Covert Affairs - Episode 1.02 - Walter's Walk - Recap

So there's one question I had going into episode 2, could Covert Affairs keep up the momentum after its premiere last week? I think it does and I dare say, Covert Affairs might end up being one of the best written spy shows we have. This week's episode didn't have any new info about Ben but we did get a new character, Jai Wilcox, played by someone who had the name of Mohinder Suresh. Spoilers Ahead.

The episode starts with a flashback of Annie and Ben on the beach happy, then we see Annie fighting with that Russian assassin, his hands around her neck --Cut to Annie jumping out of her sleep. She went from a sweet dream to a nightmare.

That morning her sister wants her to sign papers that in case something happened to her would make Annie the guardian of her kids. Annie says she'll think about it. Her sister wants to know what's there to think about. Annie says she needs time because she's late for work. (Lame excuse.)

At CIA Headquarters Auggie tells her they're moving into a new state-of-the-art facility in the building. Once there, Joan gives Annie her new assignment;

she has to debrief the 'walk-ins', people who walk in off the street claiming to have Intel. Annie later has another word for them, "nut jobs".

So after she gets a can of pepper spray and is shown where the panic button is, cause you never know with walk-ins, Annie starts debriefing. And they are nut jobs. One guy says he knows who killed Kennedy, but not J.F.K., Ted Kennedy. Another guy has a conspiracy theory about Sugar.

Then Annie talks with a woman who actually seems normal, Helen. She says that her son, Walter, stumbled on a short wave radio transmission and when he decoded it, the clue led him to a mailbox where he saw a man take out a secret coded message. She says that the man saw her son and now he's afraid for his life.

Out in the parking lot, Helen introduces Annie to her son Walter; he's a 12 year-old kid. Helen says "I told you he was smart." (I should note that Walter is like a prodigy or something he's studying computer science in college.)

-Opening Credits-

Annie goes over to the car and asks what he's reading, The Parcifal Mosaic; it's his favorite spy novel. Walter says the coded messages are still being broadcasted from the Station. He gives Annie the short wave frequency and she says she'll look into it.

Joan sees someone new at a desk. She walks over to Jai Wilcox (played by Sendhil Ramamurthy) and he says he was assigned by her husband (Arthur Campbell) and he's surprised he didn't tell her. Joan doesn't like this at all.

Annie asks Auggie to checkout the information she got from Walter. Then Jay walks over and Auggie introduces him (with a few sly comments thrown in.) He says he went to Yale, works for Arthur Campbell; and his father, Henry Wilcox, was the former head of Clandestine Operations. Annie is impressed.

Auggie and an assistant check the transmission and they hear static with a voice spewing off numbers; Auggie says its some kind of code.


Helen makes a frantic call to Annie from her car; she says that she's being followed and talking to the CIA was a mistake. Moments later, Auggie calls and says the kid might be onto something.

Joan updates the division, they've had no new contact from Helen since that phone call; the transmissions are from the IRA and the message is most likely for a bomber, Michael Cahill. Since the transmission are from Belfast they've brought in some help from the UK. Joan sends Annie to checkout Helen's apartment, but first she'll meet a UK agent who'll help her with the investigation, whose name is James. Auggie tells Annie that he needs Walter's recordings of the other transmissions to help crack the the new transmissions.

Joan confronts Arthur about Jai, she says its bad enough you have Annie out there to lure Ben but now you have someone spying on her too. Arthur says no its not like that. Joan says next time she'd like a heads up. (Seems like Arthur is the bad guy in all this.)

So James, the UK agent, and Annie checkout Helen's apartment, but they find some of Walter's recordings but he took all the tapes of the spy transmission with him. The doorbell rings. Annie looks through the peep hole and a guy bulldozes his way in knocking Annie to the ground. As he's about to clobber Annie with a statue, James (who finally decides to help) shoots the thug in the head. He checks the body, no id. Before she leaves, Annie grabs the hard drive from Walter's computer and as she grabs it a Tube Compressor falls off the table, causing a spark. (remember that spark it'll come into play later.)

James tells Annie that those spy books are right about one thing; how hard it is to be a spy and have a normal family life. Later, Annie watches through the window her sister and her kids.

We see Joan and Arthur in a restaurant. We learn that when Arthur started dating Joan, he was a married man.

Annie breaks it to her sister that she can't be the guardian for the kids. Her sister calls her selfish.



In the gym Auggie hears Annie wailing on a heavy bag and asks what's going on. She says her sister thinks she's selfish, she couldn't help a mom and her son, and she seems to have the knack for losing fights with the bad guys. Auggie tells her to calm down and gives her some close combat pointers. (I'm just putting it out there, they wouldn't make a bad couple.)

Joan updates the division, the dead guy in Helen's apartment was IRA and an associate of Michael Cahill. They say Michael Cahill is coming in to clean up the mess. Annie talks to Joan and says she still thinks finding Helen and Walter is important. Jai, listening in walks over and backs Annie. Joan lets Annie continue looking; she then shoots Jay a nasty look.

We see Micheal Cahill walking through a train station. Two agents stop him and take him into custody.

Annie heads back to Helen's apartment to look for any clues, she picks up a picture of Walter and his father; in the background she sees the name of a cabin. She calls the cabin and a mother and son recently checked in.

Joan questions Cahill, who says that he's in town to see an old friend; and that he's now a peaceful man.

Annie knocks on a cabin door and Helen opens it. Annie tells Walter that he was right about everything, the transmissions, the mailbox. She tells him this isn't a spy novel; this is the real thing and the transmissions he recorded could help catch the bad guys.

Annie heads to her car and plays the tape to Auggie over her cellphone. As the tape plays Annie heads back over to Helen.



Talking with Helen, Annie begins to think that James is a double agent. She calls Auggie and explains her theory, but he says she needs more proof. She gets that proof when she notices something on the back of her phone, a small tracking device. Then she sees a car coming down the road, "He's here." She heads for Helen and Walter. We see James and two goons.

In the cabin Helen and Walter run out the crawl space. Annie then improvises some kind of a bomb: she unplugs the gas line from the back of the stove and puts the Tube Compressor on the door knob so that when it drops it'll make a spark, just like earlier. Annie heads out as well.



With Annie safely outside the cabin, she looks on as her bomb explodes, bye bye bad guy. Annie then fights with James and uses her pepper spray to get the upperhand. She then cleans his clock with a stiff punch.

Later we see cops, ambulance and all. Annie talks with Auggie on her cellphone and he says that they decrypted the other transmissions and James was indeed a double agent, and he tried to setup Cahill to take the fall for the whole thing.

Annie sits down with James in the squad car and asks him was he lying when he said being a spy and having a family is hard to do. James says its the only true thing he said.

Joan apologizes to Michael Cahill; she says they had the wrong man.

Arthur tells Jai to get close to Annie. Jay asks how close? --As close as you can.

At home, Annie's sister says that she's an amazing Aunt, the girls love her and she doesn't need a piece of paper to prove it. Annie gives her the forms, "I signed them 20 minutes ago" They hug. End of episode.

-If you made it through all of that, Thank you. I had a great and tough time recapping it :) I hope you enjoyed the read and don't forget to stop by the Forums to speculate and test your theories. See everybody next week.-