Kaleidoscope – “Orange” Recap & Review

Orange

Kaleidoscope’s Orange episode picks up three weeks before the heist, following Nazan who happens to be the FBI agent we saw a little bit of in the later parts of the timeline. She’s an ex drug-addict but has been clean for a while. She also has a talent for spotting details, which we see first-hand in an operation where she stops a criminal from escaping. She’s finally got a chance with Reza, her son, as it’s the first time she’s seeing him unsupervised.

Back at the office, Nazan is all over the diamond heist, and manages to hone in on Ava Mercer. They only have a shell casing for now but with Nazan on the case, there’s undoubtedly going to be more evidence to come.

When Ava leaves Leo’s, Bob happens to be waiting for her. He wants to tag along as they head to get those stolen jewels valued. Naturally, Bob is obnoxious but they manage to get a cool $400k to help them out. This should help them break into the vault and get all the gear they need to make this happen.

Leo tasks RJ with creating an armoured truck that’s a replica of those used at SLS. They need a 2003 Chevy to begin with. At the same time, Ava is called in by the feds and questioned over the shell casing. Specifically due to the fact it has her fingerprints on. Ava shrugs it off, pointing out she actually reported two of her guns stolen to the police.

Although Ava is able to leave, it’s clear she’s had run-ins with Nazan before and is concerned this could blow up later down the line. Leo encourages her to be extra vigilant and although Ava says they don’t have a “real problem”, it’s clear that this isn’t true. The pair a history together, given Ava was the one who originally ratted out Nazan for her drug addiction.

Navan is certainly onto something at work. She speaks to her associate, Toby, and points out that she thinks this whole Diamond Way gig was a front for a much larger operation about to take place. She’s sussed out that Ava is working with Bob, given the pictures she’s taken.

Nazan then reveals, through some heavy-handed info dump dialogue everything that’s happened to her after 9/11. Despite joining the FBI, her background means she’s had a lot of xenophobia leveled her way. She eventually turned to drugs as a way of escaping.

Meanwhile, there’s more drama between Bob, Stan and Judy as the former lashes out and hits Stan while the trio are out at the bar. When the fight spills over into the street, unbeknownst to them all Nazan has her guys watching their every move.

Bob and Judy discuss cracking safes out in the open and eventually end up screwing in the car.However, it’s enough for the FBI to work on, especially as they find Judy, Stan and the others involved in this, leading all the way back to Leo.

More importantly though, Nazan figures out that Ava is just another spoke on the wheel rather than the top heist planner and as a result, has her followed.

However, Ava gets the jump on Navan as the officer follows the wrong woman. When Ava slips away, she takes the time to plant drugs on Nazan. When the police catch up, they find the drugs and take Nazan down for questioning.

As a result of this unwanted heat, Ava decides to skip out on this operation, believing it’s way too dangerous and without her involved, they’ll have nothing on Leo and the others.

With Nazan on the verge of losing custody of her son, she makes a call to ICE and has Ava’s grandmother taken away as a bargaining chip. With the woman about to be deported, Nazan meets Ava in private and forces her to flip and work as her mole on the inside.

The Episode Review

Instead of giving us more history around the different heist members, Kaleidoscope instead takes a different approach and decides to give us more history surrounding Nazan, the FBI officer after Ava and the others.

While the episode works quite well to give some background to her, some of the writing is a bit sloppy, especially that big info dump midway through the chapter about Nazan’s woes and past issues. I would have liked to actually see that, potentially with flashbacks interspersed here to show how 9/11 affected her with xenophobia etc. but instead we just get that long bit of dialogue, which is a shame.

However, the series hasn’t exactly done a great job to endear us to many of the characters, with players like Bob just obnoxious and completely one-note. On the flip side, the visual motif of keeping a singular colour the main focus each chapter is a neat touch and the idea itself is pretty decent too. Hopefully the episodes ahead will pick up the pace and also flesh out our ensemble more.