Prime Target – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap & Review

The Sequence

Episode 3 of Prime Target starts with us in 1994, as we get a better look at Safiya. She’s worked her internal body clock so she’s working 21 hour days, and she’s a bit of a social recluse too. She’s also hard at work on her thesis. 

However, much like with Ed, Robert also rips up Safiya’s work and implores her to stop working on the Prime Numbers. The big difference here is that Robert does this not as a professor, but as Safiya’s love interest.

Fast forward a few days and Safiya is threatened by a solicitor in a letter she receives, demanding she give up her thesis or be killed. So Safiya, paranoid and worried, decides to intentionally mess with her answers, changing the right ones for wrong ones, in order to cover her tracks.

Back in the present, we cut to France, where Taylah manages to evade the sniper and make it back to the hideout. She’s not there for long though, as she grabs her stuff and heads for Denis’ place to lay low for the time being. Denis, of course, is the sleazy rich guy who’s been chatting her up the whole time she’s been in the country.

Whilst there, Taylah rings Alex and warns him that the operation has been compromised. Unfortunately, it’s too late as a scuffle down the phone causes everything to go dark. This is enough for her to race out, taking Denis’ car and heading for Calais. I mean, we’re not told but it’s fair to assume she’s getting a ferry over the crossing and heading for London.

Meanwhile, Ed finds that Stephen from The Institute has been waiting outside his door all night. When he emerges, Stephen continues to pitch his company’s prospects. He hands over a brochure for Kaplar and promises that the company will look after him if he chooses to join. Will Ed go for it?

For now, Ed heads back to the university despite being kicked out, and heads for Professor Osborne’s office. He realizes that Safiya’s research is full of holes, like she deliberately crossed out the right answers. But what of the numbers she crossed off? Well, Osborne theorizes that it may well be a code of some sort.

Ed is determined to get to the bottom of this, and he’s going to continue no matter what. That night though, he’s chased by a couple of shady men, who run him down off his bike and take his backpack.

In Baghdad, Dr Nathoo shows up to see Akram Nizar. He’s part of the Baghdad Department of Culture and Antiquities. Dr Nathoo is here in Andrea’s stead and sees the underground chamber for himself. Now, Andrea is heading out here as well, with Nathoo gaining a head-start ahead of her.

The actual explosion is a point of contention here, and Nathoo comments how it’s a miracle the explosion missed the main structure and allowed the whole place to remain intact. It’s almost as if it was planned, right? Well, structural engineer Hassan Kasem warns Nathoo that evening, bringing him to a gay club. He knows something is going on at the site and shares what he’s found out. However, we as viewers do not see this.

Whatever he’s found, Nathoo becomes all jittery when he shows at the site in the morning. The other men can sense that he knows something, especially Akram, and it seems Hassan has gone missing too.

Ed heads to the bar to drown his sorrows several days later, where he crosses paths with Taylah. She asks what he’s been working on and tells him he needs help. Mentioning that these 11 digits (the crossed out answers) could be a “menu” sends Ed to the library, where he realizes this correlates to a specific book from the library matching the same shelf number. Inputting the digits brings back a book called Sophie Germain – The Unsolved Riddle.

Inside the book is a hand-written note from Safiya. However, they’re both interrupted when the fire alarm goes off. Turns out those shady men from before have returned and they chase the pair through the university.

Taylah and Ed manage to evade these shadowy men, and head to the church to lay low. There, Ed reveals what he’s doing with his work on Prime Numbers. Taylah also shares some of her intel too, bringing up that all digital locks are based on randomly selecting prime numbers. If Ed could prove that they’re not random with his research, that would be incredibly valuable and dangerous information. Ed wonders if this is a bad thing, despite supposedly being a genius, not understanding that this could completely crack open the fundamentals of our society.

As for Safiya, the pair now have proof that she was killed, as evidenced by her letter mentioning how, if this is being read, then it’s too late. Safiya was found in the bath dead, but she’s left behind a summary of her thesis inside this book. And it turns out, it’s the exact same area of research as his own. There’s also a ripped up piece of paper mentioning Kaplar too.


The Episode Review

So the puzzle continues to deepen, with Ed showing how he’s an amazing mathematician… but doesn’t understand the fundamentals of how society works or how cracking a digital lock would be a bad thing. This is a man who’s a whizz at university by the way.

But beyond this, the episode doesn’t really progress too much beyond pushing Taylah and Ed closer together. With the pair now working to figure out the truth, I think it’s fair to assume that this Kaplar company are the main culprits behind the attacks, hurting anyone who’s getting too close to the truth.

Hopefully this is an incorrect theory because it does seem a bit too painfully obvious given what we’ve seen so far. However, in true AppleTV+ fashion, the series is rather slow, even with the confirmation that Safiya was murdered, although that may have been obvious from the start given what we’ve learned so far.

Still, maybe next week’s chapter will step it up a gear.

Previous Episode

Next Episode

Expect A Full Season Write-Up When This Season Concludes!

 

  • Episode Rating
    (3)
3

Leave a comment