The Pentaverate – Episode 5 “Reilly’s Secret” Recap & Review

Reilly’s Secret

Episode 5 of The Pentaverate begins with Bruce Baldwin and Skip Cho transporting Ken and Reilly as hostages to The Meadows via their private plane.

At Pentaverate Headquarters, an orange alert sounds. Patty announces that Baldwin and Cho are taking Ken to The Meadows with the Parce Clavem. With three keys, they can vote on anything.

Mishu motions to enact The Demetrius Protocols. However, they can’t vote on enacting it. The Da Vinci lock is missing, because Baldwin had Patty send it to The Meadows ahead of schedule.

Baldwin also put malware in MENTOR to lock the wheels of The Musk, so the Pentaverate leaders can’t go after them.

Lordington asks Patty for any ideas, so she starts commanding them how to deactivate MENTOR’s mainframe and disengage The Musk brakes.

Back in the plane, Baldwin delivers a monologue of his backstory and plan. He built The Tabloid Group when he was 40 years old. He was the “go-to guy” when powerful people needed to bring people down with misinformation.

Baldwin was at the height of his career when he was brought into The Pentaverate. When the internet arrived, he tried to warn The Pentaverate that bad people would use the internet in the same malicious way he used the tabloids.

Jason Eccleston later joined the group and created MENTOR. He thought they’d be able to beat the internet by having a database of agreed upon facts, gathered by MENTOR. But it didn’t work that way.

“What’s the point of trying to help people when they don’t even want to help themselves?” Baldwin says. “They don’t deserve MENTOR.” So, he doesn’t want them to have it.

Ken asks why they need the super computer. They say they either want to sell it to The Meadows, or create their own version of the truth with MENTOR. They know a lot of people who pay for the spreading of misinformation.

Baldwin then admits to killing Jason. After his death, he tried to convince The Pentaverate to bring in Cho, who met Baldwin once at one of his casinos.

They disagreed, bringing in Dr. Clark instead. So, he poisoned Clark, then the Maester. He brought in Cho, then the Red Robes. All he needed then was to get a hold of the Parce Clavem, to give them three votes. But Ken tampered with his plans by touching the key.

Now, he needs Ken to get him three votes. Ken, however, says he’ll never help him. Baldwin and Cho then drug Ken and Reilly.

Meanwhile, Patty’s plan to overheat MENTOR works. Lordington says what Patty did today confirmed that she must join them on the train. They need her. They then board The Musk to try and catch up with Baldwin and Cho.

When Ken wakes up, he’s discouraged. He thinks he should have retired. He’s getting too old for this. “Maybe some people aren’t meant to change the world.” He apologizes to Reilly for bringing her into this.

In an English accent, Reilly apologizes for being the one to bring Ken into all of this. She confesses that she’s part of the Fimbra Manus. The Pentaverate sent her to Toronto a year ago to take him to their headquarters.

The episode ends with their arrival at The Meadows.

The Episode Review

Things heat up this episode, but as these events depend on laughs to drive the suspense, the twists and turns simply won’t appeal to everyone.

At this point in the show, it’s expected for something completely off the wall and zany to happen. So when these crazy twists are revealed, they lose all spark whenever the jokes meant to prop them up fall flat.

The Pentaverate accomplishes neither suspense nor hilarity, but–on the bright side–it is getting closer to the end. What is the extent of Reilly’s involvement in The Pentaverate? Will she and Ken succeed in taking down Baldwin and Cho?