Scorpion - Postcards From the Edge - Review

Scorpion brought its freshman season to a close with “Postcards from the Edge” written by the creative team of Nick Santora and Nicholas Wootton and directed by Milan Cheylov. The episode really highlighted what’s made the series so successful: an exciting – if implausible – case with high stakes, demanding the combined efforts of the entire team, and compelling, likeable characters to form that team. The show eschewed the increasingly common practice of leaving viewers with a cliffhanger that would torture them over the months until the start of the new season. Instead, they opted to end the season on a decidedly feel good note, but with a few very important loose ends that will need to be tied up when next we see these characters.

The episode begins the morning after the end of the last episode – “Cliffhanger” – which ended with Walter (Elyes Gabel) driving his Ferrari over a cliff. In fact, as Walter spends the majority of this episode hanging off a cliff, this episode could have been called Cliffhanger! However, the titles, like the show itself, read better when you pay closer attention to the characters. It was in the last episode that the characters were emotionally jumping off cliffs – Paige (Katharine McPhee) leaving the team and Cabe (Robert Patrick) being thrown off.

As the episode begins, we see all of the characters dealing with the fallout from that previous episode. Toby (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is trying to fill the leadership role that he feels both Walter and Cabe have vacated. Happy (Jadyn Wong) has gone into self-protection mode. She’s already looking for a new job and insists they are right back to where they were a year ago: broke, aimless losers.

Merrick (David Fabrizio) takes great delight in assigning Cabe to the TSA at the Pamona airport, and Cabe resigns. This leads to him hilariously using his scuba certification to get on site and take charge. Of course, come next season, it may also be a problem that he impersonated a Homeland Security officer. In fact, they will still have to deal with Cabe’s resignation next season.

It doesn’t take long before people start to miss Walter. Megan has called to tell Sylvester (Ari Stidham) that Walter missed her appointment. Sylvester is immediately on high alert. Ralph (Riley B Smith) has been trying to call Walter all morning, much to Paige’s displeasure, especially since she’s trying to get to the airport. Ralph is sure there is something wrong with Walter because he doesn’t pick up. She finally calls Walter herself and leaves a message, telling him that’s he’s being selfish and a jerk to ignore Ralph’s calls.

Happy finally gets through because Paige thinks it’s Walter calling back. The depth of Happy’s feelings are apparent in the way that she lashes out at Paige for abandoning them. Wong is excellent in this episode. This leads to Paige turning her phone off and the chase is on to track her down to talk to Walter. As soon as Paige sees what’s happening on the news at the airport, however, she doesn’t hesitate and goes immediately to the crash site.

When Toby and Sylvester aren’t able to track Walter’s phone because he has the GPS disabled and had it cloaked, Happy has the idea to track the car through the Vin number, but they have to get that from Elia (Andy Buckley) who gave Walter the car. As Toby and Sylvester wait to see Elia, Sylvester worries that Walter is going to abandon them to come and work for Elia. I adored the fact that Happy broke into the ventilations system and drops into the middle of Elias’ important meeting and onto his board table. Once again, Happy’s anger is so great that she lashes out at Elias, giving us no doubt of how she feels: “you were poaching our bass and now he’s missing. You’re trying to break apart the only family some of us have ever had.”

Elias complies and the three remaining team members locate Walter quickly, finding the car precariously perched on the side of the cliff. They use a drone with a camera taped to it to communicate with Walter, quickly determining that he’s impaled on a piece of metal from the guardrail. In their eagerness to save Walter, both Toby and Happy piss off the arriving officers and get arrested, but Cabe arrives – as always – in the nick of time and gets them out.

During the entire rescue, Walter keeps asking to talk to Paige and Ralph. Riley B Smith is excellent in this episode – and really has been all season. We’ve seen that, like the other geniuses, his emotional intelligence is low, so he’s very quiet and rarely says anything about his feelings. However, in this episode we see how strong a bond he’s formed with Walter. He tells Paige that he’s not done. He and Walter haven’t finished the rocket. He also tells Paige that he’s going to miss Walter. Later, when he hears the expert on the radio say that Walter will likely die, Ralph actually bursts into tears, saying, “He’s my friend” – something we know has been in short supply for Ralph.

