T.S.L.A.Y.P.

Episode 5 of The Recruit season 1 starts with Max being picked up by the officers from Phoenix Regional office and taken to her house. Whilst there, they stay back to watch and Max heads to her room under the guise of going to sleep. She grabs a go bag stuffed with money and a gun that she had hidden in a getaway escape route behind her closet and makes a run for it.

Elsewhere, Owen lands in Washington and goes home. At home, Hannah is shocked to see his state and asks about the phone call from last night. Owen says he doesn’t want to talk about it as she will only ask him to quit. He promises her that he is done with the case that took much of his time and that he will be home more. As he is about to leave, two secret service agents come for him at his place and drive away with him.

Meanwhile, Violet is feeling jealous that Nyland is happy with Owen and convinces Lester that they just need to stop sabotaging him. She wants to wait until Owen falls on his face and Lester suggests that they should try and befriend Owen until then.

Owen is dropped at the White House, to meet with Kevin Mills A.K.A Not Bob, the Chief of Staff to the President. Kevin denies being Max’s case officer and asks Owen to find out who revealed his real identity to Max and fed her his internal nickname too. Owen tells him that he is no longer on Max’s case and Kevin tells him that he has no choice. He will have to find the leak whether he likes it or not. He gives him his card and asks him to call him when he finds something.

Dawn is not pleased to hear that Max has fled the coop and asks Owen if he knows where she went. Owen couldn’t care less and considers it a “Dawn” problem.

In the meantime, Max is at a university following Talco and wants him to broker a deal with his big boss. She wants to sell her untraceable safehouse business for 5 million. Talco decides to call his co-worker and attack Max in a bid to get her to tell them her business secret. Max overpowers them and tells them they will be dealing with a proxy and the price went up by a million.

Max calls the officers at her home and leaves them a message to tell their boss that she needs Owen back.  Owen is blissfully happy about his win and planning a date with Amelia, he is clueless that his world is about to be shattered again. He gets a call from Max asking him to come back to Phoenix, he hangs up but she calls again.

He is visibly having a panic attack and after a few rings he picks up the phone and Max tells him it is not his decision to make. He gets another call from Nyland’s office asking to meet him. He tries to resign and asks Janus about it but Janus tells him that he can’t resign.  Janus tells him he has been having panic attacks since 2019, it is part of the job. If he quits, he will be blamed for all the things going wrong at the agency.

At the meeting, Nyland and Dawn are curious about why Max wants Owen back. Owen tells them he has no clue but believes she is testing them. Nyland orders Owen to go get Max in Phoenix. Dawn asks another agent to shadow Owen as she thinks there is something between Owen and Max.

Owen is not thrilled about flying to Phoenix to meet Max and goes to visit Terence at his job. He tells Terence he might be over his head and needs a pep talk. Terence tells him that he is always reckless trying to prove himself. He tells him he doesn’t need to save everyone and that seems to do the trick to calm him down.

He flies to Phoenix and meets Max at a luxury hotel. Max insists on spending the night at the hotel and begrudgingly Owen is left with no choice. As he can’t afford the hotel, he calls Hannah and asks for her help, she agrees to let him use her credit card. The agent shadowing Owen calls Dawn to tell her that he is spending the night at a hotel with Max. Dawn thinks that Owen is sleeping with Max and asks the agent to get pictures.

At the hotel, Max tries to seduce Owen but fails. Owen asks why she wanted him in Phoenix. Max tells him that she needs money to pay for her safe passage back to the Russian mob. She tells him about her plans to sell her safehouse business. She refuses to tell him who she is selling it to so he suggests they play a truth for a truth game.

He asks her how she was first recruited as an asset and she tells him a woman approached him. He tells her why he became a lawyer. He asks her about Not Bob but she deflects the question. They talk about the first person they ever loved and she tells him about her late daughter but doesn’t expound on how she died. She asks Owen to help her negotiate the deal as he is the only person she has been able to count on.

The next morning, Hannah receives flowers which Owen paid using her credit card. She gets angry and calls him but he is in the shower so Max picks up the phone. She gets more annoyed when she hears Max on the other side of the phone. Owen is mad that Hannah talked to Max and tries to call her back but she refuses to pick up. Terence tells Hannah that she needs to cut Owen off.

Back in Phoenix, Owen and Max prepare for their meeting and Owen asks Max to identify Not Bob on the news on TV. She fails to identify him and Owen asks him who told her about Not Bob and she answers it was Xander. On the way to the meeting, Max tells Owen the name of her source at the bank who feeds her foreclosure homes. She tells him that if things go wrong, she will kill the source. Owen makes her promise that she will not kill the source.

She drops him off a few blocks away and he meets Talco who drives him to make the deal with his big boss, El Jefe.

In the meantime, back in Langley, Dawn gets some gossip about Owen from Violet who tells her not to trust Owen’s naivety.

The Episode Review

Owen was so happy to be rid of Max but he is in for another shock to his system now. It will be interesting to see how his meeting with El Jefe goes.

Hannah is letting Owen use her, and Terrence is certainly right – she needs to cut him off. I feel like Owen is aware that she still has feelings for him and using her because he knows she can’t say no to him. I wonder how he will patch things up this time.