It seems we've reached the end of the road, Scorpion fans. Although the last two episodes of Season Four obviously weren't planned to be the series's send-off, "Kenny and the Jet" and "A Lie in the Sand" nevertheless serve as wonderful reminders of what makes the series so lovable, and allow us to truly see how the characters have changed in the four years since we've met them.
"Kenny and the Jet" starts off with Cabe, Ralph, Paige, and Sly on a plane back from Hawaii, where Sly pitched his water-filtration system to the Navy. At the Garage, Walter is making a pro/con chart to solve the "emotional equation" about whether he should tell Paige about his night out with Flo. Happy, meanwhile, is busy living dangerously, after finding out that the procedure didn't take and she's not pregnant. And Toby's freaking out about Happy...
On the plane, Ralph is sulking about having to miss Patty's birthday party and Paige is busy fending off Skymall-style gifts that Walter keeps buying and having brought to her. Cabe notices the air marshal is acting strange, and upon investigating, finds out that a cell phone signal has turned on from the cargo hold. It could just be that a phone was jostled and turned on, or it could be a triggering device for a bomb. Yikes...
Sly is able to build a DVT antenna from things on the airplane that they use to scan each piece of luggage in the hold. As Cabe, Sly, and the air marshal scan the luggage, one of the suitcases seems to be it. But, when Cabe looks in the suitcase, it's discovered there's nothing there and that the signal must be coming from directly below in the wheel well. When the antenna is run over the floor, they find what the signal is. Except, it's not a bomb, it's a kid with a cell phone stowed away in the wheel well.
With the boy unconscious and fading from the cold, Scorpion goes to work figuring out who he is and how to get him out. Walter finds a missing person report just issued for a 13-year-old out of Honolulu - Kenny Layton. The pilot discovers there's a Joseph Layton on the flight. Turns out, Kenny is Joseph's son. Joseph was visiting him in Hawaii, where he's recently moved with his mother, and it seems like Kenny's decided to try to make it back to LA to live with his dad.
The team figures out that if the plane descends to 5000 feet, the air pressure inside and outside the plane will be equivalent and it will be safe to cut a hole in the cargo hold floor to get to Kenny. Unfortunately, that's not possible until the pilot is able to fly out of an approaching storm, so Scorpion sets to keeping Kenny alive until they can rescue him. In order for Kenny to gain consciousness, he'll have to be warmed up. Happy figures out that they can use the plane deicing system to warm Kenny up, although Paige will have to shut off a governor in the cabin ceiling that prevents the pilot from engaging it.
Sly says they can use the overhead compartments that make the emergency oxygen to create an exothermic reaction that could keep Kenny alive, but to get it to him, they'll need a delivery system. Happy and Toby, who have gone to the airport to examine another plane of the same model, find a way to use the fire extinguishers to put the oxygen into the wheel well. Ralph, meanwhile, is able to rig the plane's wifi to connect to Kenny's cell phone so they can communicate with him once he wakes up.
The oxygen delivery system works and Kenny wakes up to Ralph's phone call. The connection is patchy, so Walter has Kenny try to move up higher to strengthen it. Unfortunately, when he does this, he accidentally dislodges a wire that sets the engine on fire. The pilot isn't able to kill the shorted engine, so the fire keeps going.
Happy decides that if they can manually fence the fuel in, they can stop it from reaching the bad engine and stoking the fire. Sly and Cabe are able to find the valve to stop the fuel and take the engine offline.
With the fire out and the plane passing the storm, the team gets ready to rescue Kenny. As the pilot starts to descend to 5000 ft, Walter realizes that there's no way for the plane to make it to LA with one engine if they lower to 5000 ft, because being at 5000 ft will burn 75% more fuel. Walter decides that they'll have to cut into the wheel well at the normal altitude. In order not to cause a decompression event that will crash the plane when this happens, they'll have to create an airlock. In the sealed chamber, they'll be able to safely cut into the wheel well without affecting the rest of the plane.
Sly says they can modify the baggage container and use it as the airlock. Inside their makeshift airlock, Cabe and Paige cut through to the wheel well. As Paige lowers herself down to grab Kenny, the airlock is unsealed by turbulence, leaving the whole plane in danger.
