Stitchers - Stitcher in the Rye - Review

This week’s episode gave us more action and started getting more into the mythos of the show. I liked the pacing of the episode better than previous episodes.

This week Kirsten and Camille have the boundaries discussion. Most of us have this discussion on move in day, but I suspect the bulk of the time these two women have been roommates have been about Kirsten deciding to communicate with Camille. Camille has been borrowing Kirsten’s clothes and is now, up front about opening Kirsten’s mail. “At least now I don’t have to reseal it and pretend it never happened.” At least this conversation went better than Camille’s apology dinner did.

The Stitch this week is a food truck owner and former CIA employee named Justin who specialized in really expensive toast. He had a heart attack after the breakfast rush. He was also a conspiracy theorist with a blog. Just before he died, he wrote that he’d been handed a new batch of government documents that he would post the next morning. He died that night. Coincidence? Doubtful. So a Stitching we will go. (I can’t seem to help myself with these.) The goal is to find the source of the leak.

This is yet another difficult Stitch for Kirsten. This time it’s because Justin is multi-phasic. The filter doesn’t make it any easier. Things don’t settle down until she focuses on a home base. Cameron uses the “Wizard of Oz” line, “There’s no place like home”, to help her do that. Disturbingly, Justin lives in the food truck. Shiver. But Kirsten does figure out where Justin hid his secret files in addition to a few other flashes of memory.

Cameron has come a long way here. When Kirsten got into trouble he didn’t have a panic attack with flashbacks to Marta. He didn’t rush to pull her out of the Stitch. Instead he found a way to help her adjust and continue her job.

Kirsten takes Cameron and Fischer to the food truck and shows them Justin’s hiding place. She finds the latest file just as an alarm sounds indicating the truck is about to blow up.

What Kirsten has found is a 5 ¼ inch floppy disk. (It kind of hurt to have them refer to what was a huge technical advancement when I first started working as something Camille ‘read about once’.) I think it was kind of smart of Justin to store his data on technology that they do not have in the lab. Luckily Kirsten has Ed’s old hardware in storage. Justin’s brain is toast, so they won’t be able to Stitch again. Maggie gives them until the next afternoon to figure something out.

Kirsten stops Cameron because something odd is happening with the Stitches. She has seen a teddy bear in more than one person’s Stitch. She saw it once in the revenge bomber’s memory and again in Justin’s. Cameron’s theory is that it might be Kirsten’s memory. Kirsten brings up the picture she found of Ed and her mother and the word “Remember” written on the back. What should she remember?

This prompts her to look at the photos she stole of Ed’s crime scene. Remember that picture of the bookshelf with the missing book on it? Kirsten studies it, and this time she notices that Volume K is missing. She doesn’t know what to make of this piece of information, but she does remember the old computers that Ed owned.

She heads off to the storage room, writes a program to decrypt the file and takes the print out to Cameron. Not surprisingly Cameron is concerned. Kirsten forces Cameron to provide an alibi for the time the top secret information was passed to Justin. Kirsten isn’t willing to eliminate anyone as a suspect purely on the basis that she knows them. She gets alibis for Camille and Linus (discovering that they’re sleeping together in the process). She demands they meet her and Cameron at the lab so they can accuse Maggie of treason. She’s the only suspect left.

Maggie arrives at the building just as the four are entering the building. She has news for them, but before she can finish her sentence she’s shot. Kirsten takes off after the shooter. Cameron takes off after Kirsten. She finally stops when he asks what she plans to do when she, unarmed, catches up with the shooter.

Maggie takes the treason accusation badly but, they accept her proof that she’s innocent. Kirsten and Cameron check all employees’ alibis, and they are all solid. Cameron suggests Kirsten re-examine her memories of the Stitch. She lists everything she saw, but it’s the mention of the tattoo on the wrist of the person who leaked the information that gets Cameron’s attention. Cameron thinks it’s Marta and has video pulled. Kirsten confirms that, that is the tattoo, and Camille discovers Marta’s been out of the hospital for a week.

Kirsten realizes the garbage texts that she’s been receiving are actually coded messages that Marta, a former cryptographer for the NSA, sent. She uses the copy of Catcher in the Rye to decrypt the message. It’s a warning that she’s in danger and should trust no one.

She goes off alone to meet Marta, who tells her she’s safe now. Kirsten takes Marta back to her place. Marta turns on very loud music then begins the worst bug sweep I’ve ever seen. She doesn’t calm down until Kirsten runs an app she wrote for her phone that checks for radio signals. The house is clean.

Kirsten is smart enough to record Marta’s confession. Marta lashed out because she felt betrayed. Her previous attempts to stop the program and protect Kirsten haven’t worked, so she decides to get Kirsten into hiding. As usual Cameron joins Kirsten in the dangerous situation. He tries to talk Marta into putting the gun down. He’s not making any headway. Marta gets a phone call. She listens for a moment, tells the caller she understands, then walks out of the house to be shot to death by the police.

Maggie tries to talk a very upset Cameron out of blaming himself for everything. Maggie declares that they are not Stitching into Marta to protect Cameron’s emotional state.

Later Maggie meets with a mysterious man, Les. I’m assuming Les is Leslie Turner, the director of the agency. Turns out that Les had Justin killed so they could Stitch into him and find the leak. Maggie wonders what he wants her to tell Kirsten when she asks what the program is for. He tells her to tell Kirsten anything she wants to, as long as it is a lie.

This week’s ep was packed with story. We finally get a peek at Maggie’s boss, and he does not appear to be one of the good guys. I’m not sure Marta’s declarations to Kirsten were enough to get her to start digging into what she’s doing with the Stitcher program. But we’re getting closer to that moment when one of our heroes starts to dig for the truth. For me this was the best episode so far.

About the Author - Prpleight

Prpleight is a screenwriter and senior software engineer with solid geek cred. When not writing code, screenplays, or watching TV (sometimes she does all three at the same time), she uses her broadsword Bessie to battle evil. She's been a frequent contributor to the SpoilerTV discussion boards for several years now. Currently, she's reviewing Stitchers and Major Crimes.

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