Avast ye, scalawag! I be on NZT!
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow.
While this week’s Limitless was a Naz-centric episode, there was actually very little of Naz in it. In fact, we only got a brief glimpse of Naz “kicking ass” in D.C. before she was detained on suspicion of funding terrorism. Regardless, we learned a bit more about her personal life, including the fact that she had a daughter named Ava (Gotham’s Michelle Veintimilla), as a well as a niece who, wouldn’t you know it, was kidnapped by pirates.
If nothing else, this week’s procedural case was definitely unique, although not quite as exciting as we were led to believe. (Like Brian, I was kind of hoping the episode would end with him sword-fighting pirates.) Still, there were some great character moments peppered throughout this storyline that made it fun and interesting.
For one, it’s been cool to see how Mike and Ike differentiate from each other. In a previous episode, we saw that Mike doesn’t really care about Brian, whereas Ike actually seems to enjoy hanging out with him. This episode also had Brian admit to Rebecca that he had his own stash of NZT, which was kind of a big deal. I’m sure Brian will have an excuse cooked up for where he got those pills in next week’s episode, but his confession was still notable for letting Rebecca know that Brian hasn’t been completely honest with the FBI.
Can you hear me now, ADIC?
Despite that brief hiccup, the two seemed to get along fine later in the episode. Granted, Brian’s plan to learn multiple languages and reach out to every single ham radio overseas was pretty farfetched, even by this show’s standards. But I did enjoy Brian and Rebecca playing Screw-Marry-Kill to pass the time. (“Kill Finch. I would definitely kill Finch.”)
The bit with the pinball machine at the end was another clever way to show Brian tapping into his memories, even if it was a bit anticlimactic as the culmination of this week’s case. I cracked up at Rebecca’s dry delivery to the School Girl Reaper owner about giving the machine away for free: “Well… there’s also that girl who will die if you don’t do it.”
Meanwhile, I wasn’t all that taken by ADIC (“a dick”?) Johnson (Greg Germann) and his subplot with Boyle — mainly because Boyle’s “betrayal” seemed way too obvious to worry about. Still, it was nice to see Boyle had Brian and Rebecca’s back, even going so far as to expose the conspiracy against Naz — with a little help from Brian and “his dad’s old connections,” aka Sands, of course.
As for the Ava of it all, this storyline also planted the seeds for a potential romance between her and Brian down the line. I was actually a little surprised Naz was so keen on the idea of them them getting together. I would have thought the opposite, with Brian and Ava dating on the sly. I’ll be curious to see if and how they approach that dynamic, as I think there’s some potential there.
This week’s Limitless wasn’t quite as exciting as previous episodes, but it did feature a cool pirate-themed case, along with more character development for Naz and Boyle. Meanwhile, Brian and Rebecca teaming up with Naz’s daughter offered a fun and slightly different dynamic to the investigation. All the stuff between Brian and Rebecca specifically was on point this week.