Although Cabe is able to seal the hole, which restores the plane to safety, Paige and Kenny are now both stuck in the wheel well, as the rope to pull them up went down with them when the airlock was unsealed. Although Paige and Kenny should, in theory, have a second to unseal the hole and get up into the cargo hold as the plane reaches 5000 ft during its final descent, Paige knows there's no way Kenny will be able to climb up there quick enough, which means that when the wheel well opens and the landing gear gets into place, they'll fall straight out of the plane.
Paige reasons that she can tie them to something. Happy finds a ledge that Paige can tie them to, but the rope won't reach. Paige says she'll tie the rope around her and Kenny and hold onto the ledge when the plane descends to keep them from falling. The whole team says the odds of her actually being able to hold on to the ledge are nearly impossible. It seems like the only option though...
As the wheel well opens and the plane begins to land, Paige holds on for dear life (literally). As the plane lands on the runway, Happy and Toby race up next to it on her motorcycle, in a scene that definitively hearkens back to the original plane landing in the pilot. And although no one sees Paige and Kenny for a moment, the firefighters find them safely still holding on in the wheel well.
Back at the Garage, Toby begs Happy to stop doing crazy stuff that might get her killed. Happy explains that the reason she's doing all these dangerous "bucket-list" items, is because the number one item on her bucket-list (to have a baby) doesn't seem to be happening. Toby suggests that she go for some less dangerous bucket-list items, which she agrees to. Sly gets a call saying the Navy wants to order his water filtration system, and Cabe encourages him to keep beating the odds by asking Florence out.
On the subject of asking out, Ralph admits his feelings to Patty and asks her on a date. Although she's flattered, she says there's too big of an age difference. Walter, meanwhile, keeps going back and forth about whether or not he should tell Paige about going to the lecture with Florence, but ultimately decides to not to say anything for now and just keep feeling guilty. Uh-oh
Random Thoughts:
-Happy's Spider-Man landing when she and Toby were in the other plane's wheel well was awesome.
-Best lines of the night go to Ralph and Paige when Ralph is talking about asking Patty out. Ralph:"It's time we took our relationship to the next level, do what the big kids do." Paige:"You don't...mean..." Ralph:"Yes, movies and go-carting." Poor Paige, I think Ralph about gave her a heart attack!
At the beginning of the last episode, we once again see Scorpion doing what they've done best all these years - driving each other crazy! Happy and Toby are busy prepping for the next round of fertility treatments, and Paige is trying to score tickets to see the speaker from the "canceled" lecture Walter "didn't" go to. Happy and Toby urge Walt to come clean to Paige, saying the longer he waits to tell her he went to the lecture with Florence, the more suspicious it will seem.
Walter doesn't seem to think that it's a big deal, but that's a problem for another time. Sly's heard from his pen-pal in Northeast Africa. The elder negotiating peace talks for their village is dying of heart failure and the fuel powering his ventilator is running out. If the elder dies before the peace talks can be completed, the militants will move in. The only road going to the fuel depot has been destroyed by mortar fire. There is a pass through the mountains that can access the depot, but it's covered in landmines left over from a war in the 80s. And that's where Team Scorpion comes in.
There's a way to map the explosives that leaked into the soil using a bacteria that will eat the leaks, thereby causing the soil above to glow green, providing them with a safe path to the fuel depot.
Once they meet up with Sly's penpal Alex in his village, Toby decides to stay behind at the clinic, as he's beginning to suspect that the elder doesn't actually have heart failure, but a treatable blood disease. Unfortunately, the medic supervising his care refuses to even consider Toby's diagnosis. Fortunately for Toby, he makes fast friends with Cala, a young woman assisting in the clinic, whom Sly's been secretly mailing Toby's old medical textbooks to.
Out on the pass, things seem to be going smoothly - until a sandstorm blows in that is. The group decides the only way to get back to the village before the fuel in the vent runs out is to outrun the sandstorm. (Yeah, sounds real realistic, right? But then again, this is Scorpion.)
