Y.N.A.H.Y.A.L
Episode 1 of The Recruit season 2 takes us to Ostrava, Czech Republic, where Owen is still being held by Nichka. She asks him about his identity, and Owen sings like a canary. After learning that Owen works for the CIA, Nichka decides it is best to kill him.
Meanwhile, back in Virginia, 90 minutes before Nichka killed Max, Amelia receives a call from Hannah, informing her that Owen has been kidnapped. Hannah threatens to report Amelia for sharing classified information with her if she fails to save Owen.
Back in Ostrava, Owen continues to bargain for his life while Nichka walks him to an open grave. Outside, Dawn and Dodge prepare to infiltrate the compound, but are they there to save Owen? Most likely not, Dawn wants Owen dead. You know, dead men tell no tales. They certainly don’t rat out a corrupt CIA operational agent.
The assault team moves in position and takes down Nichka’s team. Owen uses the distraction to try and get away, but Nichka is too strong and pins him with her legs.
Dawn arrives to find Owen alive and is shocked to hear that Nichka is Max’s daughter. Her team takes away Nichka while Dawn remains behind, contemplating whether she should let Owen bleed out to death. Owen assures her that they have to work together since they know each other’s secret. Dawn knows about Owen and Max, while he knows about her secret ops and stealing money from the organisation. Dawn is not convinced and is about to kill Owen when the second team arrives and saves Owen.
Elsewhere on Sakhalin Island in Russia, a Korean woman is kidnapped by a group of masked men.
Following Owen’s rescue, he is flown to the USA and given first aid treatment on the plane. Upon landing, Owen starts confessing to Lester about the people he killed. Lester advises him not to confess to anyone. Hannah shows up and tries to convince Owen to quit. He promises he will as soon as he wraps things up. He doesn’t want to be blamed for the messed up mission, and Hannah officially ends things with him. She notifies him that she is moving out of their shared apartment.
In the meantime, Dawn reports to Director West, Nyland, and Amelia that the asset is dead. She blames the asset for lying, but Director West doesn’t care. Lester reports that Max’s daughter is alive, and Director West promotes him to take over Dawn’s division in Warsaw. He also orders Lester to vet Nichka and recruit her as their asset. Director West also teams Lester up with Violet.
Meanwhile, Dawn confronts Owen in the restroom, and they brainstorm about how to get away with the whole mess. They decide to blame Max and Xander. The whole plan seems plausible, but Nichka overhears it. She confronts Owen, and he suggests she agrees to be an asset to make money. In return, he promises not to set her up with the Russians. After cleaning up, Owen visits Nyland’s office, Nyland has no kind words for Owen’s behaviour and benches him.
He orders Owen to stay in his office and do nothing. He cleans out everything in Owen’s office, leaving him with only a chair and a table. Owen tries to talk to Amelia, but like everyone else in the office, she is avoiding him. Still, she warns him that he has been ‘rubber-roomed’ and is trapped in limbo forever. It is highly likely that once the investigation is done, the blame will be placed squarely on Owen’s head.
The following days are as boring as can be for Owen. He spends the day sleeping on his desk or outside the office. The boredom nearly drives him nuts. Out of the blue, he gets a post addressed to his predecessor, Bill Bemus. Against his better judgment, Owen opens the letter and sees it is a code. He drops by Janus’s office to ask for Bemus’s number. To quickly get him out of his office, Janus tells him that Bemus is dead and cautions him to stop looking into anything.
As expected, Owen decides to ignore Janus and head over to IT to get some answers. He makes the IT guy run the code, and the whole office is sent into a shutdown. This is how Owen finds himself in Nyland’s office getting yelled at again. However, Owen, being the smooth-talking lawyer that he is, convinces Nyland to let him investigate the letter. He argues he is already in trouble so Nyland will get deniability if things go south ways with the case. However, if things work out, Owen wants his job back and no blame for the Meladze operation.
Nyland weighs his options and agrees that Owen is up to something. Owen also adds that he lived in Korea as a kid when his dad was stationed in Korea. He has the lay of the land. Director West already wants the matter handled secretly.
Owen stumbles into a secret Korean operation that will see him travel to Korea and stay at a hotel named Paradox in Seoul. To help Owen, Nyland teams him up with Janus. Janus is not pleased to be teamed with Owen.
The two head home to pack, and Owen starts to reminisce about Jin-lee, his former childhood crush. Before leaving, Owen gets a call from Nichka, threatening to expose his secrets if she doesn’t get money for her job as an asset. She is getting bored with the vetting process and has some killing she needs to get to. Owen asks her for more time to figure something out.
On the flight to Korea, Janus warns Owen not to get sentimental about Jin-lee and ruin their mission. Upon arrival, they are welcomed by military men and brought for questioning by Grace Cho. Janus asks Owen not to worry since this is typical in cases of rush operations like this. Grace Cho takes Janus aside and mistakes Owen for his assistant. Janus is sketchy with his explanation to Grace Cho since he knows she can’t deny him access to the country.
Meanwhile, Owen waits in the break room and gets acquainted with Jang Hyun-kim, who pretends to be a clerk. Owen immediately calls him out for lying, and they bond over food. On their way out, Janus and Owen realise they have a tail. They head to the Paradox Hotel and get separate rooms. Janus refuses to look into the graymailer and argues they only have to wait for them to show up.
As for Owen, he tries to use food to distract Jang Hyun-kim and sneaks out of the hotel. He goes to Jin-lee’s workplace and watches her from a distance. She spots him, and they get a chance to talk. Owen thanks her for being there for him when his dad died. He promises to return soon and heads to a club.
At the club, he waits for the graymailer as he calls Janus to update him. It turns out that Owen found a note in his room, asking him to meet at the club. Janus scolds him and says that Owen fell for a trap. As they talk, Owen spots Jang Hyun-Kim and tries to leave.
Unfortunately, he gets into an altercation with a guy and a fight ensues. Jang Hyun-kim comes to Owen’s rescue, and they rush to his car. Owen is still excited about the fight when Jang Kyun-kim sprays something on his face and causes him to pass out. It dawns on Owen that Jang Hyun-kim is the graymailer.
The Episode Review
Season 2 of The Recruit welcomes back with another fun and intriguing episode. The first episode wraps up the cliffhanger we had last season. Max is dead, Nichka is her daughter, and Dawn is not going to kill Owen. At least that is what she says, but when has the devil kept a promise? Owen is naïve to think Dawn will let him walk around with a career-ending secret like that.
It is no surprise that Owen and Hannah are done. They should have been done long ago. Not to be cynical, but Owen knew a while ago that his job was not safe for his loved ones. You can’t eat the cake and keep it. For Owen, it is either the job or a normal life. Based on how quickly Owen was ready to be a sacrificial lamb, he is going to always choose his career. It is not a bad thing, but he should be honest about it.
It is funny, if not ironic, how Owen always finds himself at the heart of the problem. He is always going rogue, thinking for himself and causing trouble every time. It is like he jumped from the hot pan into the frying oil. His deal with Nyland will probably end horribly. He offered to be the scapegoat, and, seeing how this operation is going, I think he will end up in the guillotine.
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