Last week, I expressed some doubts about the show, and “A Cyclone” did address some of them, or maybe I just found Scorpion more entertaining this week than I did last week. Last week’s case and the character details we learned were all terribly trite and predictable, as the show leaned way too hard on typical nerd tropes. This week, the drama came out of the action and various dilemmas created as the team tried to solve the case. And even though there was no big budget action (aside from a single car crash), the show kept the pressure on as our characters not only had to use their wits to save the day, but it forced them into stressful physical situations where they had to get sweaty and bloody too.
That’s not to say that the whole thing was a pressure cooker though, as Scorpion had some laugh out loud moments, too, this week. Seeing the gang be totally unsubtle as they stake out the law firm bomber would have been funny enough, but seeing Happy holding the homemade satellite dish made from an umbrella took it from a 7 to a 9. Toby got a few yucks as well, pinching Gallo’s badge and proving that half of being cop is thinking that you’re a cop, and Sylvester got his own tough guy catchphrase. “I don’t want to shoot anyone, but I will if I have to,” isn’t exactly “Do you feel lucky, punk?” but when you’re a human calculator it doesn’t take much to look even a little tough. (Especially in Sylvester’s still present sweater vests.)
There are still some issues, though. Paige’s function on the team is still not exactly clear. She’s supposed to be the go between for the nerds and the world at large, but the nerds seem to explain themselves pretty good even if it comes out socially awkward or belligerent. Paige’s sole individual contribution is that she realizes that the slow server was the target of the second bomb, not the armored truck, thanks to her real world McJob experience. We also learn that Gallo was just as personally impacted by his and Walter’s previous work experience, and that he washed out of the New York Homeland office and was on his way to retirement when he came up with the idea to hire the Scorpion team. It would have been more striking a difference between Walter and Gallo if one of them had no (or fewer) regrets about their past work on the Iraq operation.
I think I’m starting to understand that character nuance is not something that this show is going to do well. Everyone has their set patterns and routines, and it’s all about as subtle as selecting Rock You Like a Hurricane for your team’s theme song when you’re codenamed Scorpion. But “A Cyclone” was entertaining in the best way that the second half of the pilot episode was entertaining, and all things being equal, if you can’t break the mould, you can at least be the best mould you can possibly be.
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