This "outrunning the giant sandstorm" thing works for a while, but eventually, they're forced to stop. With the sandstorm blowing around them, the equipment they were using to locate and map the landmines is out. Sly reasons that if he can find a landmark, he can orient them and lead them out - treasure map style. But then the only landmark around, a very dead tree aptly named "The Tree of Life," blows away in the storm, so that plan's down the drain.
Back at the clinic, Toby and Kala improvise a blood test and secretly test the elder's blood for Polycythemia, which is the blood disease Toby thinks is the proper diagnosis. Even though they're able to show the medic that he does indeed have Polycythemia, the medic balks at what Toby says needs to be done to stabilize him and relieve the pressure on his heart until the correct meds can be delivered - draining his blood!
Back on the field, Walter realizes they can use the PVC pipes from earlier in their operation to create a makeshift minesweeper and detonate the landmines before they get to them. Again, this works for a while, but then one of the pipes on the "minesweeper" blows into Happy and Walt's vehicle, nearly impaling Happy and causing her to wreck. Although they're fine, Walter lands on a landmine and activates it. The only way to keep it from detonating and allowing him and Happy to move is to replace their weight in the car.
So the rest of the team takes to work piling enough sand into the car to equal both Happy and Walter's weight. Although they're able to pull Happy out pretty quickly, because Walter is so close to the landmine, this means that he must be briefly buried alive while they get enough sand in the car.
And for a second, things look grim. They yell for Walter to push through the sand and there's no movement. In the middle of all this, Paige tells him that he can't die with something unsaid between them, and she knows there is something he's not telling her. As she keeps yelling for him, he makes it through the sand! Paige and Happy get Walter to the car, where he admits that he's been keeping from Paige the fact that the lecture wasn't actually canceled. However, he leaves out the part about taking Florence with him...
As the team makes it the last little bit to the fuel station, Toby realizes that the only way to keep the elder alive long enough for the vent to make it back is to pull out his tube and hope enough blood drains before the medic reattaches it. When the medic attempts to stop him, Cala gets between them with a scalpel, causing the medic to have to call in reinforcements. Just as the police get there to arrest Toby and Cala, the elder wakes up, proving Toby's diagnosis was right all along!
By now, the rest of Scorpion has made it back to the village with the fuel. With the elder on the mend, Scorpion heads back to LA.
Back at the garage, Happy tells Toby that she wants to adopt a child, being inspired by Cala, who was adopted into the village after her childhood home and family was ravaged by militants. Toby's thrilled by the idea!
Sly is preparing to finally ask Florence out when Paige comes in demanding answers from Walter. She'd been planning to see if she could have Walter's book by the speaker autographed, and upon going to get it, found two tickets stubs inside of it. Just as Walter admits he went with someone, Florence walks in, having gotten Sly's message to come over and Paige figures out it was her.
A horrified Cabe breaks them up, and like the good dad he is, reminds them that family does not lay hands on each other. But, the wounds seem to already be too deep, and Sly quits then and there, as does Paige. Happy and Toby follow quickly, as both are extremely angry that Walter ignored their pleas to tell Paige the truth and keep the family from being ripped apart.
In the last scene, two weeks have passed. Walter, Florence, and Cabe, aka "Scorpion 2.0" pitch a project to a major company. Right after they pitch, their competitors get their turn - and it's Paige, Happy, Toby, and Sly, who have formed their own group.
Random Thoughts:
-Where was Ralph during all this?
-Best line goes to Cabe when he is talking to Sly as they leave the village. "You have character and heart, and sometimes you forget that."
Well, I put off writing the final review for a long time. First, because I didn't have time with the summer beginning. And then, because I didn't want to have to face such an incomplete ending. The truth is, we didn't get our conclusion. None of the loose ends were tied up and we're left wondering whether the team eventually found their way back to each other (I'd like to think they did.) Still, in terms of the mission, "Kenny and the Jet" and "A Lie in the Sand" are perfect Scorpion exploits - unbelievable, escapist, and at their core, stories about a group of misfits working to make the world a better place. Maybe we, as fans, didn't get the ending we wanted, but we did get four years of wonderful stories.
