leavins is relieved and willing to speak.  He tells Isobel about everything that Luca asked about the virus.

Leavins had warned Luca about the fickle viability of the vaccine. It also seems that Luca’s plan is to take the virus to Croatia. Maggie thinks that Luca won’t be heading to Croatia but most likely to Canada. It was the last place Luca visited before coming to America.

Schola calls Isobel with a lead on a witness who saw Luca and his associate leaving a warehouse. Sadly, as Schola talks to Isobel on the phone, he discovers the body of Leavins’ wife.

Analyst Elise pulls street footage of the traffic around the warehouse and they are able to trace Luca’s movement. They quickly move in but Luca opens fire in an attempt to flee.  Luca enters a building and takes the people inside hostage. The team now need to talk him down before he releases the virus.

Luca demands a jet but Maggie tells him that won’t be possible. As Maggie engages Luca, OA leads another team to take him out from behind. They secure the virus and Isobel gives Leavins the truth.

Later, Maggie admits to Isobel that she felt bad about what they did to Leavins. Isobel admits that she feels horrible too but it is her decision to live with. She opts out of her date and goes to a bar to drink alone.


Episode Review

I certainly don’t envy Isobel. She has to make tough decisions and sometimes they can be so cruel. Leavins believed them only to later found out they failed to save his wife. In a way, if he had talked earlier maybe she could have been saved but I don’t blame him for the choice he made.

The real people to blame are the State Department. Agent Morales could have saved everyone a lot of time by telling the FBI the truth from the start.  I understand protocol and everything else but he could have spoken off-record. As such, this episode was quite frustrating to watch.

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3.5

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