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Cyber-Terrorist-Fighting Nerds – Scorpion – Season 1 Episode 1 – “Pilot”

After seeing the trailer for this new series I was a little skeptical about watching Scorpion. I will have to say though that I was pleasantly surprised. The series opener wasn’t too overly filled with tropes about nerds solving cyber crimes, the plotline was surprisingly linear (not many flashbacks), and was simple yet left me wondering “what will happen next?”

The episode starts with informing the audience that the series is based off of a true story – in my pre-watching research I learned about the real life Scorpion who is a genius hacker. We see helicopters flying over green Irish fields and hills, and they land on the field of a small home. The swat-style team breaks into the house and into the room of a child who we learn has hacked into NASA. It is also now that we meet Agent Cabe Gallo, an important figure in the show.

Turns out this was all a memory from the mind of our protagonist, Walter O’Brien. Walter is currently in the process of breaking up with his girlfriend, who becomes very agitated when he tries to analyse the logical response that she will have to his actions. They are seated in a diner where Walter spots a kid playing with some condiments; Walter goes over to play with him before leaving the diner.

Next we meet Toby Curtis, who is running away from some thugs, Happy Quinn, who is working on stealing electricity from a neighboring building, and Sylvester Dodd, who is writing frantically on a chalkboard. Walter makes his way into the building and we quickly discover that this is a team of super geniuses who, despite their intelligence (their IQs add up to more than 700), cannot remember to pay their bills.

The thugs begin banging down the door, but a team of official-looking people led by Agent Cabe Gallo show up, send the thugs on their way, and head into the building. Gallo is there to call Walter and his team to action – there are 56 planes flying over LAX that cannot land because the landing and communications software has been hacked into. After some monetary and verbal convincing, the team signs on to the assignment.

Walter and his team decide that the quickest way to solve the problems with the software would be to head straight to LAX. Of course, this cannot be done due to the insane LA traffic, so they instead head to the same diner that Walter was at that morning – he knows they have a secure and strong internet service because he had just fixed it for them.

At the diner, Gallo bribes the owner (with money) to send out all his patrons. The owner agrees and then decides to leave and put his head waitress in charge.

The team sets up their equipment and establishes communication with the team at LAX and instructs them how to quickly fix the software issue. This, unsurprisingly is ineffective so the Scorpion team sends Quinn and Toby to the server storage site. While they are en-route we have the opportunity to learn about the waitress, Paige, and her son Ralph whom she believes is challenged. Walter quickly points out to her that the condiments he is playing with are actually taking the place of chess pieces and Ralph is beating human-computer Sylvester – Ralph is a genius.

Quinn and Toby make it to the data storage center, only to discover the facility is closed and locked. To open the doors they must create a power surge. They find municipal power stations and Quinn, who is a mechanical engineering genius, creates a power surge – unlocking the doors.

Once inside, Toby uses his psychological analysis skills to determine the location of the server by looking at a photo of the property manager. He successfully removes the server and they head back to the diner. Walter plugs the device into his computer but it turns out the data is corrupt due to the magnets in the car’s stereo speakers, sending them on a downward spiral of giving up.

Paige gives Walter a pep talk and he comes to the realization that if he can speak with someone on an airplane he can gain access to the original software. He gets his team to find someone on the plane with an analog phone (flip phone). They call it and get in touch with the pilot, and make plans for him to to a flyby at another nearby airport so they can use the wifi to download the software.

In order to get to the airport, Quinn manipulates the traffic signals on the way so Paige can drive Walter to the airport. They make it there in record time, but again, their strategy doesn’t work and Walter comes up with another plan: he is going to drive a sports car underneath the plane to enable a hard-wire connection to download the software. Crazy as all this sounds, it works (why they didn’t just land the plane by talking to the pilot on the phone, I will never understand) and the team fixes the software, enabling LAX to resume communications.

After all the excitement is over, Agent Gallo pulls Walter aside and offers jobs to his team. The episode ends with Walter paying a visit to Paige and Ralph to thank them for their efforts and to include Paige on the job offer – she can help the geniuses understand the world and the geniuses can help her connect with her child.

I realize after reading through this summary that the plot of Scorpion sounds pretty contrived, but I was actually very captivated by this show. The action of the show kept me entertained, the relationships felt genuine, and the character diversity kept things interesting. I don’t know if this will be my new favorite show, but it is definitely worth giving a try.

What did you think of Scorpion? Tell us your thoughts below!

Cyber-Terrorist-Fighting Nerds – Scorpion – Season 1 Episode 1 – “Pilot” was last modified: September 23rd, 2014 by

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