FBI: International – Fed to the Sharks – Review

As we draw close to the end of this season, we should be preparing for a typical Wolf Entertainment season finale, which likely will include a big cliffhanger.

To recap this episode, we open in Cascais, Portugal at a hotel. A body is found by guests on the beach and the manager tells a staff member to call the police while she goes to find the owner. When she does not answer the door they enter her room, and find her with blood on her dress.

The team briefs about the case at the office. Zoey McKenna is back and meets Damien Powell. Alexis Prescott, daughter of Miles Prescott, was in charge at the hotel, when Alfonso Mendes washed up on the beach with two gunshot wounds to the chest. DNA results on the blood found on her dress are still pending. Her father is friends with the ambassador to Portugal and that is why they have been asked to consult. McKenna’s former supervisor Nate Eddings is a lead out of Portugal and says it is pretty tricky to navigate there. The ambassador likes everything to go through him and is not opposed to playing favorites. McKenna knows the operating environment and is going to go with them. The team heads out.

They arrive at the US Embassy in Portugal and are greeted by Nate. Vo goes with McKenna and the rest of the team head out to question Alexis, and Vo says they went to the judicial police but Eddings says she is at the resort and being detained there instead. Miss Prescott's fiancé Peter Capnell is also at the hotel and wants to speak to them. McKenna says she will call Forrester and get him up to speed. Eddings sets them up in a secure room to work out of.

The rest of the team goes to the hotel. Forrester and Kellett meet Artur DeSousa, who is the police superintendent and lead investigator. He says in 30 years he has never dealt with someone with as high a profile as Miss Prescott and Kellett asks about the leniency, and he says his hand was forced by Ambassador Bendall, who is close friends with her father. Alexis says her real lawyer in enroute from New York with her dad, and asks if he has arrived yet. She says that she already gave her statement to the police, but Kellett says 'I don’t remember' may have been ok for the local police but not for a jury. Alexis says it was the last night of her bachelorette party and they had been partying for 3 straight days and she passed out around midnight and did not wake up until the manager knocked on her door and she does not know how she got the blood on her. Forrester tells her lying to them is a federal offence. She says she remembers one of her bridesmaids cutting her hand when she knocked over a glass. She says she tried to be friendly to all her employees and she knew Alfonso, and she swears she does not remember anything. Scott tells the superintendent that he wants to speak to the party guests and he says so would they but by the time they found the body, all the guests were on flights back to the USA, and they are as frustrated as them.

Smitty and Powell are questioning the fiancé, and ask what he remembers from that night. He thinks the local cops have it out for Alexis, and they ask where he was between midnight and 6am and he says he was with his friends celebrating.  Smitty asks for their names and contact info. He starts speaking poorly about the victim and Smitty tells him to have some respect or fake some, because she is ready to throw him in the local jail.

Raines checks in on Vo, and asks if she is cool and he says if she ever is not will she tell him and she says yes. He meets with Fatema Haifi, the hotel manager, and he asks if she knows of any contact between Alexis and the victim, and she says looking out after her employer’s relationships is not one of her responsibilities. She takes him to Alfonso’s brother, Emmanuel. Raines asks if his brother was ever in trouble and he said no. He says he never spoke specifically about the Alexis, but mentioned the Americans were so lucky and did not appreciate it.

Scott and Jamie find evidence by the beach of where it appears Alfonso was shot and then dragged to the water. Scott is saddened by the circumstances. Raines asks Fatema about working for the Prescotts, and she says she got where she is with a little luck and a lot of hard work. Raines asks about discretion, and she says she had to use it when needed.

An officer brings Smitty, McKenna and Powell some items that were on the victims body, including a phone and it survived the water. Raines gets the passcode from the brother, and they open the phone. There is a number that he called 8 times the night he was shot, and it turns out to be Alexis’s phone. They find a whole string of texts that show Alexis and the victim were sleeping together. The DNA results for the blood on her dress come back and are a match for Alfonso and the police take Alexis away. She says Alfonso took her compliments on his work the wrong way and started texting and calling her and she reported him to Frances Crane, head of labor relations, as per company policy. She said he had not heard from Alfonso for a week, but they call her bluff by reading her some of their texts, so she tells them he came over after the guests left and was aggressive and his knuckles were all scraped up and he must have grabbed her dress.

