Surrounded by mouse traps.
Warning: Full spoilers from the episode follow.
After the introduction of Eddie’s ominous middleman Mr. Sands, we knew things were going to get trickier for Brian this week. However, I wasn’t expecting Brian to get two additional cases on top of that. Suffice to say, he had his work cut out for him — stealing NZT files for Sands, solving a murder for his new friend, and working out another case for the FBI — but this week’s “Page 44” balanced all three storylines surprisingly well.
Granted, some parts were stronger than others. The episode started off rather typically, with Brian (and Mike & Ike) working his magic on a suspect’s garbage. In truth, the Zhang case was probably one of the weakest cases we’ve seen (something about organic milk and drone schematics? Blah, blah, blah…), but it did throw another wrench in Brian’s plans, specifically in terms of him getting his hands on Naz’s computer files.
“Oh, you know, just algorithmically optimizing my game.”
Luckily, I wasn’t the only one bored with the Zhang case. Obviously, Brian was more focused on Wilkerman’s murder and the “immortal mouse,” which I thought was the more interesting mystery of the two anyway. I loved how even Rebecca was nudging Brian to ditch Mike & Ike so he could investigate Claxion and get out of doing grunt work for the Zhang case.
Overall, Brian and Rebecca’s relationship is still one of the strongest aspects of this show. They had some pretty funny banter this week, particularly at Claxion (“I’m in the building, dumb-ass.” *thumbs up emoji*), and I think it’s great how they’re really starting to trust each other. Of course, that trust also turned out to be Brian’s undoing this week, as he tried to fabricate NZT files as a way “repaying” Rebecca for saving his skin. Not surprisingly, Brian’s scheme didn’t work, but it did prove that Sands — and Eddie for that matter — are not to be trifled with.
We want to hear it.
Going back to the Zhang case, I did like how Zhang’s statement synced up with Brian stealing the files from Naz. The intercutting was a nice touch and at least brought that side of things full circle. That said, the greater parallel for me was when Brian gave the immortal mouse back to Arthur, who lauded Brian for basically saving his life. This brought up an interesting point, that maybe doing one good deed can make up for doing a bad one — in this case, Brian solving a crime in exchange for stealing top-secret files.
This episode also gave us our first glimpse at Rebecca’s father’s case, which did indeed pertain to NZT. Initially, I wasn’t very interested in this storyline — going off what we learned in the pilot — but now that we’ve gotten to know Rebecca a bit more, I am now somewhat curious to see if her father’s case could potentially tie into Eddie somehow… For now, though, Limitless has proved that it’s more than capable of handling several storylines at once, beyond just the procedural.
This week’s Limitless did a surprisingly good job balancing numerous subplots in one episode, including two FBI cases and Brian’s first assignment from Mr. Sands. Although one of those subplots was ultimately a bust, the other two were bolstered by Brian and Rebecca’s teamwork, which made this episode entertaining to watch all around.