Lots of good – though not terribly believable – MacGyvering in this episode. They create a sniper rifle out of a firehose and some needles, and Toby has Walter cauterize his own wound with a silver pen he heats in the car lighter. Of course, it’s not clear why they weren’t working to lower someone down to rescue Walter right from the beginning, but it made for a perfect climax for Cabe to be the one to go down and rescue Walter, risking his own life and proving how much Walter means to him. Again, in the real world, they would have had rescue specialists who could do that, but I’ll refrain from picking holes.

The real heart of this episode is the postcards that Walter sends from the edge. Gabel is simply fantastic in the episode as Walter tries to have a last word with each of them. He insists on them finding Ralph and Paige, but he also takes the time to talk to the people that are already there. Walter tells Cabe that he should have known that Walter would never have hurt him on purpose. Walter goes on to say that he hacked into the sprinkler system at the cemetery where Cabe’s daughter is buried to make sure that the grass on her plot got watered more often than the others to keep it green. Walter tells Cabe that he’s only telling him because he doesn’t want there to be any more secrets between them.

Walter asks Toby if he remembers the wild weekend they shared and tell him it was the best weekend he ever had. Cabe worries that Walter is giving up. Walter tries to reminisce with Happy about the pay phone she hacked so that they would have a phone when they first opened Scorpion, but she refuses to let him eulogize with her. Toby explains that the last thing Walter wants to do before he dies is state facts. Toby tell them that Walter is telling them in his own way that he loves them.

Walter doesn’t get a chance to do it with Paige, Ralph, or Sylvester. But Paige’s arrival does spur Walter to open the door to let Cabe grab his hand and pull him to safety. Symbolically, then, he’s opened the door to a potential relationship with Paige – and let Cabe help him. Walter makes up for not telling Sylvester a story at the hospital afterwards. Sylvester stops him though and says simply I love you too. Sylvester is in many ways, of course, the least emotionally stunted of all of them, which is why he’s the only on in a relationship – so far!

The final scene is sure to be a crowd pleaser. Elia shows up at the hospital and no one is happy to see him, but he tells them, “After what I saw on tv, breaking up a family would be criminal.” He’s not there to poach Walter but offers them all a job. They turn him down, and Paige tells him they’re already a team.

Toby gives Sylvester grief for bringing balloons, but of course, Walter loves them. Paige simply tells Walter that she and Ralph will see him at work when he’s better – she’s not moving to be with Drew or quitting, and it’s as much for Ralph as for herself – which is clear though unspoken. The doctor (Katherine Kamhi) gives Walter his pain medication, which knocks him out, so the others go to leave. Paige then demonstrates how much she’s forgiven Happy for the words they said in anger by asking her to babysit Ralph so that she can sit with Walter for a while. Happy returns the forgiveness by saying yes, tacitly supporting a relationship between Paige and Walter. For her own part, Happy holds out the olive branch to Toby by asking him to help her babysit. Toby, of course, is thrilled.

Paige goes back in to Walter’s room alone, and he is indeed, sound asleep. Paige tells him that she didn’t want their last memory to be a fight. She kisses him and the last words of the season are no doubt music to a lot of viewers’ ears: “because I really care about you, Walter.”

There are still lots of questions about exactly how Scorpion will carry on next year – still a consultant to Homeland Security? Part of Elias’ empire? But it seems like Paige and Walter will be together sooner rather than later – was he really, really asleep? And it also seems like Toby and Happy will be able to move forward too. What did you think of the episode? Was it a good ending to the first season? Does it make you eager for the second season? I have to admit that I’ll be back for the second season more because of the compelling characters and the consistently good acting on the show than because of the weekly cases. What about you? What have you liked best about the show? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

About the Author - Lisa Macklem

I do interviews and write articles for the site in addition to reviewing a number of shows, including Supernatural, Arrow, Agents of Shield, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Forever, Defiance, Bitten, Glee, and a few others! Highlights of this past year include covering San Diego Comic Con as press and a set visit to Bitten. When I'm not writing about television shows, I'm often writing about entertainment and media law in my capacity as a legal scholar. I also work in theatre when the opportunity arises. I'm an avid runner and rider, currently training in dressage.