FBI: International - Voice of the People - Review

As we head back into our regular schedule after the winter break, let’s recap what was happening with our FBI Fly Team before the holidays.

This episode opens with Vo and her beau Lucas in bed. Lucas wants her to skip work and go to a festival with him. She tells him she is tempted but she has to work. As they are walking up to the outdoor festival, they run into Raines. He teases her about quitting and Vo says goodbye to Lucas and he goes toward the stages. As Raines and Vo are walking away, there is an explosion and they start to run back but there is another big explosion.

They are knocked onto the ground from the blast and slowly get up, unharmed other than their ears ringing. Raines says he thinks the explosion was ammonium nitrate based on the blast and smell in the air. Vo runs in to look for Lucas and try to help the injured. She finds him and his leg is bleeding due to some embedded shrapnel. She makes a tourniquet for him. She then goes to try to help others.

Raines and Vo arrive at the office, dirty and shocked, and realize they are alone. Raines says they need to get cleaned up. Vo tells Raines not to worry and says she will be ready to work. Forrester, Kellett and Katrin Jaeger arrive at the Hungarian police station, and meet up with a Captain who trained for some time with Scott. So far no one has taken credit yet for the bombings. They look at the locations of the bombs and those injured in the bombing, and discover visitors from multiple countries and five Americans were killed in two main locations. The bombs seemed to be targeting the VIP section with remote detonation.

Forrester checks in to make sure Vo and Raines are ok and asks if they need some time. This was a very endearing moment that really shows how much he cares about the physical and mental well-being of the team as their leader. They share that the sponsor of festival, Bartalan Agostan, died in bombing. The analysis they receive shows it was ammonium nitrate that was a main component of the bombs. They search for companies who would have ammonium nitrate in Budapest and only one company, Buda Petrochemical, manufactures it as it is hard to acquire in Hungary. As they are leaving, Tank seems off and is just laying there…Jamie suggests maybe all the noise from the bombs had him shaken.

Scott and Jamie go to Buda Petrochemical to question company executives. They speak to Bill Davies, who is the manager of plant. He says everything is made in house, including the ammonium nitrate and he says there were complaints and customer relations issues and they are managing it. He reluctantly gives them the list of biggest customers who purchase the ammonium nitrate, which the team checks out.

One of the biggest buyers, Victoria Burn, had recently had  her company's funding pulled by Tremanis (Agostan’s company). She bought a VIP ticket that morning and walked away from bombing without a scratch. Scott and Jamie go to question her and she says she left thirty minutes before the bombs went off as she had a meeting. She says she has been under scrutiny for taking American money, and she and Bartalan were close. When Jamie asks, she explains she has had an increase in her orders with Buda Petrochemical to make fertilizer for a new greenhouse, and that she is looking for a new supplier.  Victoria explains that she complained to Buda Petrochemical because the orders were short 10-15kg of ammonium nitrate each time, and she will not be swindled. She gives them the records of the short orders to follow up.

Davies tells Jamie that the complaints and discrepancies were for weight discrepancies and that orders are weighed numerous times before leaving and therefore skimming must happen after it leaves Buda-Petrochemical. Jamie requests information regarding who does their deliveries and they realize the amount taken was about 200kg which is enough for 2 more bombs.

Vo speaks to Lucas and he had 34 stitches in his leg and three fractures in arm. She is petting Tank who is still looking unwell. Raines has been researching the delivery company and they find delivery person Elek Simko, who they believe is the possible bomber.  The tactical unit helps Scott and Jamie to search his apartment. They find gasoline and ammonium nitrate traces. They send out alerts on the man and his vehicle. They also find protest group literature in his recycle box.

Vo goes to see Lucas in hospital. He is traumatized by what he saw and Vo promises she will help turn over every rock to find who is responsible. Vo asks if he has family coming and he says his brother is coming. He asks her to stay until his brother comes but she says she has to go as the case is moving to fast. In this scene, it really showed the struggle Vo is having between a new relationship and her job, and her struggling with her feelings for Lucas as they go through something deeper and more traumatic together.

