ABC’s Quantico returned tonight with what seems like another roller coaster ride of a season. Season two begins by introducing us to two timelines. In one timeline we have a mysterious terrorist attack that seems like it could be an inside job, and in the other, we have a government agency training center. Plus, there’s an unusually young and good-looking cast, all staying together in said training facility. Sound familiar? It seems like Quantico has seen what works and is sticking to it - not that I’m complaining!
On a totally unrelated side-note, I’m going to review this as though I hadn’t seen the new title card “Quan2co”. I’m not even sure how that got cleared by anyone involved with the show but it’s clearly a terrible mistake that I’m going to ignore and hope goes away. Anyways, it seems like we’re picking things up after quite a substantial time jump. The present day timeline takes place a year after the CIA training timeline, which seems to be a good deal after the events of season one. A few of last season’s characters are back this time around, including Raina, Shelby, Miranda, Ryan, and of course, Alex. I do miss a few of the missing characters, especially Caleb, who we find out is studying at Berkeley Law. Showrunner, Josh Safran, said he wants to avoid the soapy romance stuff this season but I guess that only counts for couples that aren't Ryan and Alex (sorry - just a bitter Shaleb shipper over here…).
The premiere opens in the present day, with Alex casually buying some food on the street when she sees a series of white trucks driving by. This doesn't really sit well with her but she lets it go because she’s “sure it’s fine”. You’d think with her experience she’d know that it’s definitely not fine. Alex, as well as Ryan and Raina, are attending a global summit on ending government surveillance, which becomes the target of this season’s terrorist attack, and of course, the trucks Alex saw earlier are involved. This is a very well orchestrated attack, with multiple bombs going off simultaneously, creating a perimeter around the Summit. The goal of the terrorist group, known as The Citizen’s Liberation Front, is to get a number of people pardoned and released by various governments, including the US. However, it seems that these terrorists may not be exactly who they claim to be and at least a couple of them seem to know Ryan and Alex personally from their time CIA training. One of them is even a person Alex claims to have killed sometime in the past year. After threatening the First Lady, the President of the United States agrees to the demands, however, in the final chaotic moments it seems like she is beheaded anyway - we’re off to a very violent start.
While all of this is happening in the present day, we also spend a lot of time in flashbacks, which show how Ryan and Alex end up in CIA training camp. As we saw in the present, Ryan and Alex were engaged but have since broken up. However, a year prior, before starting CIA training, they were still together and very happy. However, when Alex gets a mysterious post-it note, she gets called away to the CIA, just before Ryan can propose to her. Alex, and the audience, are surprised when we see Ryan show up, considering we never saw him receive a note, and we saw a lot of people get notes. In a secret meeting with both Miranda and the head of the CIA, we find out that they both are going undercover at CIA training camp aka "The Farm". So I guess Alex is still part of the FBI and they just had to make it seem like she wasn’t for this undercover mission to work. I'm happy this is the direction they're going in and not having her actually join the CIA. Alex and Ryan's mission is to investigate the CIA for a group of people that have been taking things into their own hands and ignoring the law by doing things the old school way. Both Alex and Ryan were being such babies about being undercover together, which I found to be kind of out of character and irritating. At this point, they’re still together so it’s not like they’re awkwardly going in as exes. Plus, wouldn't they both rather not be separated or lying to the other person for an extended period of time. Their reaction just felt weird to me. I understand they want to be together after everything they’ve been through but even if either of them were on the mission alone they would be away from each other. At least this way they do actually get to be together, just with a bit of lying.
Throughout the episode we see Alex and Ryan go through a series of tests to determine if they can qualify for the real training and we meet a lot of new characters, none of which are really explored that deeply. The two new characters that are the most introduced, are Owen Hall, the lead instructor, and Lydia Bates, Alex’s immediate new friend, who later turns out to be one of the instructors only pretending to be a new recruit. Although these two were the most notable new characters, Harry Doyle, the British-American recruit, was also a standout for me and I really hope that he turns out to be a good guy because he seems really nice and funny so far. Anyways, by the end of the qualifying, Alex is at the bottom of the “Murder Board” and Ryan is at the top, which probably wasn’t too smart on his part because now he has a target on his back. Alex also has to watch out because she can’t be at the bottom of the list more than once or she’s out. It looks like she’s not the star trainee this time around.
One of the most perplexing parts of this episode, in addition to Alex and Ryan’s bizarre reaction to being placed together on this mission, was their reaction once they were actually in CIA training. Alex is so disturbed by Ryan being good at his job and slipping in and out of his cover so easily. First, shouldn't she be happy about that because he’ll be safer and less likely to be caught, and second, she says she can’t trust his feelings are real because of this but haven't they been through enough for her to know that he’s sincere? Anyways, by the end she seems to be totally over it and is says “six months of lying to each other - we’ve done that before” like it's no big deal. I can’t keep up with her. Towards the end of the episode, we see a cute scene between them where Ryan is about to propose but Alex stops him and wants to wait until after they’re done with the mission. It sounds less cute than it was, but it was actually really cute and I’m not even that into them.
Overall, I thought this was a solid, good premiere. So far, season two feels very much in parallel with season one. In fact, most of the characters feel like copies of characters from last season who just look different, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Again, the terrorist attack seems like an inside job, this time by a group of CIA people because everyone from training camp seems to be in the Summit room at the end of the episode. I have to say, I’m immediately more drawn to the training timeline but I felt the same way last season so I’m not surprised. As usual, this episode left me with more questions than answers, but I'm looking forward to seeing how everything plays out in future episodes. Also, tonight's episode felt less like an ensemble show and more like the Alex and Ryan show, so I’m interested in learning more information about the other trainees and hopefully also catching up with last season’s characters a bit more over the course of the season. So far, this was a strong, if not, familiar start from Quantico, and hopefully it can start to separate itself from last season in the coming weeks.
What did you think of the premiere? Vote in the poll below and then hit the comments to share your opinions. Thanks for reading!
About the Author - Kate Sidwell
Kate is a 25 year old, USA based, Psychology/Public Health Researcher - but that’s just her day job! In her spare time she is an avid TV watcher (some may even say addict!!). Some of her favorite shows are Jane the Virgin, Bates Motel, The Flash, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Rookie Blue, Silicon Valley, Beauty and the Beast, Sleepy Hollow, The 100, The Mindy Project, Pretty Little Liars, Once Upon a Time, The Royals, Orphan Black…so pretty much too many to count and a huge variety! She’ll give pretty much any show a chance! She also devotes a lot of time to her tumblr (
eat-sleep-breathe-tv.tumblr.com) where you can find her reviewing and commenting on most of these shows and just generally fangirling! She’s excited to be writing for SpoilerTV on This is Us, Secrets and Lies, Quantico, Baby Daddy, and Zoo.
