Quantico - Inside (Winter Finale) - Review: "An explosive, but frustrating episode"

Quantico aired its winter finale last Sunday. The episode revealed which recruit was involved in the bombings before ending in a cliffhanger that left a lot of fates unknown.

Overview of events
At Quantico, it's holiday time! The NATs get a few days off for New Year's Eve, and they couldn't be more happy. Everyone is going to visit their families or friends, or so they say. Alex, Natalie, Nimah and Shelby all lied about going home as they stumble upon one another at the academy. The recruits were given homework to review cold cases, so the four girls get drunk and try to solve these cases. Soon, Caleb also returns to Quantico to ask Shelby to come along with him to his family. Shelby agrees, but only if Alex and Natalie can come as well, while Nimah is having a drink with Miranda. At the Haas house, Alex meets Hannah Wyland, who has her dream job in the Joint Terrorism Task Force. However, Hannah is also engaged to none other than Ryan! In reality, Hannah is Ryan's ex-wife, and the two are on an unnamed undercover mission. Ryan tries to make up with Alex, but she won't have it and leaves the party. Liam offers to drive her to the academy, but before Alex gets out, she wants him to teach her something. Meanwhile, Shelby meets Caleb's mother Claire and the two get along rather well. Claire knew Shelby's parents and Shelby knows about a photo that showed Claire running into the second tower on 9/11. Caleb learns that his parents are getting back together, but also finds out that his mother is on the shortlist for Vice President. Caleb quickly organizes a family meeting in the kitchen, where he reveals to his father that she is getting back together with him because of the VP nomination. As the clock ticks down to New Year, Shelby can't stand to see a sad-looking Clayton and leaves the party. She later confronts Caleb that he wants to blow up everything and his life (including an attempted suicide bomb with his cult), and she breaks up with him. Caleb then goes to a bank, using his Mark Raymond persona, to rent a safety deposit box. That bank is close to Grand Central Terminal, and will later be used as the crisis command center after the bombing.

Meanwhile, Nimah has a drink with Miranda and discovers that Miranda has been sleeping at the office since she was attacked at her house. Miranda thinks that Charlie was not kidnapped, but he is where he wants to be. Nimah tells her that she shouldn't lose faith in her son. When Miranda finally gets home, she finds a beaten Charlie lying on her doorstep.

In the present timeline, team Alex only has a few hours left to prove that Alex is innocent. Elias shows up at the command center, saying someone tried to push him in traffic. The same happened to Simon's bomb maker friend Orin, so Alex, Natalie, Nimah and Elias head out to Simon's apartment. There, they find blueprints and indications that he is at the hotel where the Democratic National Convention is being held later that day. Indeed, the four find Simon in a room, but he is tied to a chair with a bomb trigger tied to his hand. Simon says that he was chloroformed and that he woke up here. Elias makes all sorts of accusations against Simon, but after Simon threatens to push the button, Elias confesses to framing Simon. He reveals that someone called him and threatened to reveal that he had falsified evidence as a trial attorney. He was ordered to grab Alex, but he didn't put her at Grand Central after the bombing. The mastermind again called him to take the second trigger to the hotel, and Elias himself set up Simon. Elias doesn't know where the bomb is except that it must be in the hotel somewhere. Liam evacuates everyone to the command center, including Senator Claire Haas and Clayton. Alex and Simon deduce with the wire they found in Alex' apartment and Simon's bomb plans that the bomb is in the boiler room. As Miranda looks as the bomb squad defuses it, Elias does not want to be arrested and chooses to go out the hotel window, thus ending his life. The bomb is safely defused, so Simon lets go of the trigger. However, that leads to another bomb going off. That bomb was at the command center, with various people inside including Claire, Clayton, Shelby and possibly Caleb, Liam and Raina. The fates of these characters are left unknown.

Review
I was so frustrated when I first watched this episode! We were told before the episode aired that we would find out the identity of the bomber or Grand Central Terminal. While we did learn that Elias was involved, we know he is not the mastermind. I kept waiting the entire episode for the reveal of the

terrorist, but Elias was all we got. This feels like cheating on the promotional part of the episode. The promos said we would find out the identity of the bomber and the interviews said the same. Technically, the creator did not lie since we did find out the identity of a terrorist, but this just feels so misleading! Also, there are many questions that are still unanswered. Was Elias the one who grabbed Alex? If we look at their conversation, it looks like this: Alex: "You drugged me and then took me back to Grand Central, put me on that rubble." Elias: "That wasn't me. I was gone by then. I never thought the bomb was real. I thought I was just setting you up for an attempt." The way I see it, Elias did grab Alex in that van, but he did not bring her to Grand Central after the attack. But was he also the one who got Alex' fingerprints at the academy? That cannot have been the case, since Elias said the mastermind only called him a week ago. All in all, the episode did not provide the reveal that it had promised the viewers and instead gave us only more questions.

With that frustration out of the way, let's look at the actual contents of this episode. If you would have watched this episode without having seen the promos or read all the interviews, you would probably not be so frustrated. And when I look at the episode without thinking about the underwhelming reveal, the episode was pretty good. It was good, but still not awesome. The Quantico part dragged the episode down a bit, especially when we saw the four women getting drunk and all that. Honestly, that is not something I care about and they could have left that out. I think this also ties in with the general problem the show has. It has that thriller aspect and all the tension surrounding the bombings, but then there are these soapy elements as well. The pilot episode was a good mix between thrilling and developing its characters. I totally approve of character development, but then don't only show the characters' sex lives. I believe it would do the show good if it only focused on the thriller aspect and would stop the high school behavior at the academy. Anyway, I really liked Claire Haas and think she brings an interesting dynamic to the show with the political aspect. Also, the acting was great in this episode, particularly by Tate Ellington. He showed us a Simon at his most vulnerable, willing to let go off that trigger so that everything would go away. And of course the cliffhanger at the end was a great ending, although I hope that they won't kill off everyone who was there. I think Clayton will die, he seems the most likely to me.

As you can see, I have not included the character board not have I included the terrorist wall. Since we don't always learn new things about every character in every episode, it has become a bit easier to recap the episodes. And I have dropped the terrorist wall, because we now know of Elias' involvement despite a whole lot of questions being left unanswered. If you guys really want to see these things again, say so in the comments and I can always include them again.

What did you think of "Inside"? Are you as frustrated as I am? What did you think of the introduction of Claire Haas? Do you think Elias told the truth about his involvement in the bombings? Do you have any idea who the mastermind is? Doesn't Caleb look very suspicious? And lastly, who do you think died in the bombing at the command center? Leave your thoughts and theories in the comment section below.

Quantico returns Mach 6 on ABC.

About the Author - Daniel van der Veer

Daniel van der Veer is a Dutch university student studying Psychology. On SpoilerTV he is a reviewer of NCIS, The 100, Madam Secretary and Quantico. He also enjoys LOST, Arrow, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, Nikita, The Blacklist, Scorpion and How To Get Away With Murder.

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