Raines provides some more background about Elek Simko. He was fired by Buda Petrochemical. The sponsors of the festival had bought out the company and he has been having to train the robot replacing him. He also had his wife leave him and she took the kids. Vo offers to help Scott with questioning the ex-wife and they head out to question her. Vo tells Forrester that she has a personal conflict with the case and the person she is seeing was injured but that her mind is with the case. Vo asks Scott how he manages relationships and the job. He says before Jamie, his longest relationships were maybe six months or less. He says there was a distance that was just to wide for him between the job and anything else. I thought that this scene really showed an emerging vulnerability we are being shown with Scott, and also that he genuinely wants to help his team with all their struggles. This scene also did a good job showing how Scott views his relationship with Jamie differently than all the others he has had in the past, but delivering this in a subtle way.

Simko's ex-wife, Irena, says Elek was a good man and husband. They were married 16 years. At first she denies that anything was wrong with her husband and says it was her that changed. She says he was worried about the future when he got his notice. He had trouble finding a job and so she took one, but the money was not enough so she told him it would be fine and they would move to a smaller flat. Elek then started to become angry all the time and started going out at all hours. She tells them that she followed him once and found him going to protests and that is when she left.

There is a big shake of the house and they go look out the door and see a big mushroom cloud in the distance. Forrester and Kellett go quickly to the site of the bombing. It was a new building owned by the company responsible for automating Buda Petrochemical. Scott says Elek is targeting everyone he feels is responsible.

Octavius Varga, is a local professor and calls himself the voice of the people, and it was his protest literature that Elek had in his home. The team finds ongoing online communication between Varga and Simko for several months. Jamie and Scott question Varga following a protest. He at first denies knowing Elek but then admits he knows him. Scott tries to find out what he told him and he tells Scott he told Elek what he tells all his followers, which is that Hungarians should fight back against the imperialists. He tells Scott he does not know who Elek is targeting and that the real enemies are those who are buying and selling his country.

Scott says he believes Elek is heading to the first place that wronged him which is Buda Petrochemical, and Jamie says if he blows it up it would be a 3.3 richter scale explosion that would take out an entire district. Scott activates the bomb squad to meet them there.

As they arrive, the police tell them that they have already checked the warehouse and the plant. A car drives up and they find the manager inside and he has been beaten. They find out Elek is targeting a dinner with all the key top executives from Buda Petrochemical. They use old style radios so they can jam the cell signals from the air and Scott says they will have to surprise him to catch him. Vo sees him and he tries to detonate the bomb but the cell signal is jammed. They chase him as he heads to the restaurant to detonate the bomb manually. Vo corners Elek and a hand to hand fight ensues with him. She and Scott arrest him. Elek says he was sacrificing himself for his people and Scott says he killed innocent people and he sacrificed nothing.

Back at the office, the team are watching footage of bombings and the Hungry for Hungarians movement. Scott tells them that Hungary is thankful for their help, and Vo says sadly the movements message will still be out there. Scott tells them a story about a tragedy in Oklahoma city and how no one remembers the militants message or cause and how what people remember is the first responders. He says in a few weeks the news will turn to something else, but the people will remember the heroism that saved more lives.

Varga was brought in and he says they cannot hold him unless they charge him. Scott tells him that the responsibility of the deaths from the bombs is his because he radicalized a man, and Varga says he is not legally responsible for the man who took his message and interpreted it differently. Scott says there are 14 deaths and counting and the blood is on his hands. The police then cuff him and he says they cannot arrest him.  Scott tells him that at one of his protests where they run raffles for money, Elek had won, and that is viewed as funding terrorism and so they arrest and charge him.

Vo asks Raines if he has dated anyone in Budapest and he tells her a story about a few women he dated. He says that he was told not to get serious about anyone in this job until he is ready to settle down. The emerging friendship between these two characters is really charming, and something that will be a great ongoing storyline for the writers to develop.

Vo goes to the hospital and sees Lucas with his brother. She decides not to go into the room and leaves. The episode ends closes on her by the train, watching an older couple interacting, alone.

It will be great to see where our Wolf writers will take these characters now that the holiday break is over. Will Scott and Jamie get even more serious? Will Lucas and Vo stay together after this tragedy they experienced? My biggest question after this episode however would be is Tank okay? We can't have FBI: International without him!

Let us know what you thought about this episode in the comments below.