Scorpion - Foul Balls - Review: "Way Down South in the Cemetery"
3 Apr 2018
KP Reviews ScorpionJocks and Nerds. Who will triumph?
Scorpion picks up with the team having it out regarding the profit distribution for Happy's wench. Walter sent out a memo and he's keeping basically all of it. Happy and Toby each get .75% of the profits, Sly gets .70%, Paige gets 1% (But, most of that is really Ralph's. Walter just had to put it in her name, because, you know...child labor laws!) and Cabe doesn't get any. Walter decides to call everyone's favorite mail-order MD Cecil in to help them work things out. Cabe also gets a call from Director Carson right at the same time.
Today's the championship game for the Federal Government Softball League and part of the CIA softball team Homeland is supposed to play has been kidnapped in Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, the FBI is "busting a drug ring in Colorado. ATF's intercepting a firearms shipment in the Gulf. Even the Department of Agriculture's dealing with a boll weevil problem in Texas." With all the replacement teams busy and Carson refusing to forfeit, that leaves Scorpion.
They refuse, but Carson threatens to yank their government contract. And being that this is the guy who tried to lock him up, Cabe marches right up and makes a bet. If Scorpion wins, Homeland will double what they get paid. If Homeland wins, Carson's taking away their government clearance.
Cecil shows up about then and gets drafted for the team. As they have no equipment, Cabe contacts his old friend Jonesy at the LAPD, who offers to let them raid the evidence locker. They've just busted a frat house for bookmaking, and have tons of sports equipment on hand. Walter and Cabe go to the evidence locker to get the equipment while the rest of the team heads to the ball-field. And then they lose the key and get locked in it...
At the field, the team, rounded out by Flo, Patty, and Sly's cape-wearing geek bestie Dyefrost, get ready to play ball. They're issued "uniforms" (aka orange jumpsuits from the Department of Corrections surplus). Happy tells Toby that when she stopped back by the Garage the other night to get her saw she saw Florence getting into the car with Walter. Sly commiserates that growing up, all the jocks got to pick their trophies from the trophy case after a big game and go out to Ernesto's tacos while he got wedgie after wedgie. Flo gets terrify-ling close to coming to blows with the other team (apparently she didn't have the best experience with the jocks in school either). And Walter and Cabe are nowhere to be found.
In the evidence locker, Walter figures out he can use the solar battery from a calculator they found in the locker to charge a satellite phone they've also found. It's going to be a slow process though.
Meanwhile, Scorpion is getting creamed - over and over again. Defacto team captain Paige gives a speech about how as geniuses, they should be able to use math and science to win the game. This gets everyone thinking. If they steam Homeland's balls in the steamer at the Italian restaurant nearby, they can make them heavier so Homeland won't be able to hit them as hard or as far. Patty eagerly sets out to steal Homeland's balls. (Because, as Toby points out, being tardy is apparently a mortal sin, but stealing is a-okay. Happy decides to rig the collision sensors off Homeland's government issued SUVs to their jumpsuits, so they'll know when they're directly lied up with approaching balls. Sly hacks Carson's tablet where he records all the games so he can analyze the player's moves.
Walter is finally able to get the sat phone charged and call for help, but since Scorpion's already down a player with Toby's running the balls to the restaurant steamer, Paige tells them they're on their own. Walter decides he can pound the pimp jewelry in the evidence locker into a key blank and make a new key.
Back at the field, Flo is up to bat and actually makes a hit. But when she goes to run the bases the two Homeland agents start throwing the ball back and forth between each other just to mess with her and leaving her stuck between bases. So, she decks one of them.
As Sly hauls Florence off the field, Paige reminds the rest of the team that with science on their side, they have a chance. And they actually start holding their own!
Happy takes the bat. When the pitcher knocks her out with an illegal pitch, Flo goes running out to body-slam yet another Homeland agent. But before she can get there, Happy is up and tackling her. She blasts a confused Florence about her trying to break up the team by getting between Walter and Paige. Although the ref thinks he should throw someone out, he's so bewildered by the fact that one teammate attacked another, he just gives up.
Walter finishes making the key but breaks it when he tries to put it in the lock and jams the lock. Cabe tries to ram into the gate and open it. When Walter goes to pull him off, Cabe shoves away from him, and the key falls out of Walter's pocket. Although he tries to pretend like he must've forgotten it was there, Cabe knows better. Walter admits that he tried to keep them from making it the game because he doesn't want Cabe to see him play. Growing up, his father never took any interest in his scientific pursuits, but the year he signed up for soccer, his father suddenly became interested. While playing a game, with his father in the stands, Walter kicked the ball into the wrong net and saw how ashamed his father was of him. Walter says he's "not strong enough to withstand embarrassing two father in one lifetime."
In order to score, the team tampers with their own balls, but Homeland catches on, and they're all forced to start playing with the same ones. Meanwhile, Walter and Cabe finally arrive, although Walter's still unwilling to play. Happy runs off then and comes back having kidnapped a famous L.A. Dodger who was signing autographs nearby. Although she convinces him to stay because the fate of the world might be resting on this softball game and all, Homeland all but rolls him the ball to keep Scorpion from using their new player to get any runs and after one try, he's heading for the hills, yelling about how "these people are nuts!"
Happy continues to confront Florence about her night out with Walter, and Toby, Cabe, Sly, and Patty are eventually brought into the situation as well. When they finally confront Walter, he tells them it was a white lie to protect Paige and that he and Florence have no feelings for each other (which is about all Sly cares about!). Toby urges him to tell Paige what happened.
Scorpion is nearing the end when Cecil goes up to bat and "pulls a hamstring." Cabe apparently told him why Walter doesn't want to play and Cecil becomes determined to get him out on the field. Telling Walter that taking the bat is the only way he'll really ever overcome his fear, Cecil hands him the bat and leaves him to it.
Before going up to the plate, Walter gives the rest of the team a speech apologizing for the wench profit fiasco and stating that if this is the last day, he doesn't want them to spend it fighting each other. He tells them how grateful he is to have them as his team.
As Walter goes up to bat, he crushes a dandelion in his hand and spreads it right in front of the Homeland catcher, who'd mentioned that his allergies were acting up earlier. It takes him until the third swing, but he leaves the catcher a sneezing mess and finally makes a hit.
This leaves Cabe to bat. Carson keeps pitching fouls, aiming to get rid of Cabe, so the only person he'll have to pitch to is Patty, who, in Toby's words, "is a great kid, but only thing she ever hit was a shift key!" Toby tells Cabe to channel his anger from his arrest and rile Carson up. Carson finally pitches, and Cabe gets it, which allows Ralph, who's been stuck on a base, to make it home.
Walter dives for home as well, but doesn't quite touch the base before Carson seemingly gets the ball back. For a second, it looks like all is lost and Homeland won the game, but then Walter reveals that Carson actually missed catching the ball. His mitt is empty and Scorpion wins! The crew runs out onto the field to celebrate before (quite appropriately) picking out their trophies from the trophy case and celebrating at the local Ernesto's taco hut!
Random Thoughts:
-Patty keeping popping up behind the stands when everyone was gossiping about Walter and Florence and just being like "been here a while" was too funny.
-I just about rolled when Ralph started yelling for help and Paige said: "I'm never having grandkids." Poor Paige!
-Best lines both go to Happy - when she tells Toby about Florence and Walter ("The pixie wasn't wearing her normal clothes from the young boys' department.") and when the Dodger runs off ("Well I kidnapped someone for nothing!")
Is Walter's night out with Florence going to come out soon? How will Paige take it? Let me know what you think below!
Sign Up for the SpoilerTV Newsletter where we talk all things TV!