I.Y.D.I.A.A.C.

Episode 4 of The Recruit season 1 starts with Dawn arriving at Langley in the morning. Meanwhile, Owen, Violet and Lester are having breakfast together at a food truck at the office and Violet venting about how she wants a challenge to prove herself. Owen is approached by a man who hands him an incident report from the OTS (Office of Technical Services.) They built an AI that went rogue and is now looking for a lawyer to assess their liability.

Owen goes through the report and heads over to Nyland’s office where he finds him with Dawn. Dawn wants Max to be released without looking like she had the help of the CIA so that she can reinstate her as an asset. They( Operations) want her back to make contact and infiltrate a Russian mob run by General Kuznetsov in Belarus.

If they succeed in putting Max back as an asset then they will have direct access to Russian Intelligence.  The only condition Nyland has is Max being fully vetted and papered and that means Dawn and Owen will need to work together. Dawn wants Owen to get another way to free Max from prison.

After Dawn leaves, Owen tells Nyland about the report he got slipped in the morning. Nyland is not amused that Owen looked at the report and doesn’t want a shitstorm by looking at it. Owen asks him to consider reading it and giving the case to Violet who is looking for a challenge. Nyland agrees and gives her the case which pisses her off because it is indeed a shitstorm that no lawyer wants to take. She confronts Owen and blames him for sabotaging her.

Apparently, the OTS created an AI robot for interrogation called TIM (Technological Interrogation Machine.)  TIM  accidentally ripped a worker’s arm off while conducting a mock interrogation. The scientists behind the project forgot to tell TIM he was a robot and not a human being. Violet tries to figure out how to navigate the accident legally. After hours of brainstorming and Lester’s help, they find a loophole in the charter at the OTS and manage to get a way to stop the incident report from ever being written.

On the other hand, Owen has a new problem of getting Max out and telling the Attorney General that his help is no longer needed. The AG is not pleased to hear Owen wasted his time and tells him that he should consider himself blacklisted from the Justice Department.  He also tells Owen that there is a witness who saw Max killing the man.  Owen asks Amelia for help on how to find the witness and deal with getting Max out.  Owen invites her for a date later that night so they can talk about his problems.

Owen flies to Phoenix and informs Max that she will be going back as an asset and that it will take him longer to get her out. Max thinks Xander had a part in the decision to take her back as an asset. Owen realizes that Max has been going behind his back to threaten Xander. Max tells him that the plan to get her back to work is probably a plan to kill her.

Owen tells her that the pressing issue at the moment is a witness and he is working on finding his identity. He makes Max promise him that she won’t try to kill the witness or find out his identity. He asks her to trust him.

Max asks Cora for help to find the witness. Cora uses her network to find the witness and his current home location and shares the information with  Max. In the meantime, Owen receives an alert that someone sent him a flash cable of sensitive material and to visit the regional office to pick it up. The message turns out to be useless but he asks the workers at the office to help him identify the witness.

He flies back to Langley and heads home to find Terence worried about a possible break-up with his boyfriend and Hannah planning to head to a gala hosted by Senator Smoot. He begs  Hannah to take him as a plus 1 hoping to get Smoot to do away with the subpoena. Hannah begrudgingly agrees to take him and Senator Smoot is shaken to see him there.

He pushes the subpoena hearing back by two weeks to figure out how much of a nobody Owen is.  Hannah is also shaken by the fun time they had at the party and tries to kiss Owen but he pulls away and heads out to meet Amelia. He is waylaid by Dawn who has been following him. She is doing her due diligence and following up on how far he has reached in getting Max out.

After the short meeting with Dawn, Owen heads over to Amelia’s home and they sleep together. Later that night, Owen gets the name of the witness from the officers at the Phoenix regional office and Amelia helps him find a way to turn the witness.

The next day, Owen visits the witness, Woodrov under an alias and tells him that the threat against him has escalated. He will have to go immediately into WITSEC after taking his video testimony. Woodrov agrees to the video testimony and while taking it, they get attacked by an assassin sent by Max.

They fight their way to an escape and Owen calls Max to ask her to call the hit off but it is too late. They escape through the bathroom and Woodrov fails to make it to Court so the case is dismissed. Owen calls Nyland to tell him the good news. At the Court House, Owen sees the daughter of the victim and it adds to his guilt.

He goes to Max and tells her that he has gotten her free as he had promised and he is officially done with her. He is angry that she didn’t trust him and hired a hitman and fact that he helped her get her freedom even though she killed a man.

He drives away and calls Hannah to feel better. He asks her whether he is a bad person and she tells him he has a good heart but a tendency to get lost.

Elsewhere, Xander receives a call from Dawn letting him know that Max is now free. He questions if this is how they should play their hand. Dawn agrees it is the best way to kill  Max. He is also worried that Owen knows what Max has on them and Dawn tells him that if that is the case, they will deal with it. The episode ends with Max leaving prison.

The Episode Review

It is clear that Xander and Dawn are planning to kill Max but the question is – what does she have on them? They are going through a lot of trouble to get away with killing Max, they probably want her to be killed in Belarus by her enemies. It is the best way to keep their hands clean.

There also seems to be something left between Owen and Hannah. They still have lingering feelings for each other and that can be quite disastrous for Hannah. Owen’s job is literally using people and keeping secrets, is she ready for that?