The Enemy Within - Black Bear - Review

Need a refresher? Read my recap of the previous episode here.

The second episode of The Enemy Within opens with a high-stakes attempted robbery on a crowded subway train. Dean Merriman tries to escape with his laptop but is, unfortunately, shot dead by his assailants.

As the case lands at the FBI. Keaton wants to call in Erica Sherpherd. His team is wary of his newfound dependence on her but he points out she's already helped them save someone's life (Anna) and given them valuable intel into Mikhail Tal. Plus, Merriman was one of her former operatives.

The only catch is, Erica doesn't want to work with the FBI until she knows for certain her daughter is going to be safe. "Kepe my daughter safe, I'll help you kill him."

Will Hart/NBC

Meanwhile, Anna is called back in to speak with the agents about her own ordeal from the pilot episode. Agent Cabrera comes with her and he has some choice words for Will about maintaining a working relationship with Shepherd. Cabrera comes from the CIA and he doesn't want to work with a traitor. But Anna disagrees, she's willing to help the FBI no matter what, well she has to since she's a mole for Tal! But she plays up the shy waif thing quite well.

Outside of the current case, they have Viktor Nemec, one of Tal's associates, in custody. Daniel is pretty sure he can get him to turn before the day is done.

Back to Merriman's case, Kate begins running through surveillance footage to try and find the guys who killed him. Erica points out they're looking in the wrong place. It's more important to find out what was on Merriman's laptop that Tal wanted so badly.

Will Hart/NBC

The hunt for the intelligence leads them to his storage unit. Erica gets to tag along since she knows where it is and what to look for when they get there. They learn Dean was working for a company called IVS Analytics and from there they're able to pinpoint the next target, Beverly Brooks. They need to get to her before Tal's men do.

When they arrive, it doesn't take long for them to start attacking Beverly. She rushes to try and upload Dean's case file on Tal to a remote server but is unable to do so before one of the men throw a grenade. Will barely has time to rescue them both, nonetheless the laptop.

The only thing Beverly knows is a location, "Sierra Maestra," a mountain range in Cuba that Dean had asked her to look into before she died.

Will Hart/NBC

Erica doesn't recognize the name, and if she's telling the truth, that means the entire mission was mostly a bust for the FBI. Erica had better luck since Will was able to orchestrate a meeting with her daughter. It doesn't last long, Hannah goes from talking about learning to drive to accusing her mother of tearing apart their family and begs her to tell her what happened but Erica refuses, sending Hannah home in tears. But still, for Erica, all that matters is she was able to see her in person.

In the final scenes of the episode, Anna pays Nemec a visit and murders him. I have to say, she does a pretty shoddy job of it. First of all, she strangles him with a cord and leaves it tied there, I guess to look like a suicide? Second, her fingerprints are all over the bars and the cord AND she messed with the security footage so they're going to know someone was in there! I wonder if this will get addressed or if we'll chalk it up to "willful suspension of belief."

Virginia Sherwood/NBC

Odds & Ends

- Erica left her hat for Hannah when she escaped. Hannah finds it and a note tucked inside about how much Erica loves her.

- Is Erica a good guy? At first I thought she definitely was, but this episode paints her as more morally grey. She delivers a great line to Keaton about trust when he asks her why he should believe her story about making a choice to protect her daughter and not actually spying for Tal: "You shouldn't, you shouldn't trust me agent Keaton, you shouldn't trust anyone, not when it comes to Mikhail Tal." Carpenter is excellent at playing morally grey so I'm interested in this development.

A new episode of The Enemy Within titled "The Ambassador's Wife" premieres March 11th on NBC.