Smitty and Powell speak to Frances Crane. He says he advised Mr. Mendes that his future was likely not with this company. They ask if he thinks Alexis could have taken things into her own hands, and he says no. They ask about Peter, and he says he does not feel he could have done it either.

Peter is upset when the affair is revealed to him and he starts packing and says now that his fiancé is in jail, obviously their wedding is not happening. They tell him he is a person of interest and will be held.

Fatema tells Raines that none of the staff will talk to them, because they are worried about being shipped out. They get into Mendes email, and he was going to send an email to every media outlet telling them about the working conditions in the hotel that would have shut them down.

They use the videos to confirm the fiance’s alibi. They also learn that Crane always settles the issues at all the hotel sites, but a few months ago, a worker died on the redevelopment site. Jane Fielding, lead on the legal team for Alexis, says they are done speaking to any authorities and Miles Prescott says he will speak to them on his yacht.

Miles Prescott says his daughter was clearly set up. They ask about the letter and he says it was clearly a shake down. They ask about Frances Crane and he says he is a model employee. They say he has complaints by every police department at every hotel he works, and Prescott says he never knew. He says if any of his employees are behind the murder, he will not cover it up for any reason.

The team and superintendent ask Frances Crane about the gun he owns and ask him to open his safe. He refuses so Fatema opens it and they find the gun inside. He is arrested. He says he does not know how the gun got in the safe. They ask how he knew to check the safe, and the superintendent says they got a tip.

Crane says he has been served up by Miles Prescott. He did not know Alexis was sleeping with Alfonso and that she called and said she was being harassed so he gave him 500 euros and told him to skip town. He says Alexis had a bad experience with a ride share driver and asked him for protection and said she would feel safer if she had something to carry with her, so he got her the gun. He says Miles knew about the gun. He says Miles wanted him to keep tabs on his daughter and he always did what he asked and he is now being fed to the sharks.

They deduce that likely Prescott called them to the yacht to make sure they were not at the hotel and likely summoned Crane too, and then had the gun planted and made the anonymous call. Smitty says Alexis is being released and her father’s jet is fueled to ready to take off in 45 minutes from a private airfield. Raines goes to see Fatema about 2 minutes of missing footage on the camera, and he says that he knows how hard she has worked, and asks for her help. She says she does not know who touched the file but the original will be in the backup system, and gives it to him. She says there is more from that morning. She says she saw Alexis and Alfonso arguing and saw her pull the gun from her purse. She did not see her shoot him though. Fatema goes to the station with Raines to give a full statement and Powell and Smitty go to try to stop the plane. They get there in time and arrest Alexis.

They tell Prescott that it could take 2 years to get to trial and if she pleads guilty the Portugal courts will likely help look kindly on that. They give him 5 minutes with her. Alexis confesses that Alfonso was going to send that email and bring down the whole company including her and her dad and she saw her world falling apart and said she just wanted for him to leave her alone. She says she stashed the gun in a terracotta pot and she does not know how it ended up in Crane’s safe.

Smitty tells Crane when he is released that she could help him get an attorney but he says no need. Forrester says they are going to fly out tomorrow and to enjoy the resort for the evening.

Vo and Powell are in the pool and she tells him life is messy and she is thinking that is okay. He says he likes being with her and she says she was going to say the same thing. They kiss.

So there were a few key themes that we saw in this episode. The first was the distain that the Fly Team had for rich Americans who did not seem to have respect for the hotel workers or local people in Portugal. Clearly for several of them, including Smitty and Raines in particular, the arrogant attitudes and entitlement of Alexis and her fiancé and family seem to really cause them anger. This is likely related to their own pasts and previous experiences with people of entitlement, and may also be related to their own feelings regarding equality and justice, but there is no doubt that it was definitely causing them to have a heightened reaction to the circumstances of the case.

The second theme was the friendship and caring the team has for each other, in particular Raines and Vo. I thought it was sweet how Raines was observing the interactions between Vo and Powell and then told her if she needed any support or help, he was there for her. It was also sweet for Smitty (as the newest member of the team before him) to check in on how things are going for Powell with the team. It definitely seems true that they really have become a makeshift family while abroad.

The third was seeing the evolution of Vo and Powell, and how their relationship seemed to shift a bit as Vo tried to hide the fact that they were seeing each other and was fearful that Powell would reveal something to the team. It is also wonderful to see them on the same page and enjoying each other’s company.

With tense cases and romance in the air, it certainly is going to be a spectacular finale next week so be sure to tune in!!

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