Okay, so let’s not beat on Walter too much, there were some snotty Irish teachers with big Irish rulers who apparently did plenty of that back in Irish public school. I understand that we’re trying to add some depth to him with the sister sob story, but the ultra-caring Walter that punches out the hacker that’s threatening the Governor’s family sort of rubs up against the Walter who needs Paige to diplomatically calm the victim he goes off on like a petulant dick. You can’t really come off as a calculating jerk when you’re being driven by passion to save lives because it’s hard to believe that you recognize the human element when you seem in capable of reacting like a human.
But perhaps that’s changing. I see it didn’t take long for the writers to start playing the will-they-or-won’t-they angle with Walter and Paige. The picture perfect family moment of the two them with Ralph enjoying an evening of star-gazing is about as subtle as car alarm, and at this point even the most degenerate gambler (like Toby) wouldn’t put money on “won’t-they” even with 1,000-to-1 odds in favor. Another conundrum is that for most of the episode it seemed like the writers didn’t know what they wanted to do with Paige. She ties to help Walter cope with his feelings of helplessness, and she helps Sylvester cope with his nightmare scenario in Vlaxco, but it makes me wonder if the writers know what they want to do with the character.
On the plus side, I will tip my hat to the cast, who already seemed to have gelled with just one episode under the belt. Aside from Paige, it seems like everyone know what part they play and how best to play it, including the oddball chemistry of Toby and Happy, who find themselves teamed up two episodes out of two. One character quirk I did find interesting was Sylvester’s refusal to accept funds for his assistance, and his fear about what he might do with money. He touchingly gives his paycheck to some nuns at an orphanage, but why altruism over, I don’t know, buying something from the non-sweater vest family of wardrobe options?
Obviously, there were also no car chases this week, which does suggest that Scorpion can, and will, get by without weekly action scenes, and while that didn’t disrupt the energy, the solution to the week’s problem seemed once again fairly simple, coming down to the gang faxing information to the CDC so that they can reverse engineer the cure from the genetically-modified virus. Sometimes these things are too pat because a show’s trying to exercise the kinks out, and I hope that’s the case with Scorpion, because plugging in cables and faxing stuff seems like an awful waste of genius. I look forward to next week when the life-threatening problem will be solved by finding someone’s lost keys.
