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Season 2 has featured its fair share of chases and gun fights already, but with heroes from such an interactive setting, there hasn’t been the opportunity for a proper undercover operation since the Bangkok sequence in the premiere. So “Desperate Measures” is a much-needed shot in the arm, an episode structured around the mission to infiltrate the ambassador’s residence and obtain photographs of the papers in his mysterious briefcase.
Like any good heist, this one requires careful planning, along with several scenes that determine how impossible it is to pull off. There are no phones allowed at this party, plus every floor is covered with security cameras, plus Abbas’s study It can only be accessed by the keycard he keeps on his person, as well as Javad and his really, really tough security guys. Both Noor and Peter are deeply nervous about this for different reasons, but Rose helps the latter by suggesting they “troubleshoot” and work through a dumber version of the plan.
Rose has signed up to help provide a distraction at the party, so she’ll be a plus-one for Emil Geiger, a Swiss private affairs attaché that Nour adds to the invitation list. But this whole plan depends on a lot of things going right, so Peter asks Rose to promise that she’ll come out if anything goes wrong. She does, but come on, we know Rose. You just know she’s going to break that promise.
Giger seems like a friendly guy, although he refers to Catherine as a “captivity” on the way to the party and makes it clear that he is only working with her as part of a deal. (I caught him “making a mistake” a few years ago)
The mission starts off well: Peter trips the security system to disable the cameras for 15 minutes, and Nour swipes the keycard from Abbas after the fake blueprints spike on Crostini during his interview. When things start to fall apart, it’s Handoff: Peter is supposed to grab the key card and make the study, but Javad asks for his help with something, and Nour is powerless to interrupt. Fortunately, Rose is here to do her usual Rose thing and take on the mission despite the extreme danger. She grabs the key card and phone from Nour, then goes straight to study.
I’d give Rose an A on this assignment: she’s a clever improviser, and she picks a briefcase lock when the code doesn’t work, but it’s also likely to leave a clue that someone has been here. She manages to take pictures and make them – Geiger slides cleanly into the keycard back into Abbas’s pocket afterwards – but she is spotted with a phone by a truly suspicious Halle. The lie that she found Nour’s phone sitting somewhere won’t work for very long, and the cameras return early enough to catch Rose on a restricted floor.
Peter, meanwhile, in pure self-preservation mode, lies his ass off to Javad about his history as a foodie and being denied any career in counterintelligence. But Javad recognizes him based on his habit of scanning each new room for escape routes, a habit he shares. He doesn’t know exactly what Peter is here for, but he has his guards take him downstairs to get those answers out of him, distracted by reports of a NOOR-related problem. This issue, of course, is more distraction than suffocation: Nour intentionally spilled a plate of drinks on Giger, and now he’s taking out the lowly assistant who ruined the designer’s custom suit. Rose may be good at improvisation, but these two are it great In improvisation.
Rose, Jaeger, and Nour come out well, and Peter has little trouble dealing with the Javad guards in the basement, which is another satisfying and well-choreographed fight. The information that Katherine later provides Peter is about what we expected: the CIA and the US Army developed incredibly dangerous chemical agents in a mobile laboratory that was lost (stolen by Marcus), supposedly as a way to create an antidote to artificial weapons that could Be used on America. (The CIA is great at inventing an excuse for something terrible.)
Most of Catherine’s screen time in this episode is spent alone, continuing to investigate Foxglove. Most of her leads go nowhere: the Kincare Trust is a dead end, and Mosley had nothing to report to CIA chief Gedney. He even asks Catherine to leave him alone, not because Gedney can be dangerous but because he is a useless bureaucrat. (Mosley might be one to watch, though.) But she eventually gets to him anyway, confronting him at the diner with a bag of Alice’s ashes. They were sent back and forth between night work and Alice’s father, the latter of whom never saw them; His daughter gradually lost touch with her entire family after her big undercover promotion in the FBI, and Isaac’s heart was broken. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what you died for,” Catherine says. Gedney may not know everything about Foxglove, but he gets the basics.
In the last episode, Rose suggested that Katherine show more of her vulnerable side to Peter, which happens in this episode. Alice’s ashes are scattered on the sidewalk where the two agents used to meet, and she and Peter are reminded of their old colleague and friend. It’s a beautiful moment for the two, even if these stories don’t mean much to us as viewers. Catherine also recalled having lost someone else once, which I think would relate to her history with Peter’s traitorous father.
The big cliffhanger in this episode is stronger than the first three: Nour stands firm and refuses to show Peter and Katherine the photos of the files in a suitcase before she extracts her family from Iran. It’s fun to see Nour refuse to be a pawn, even if taking a stand may not work out well for her in the end. The US government isn’t exactly known for honoring deals.
• Another flashback at the beginning, this time offering some insight into why Nour wanted her brother out of Iran. It seems that their father died in agony after years of propaganda fueled by force and lies.
• Thomas and Marcus reconfirm their arrangement with Solomon, meaning they are more connected to Jupiter than we might think. (Their original plan was to document the cell phone lab for blackmail, not actually steal it. no Afterwards, he even accuses the disgraced Thomas of sitting around while his father wanders around in a dungeon. Is there a word for killing your cousin? Thomas must be scared.
• Peter and Rose’s post-mission kiss, foreshadowed by the classic “You look great” reaction upon seeing Rose dressed for the party and some sexual tension as he stands behind her and flashes her braces. Good for them.
• It appears that Celeste moved in the middle of the night, indicating that she and her brother Solomon are still in contact.
