‘Quantico’ Season 2 Episode 2 Recap: Lipstick

Quantico Season 2 Episode 2 star Priyanka Chopra
Priyanka Chopra in ‘Quantico’ season 2 (Photo by Giovanni Rufino / ABC)

I’m just going to put it out there, but last week’s (September 25, 2016) episode of Quantico season two was a tad bit confusing. More so, for a show that is a hit by modern TV standards, helped bring some life back into Sunday nights on ABC, and broke color barriers for South Asian actors, let alone badass female leads, the premiere just felt a little flat. For me, there wasn’t a clear shift between Alex’s identity and experiences (along with her Quantico posse’s) to what was going on in season two.

Yeah, I get it she’s on “The Farm” and she has an assignment handed to her by Miranda and she’s supposed to pretend she doesn’t know Ryan, who is the love of her life. After this week’s episode, however, the last few minutes in particular, were TGIT style O-M-G kinda moments. When last night’s episode ended, an article I read over the summer about the show dawned on me. Joshua Safran, a frequent writer on the show, mentioned this year’s storyline will unravel slowly, but more cohesively. He wasn’t kidding!

Similar to last season, every episode includes a lesson or backstory or a lesson that traces the journey on the job – this episode was no different. This week’s episode (season two episode two titled ‘Lipstick’) was about surveillance and how to be aware of your surroundings at all times, how you are always being watched, and how no one can blow your cover. (Spoiler alert – Shelby kind of did that to Alex when Alex ended up as the “mark” or target.)


As this episode progressed, you can see writers are also trying to explore Ryan’s character a little bit further. There was one scene between Ryan (Jake McLaughlin) and Owen Hall (Blair Underwood) where you can see he was trying to peel back at Ryan’s trust issues and problems with authority, given his long and unnerving history with the now deceased Liam.

There is an interesting dynamic between Lydia Bates, played by Tracy Ifeachor, and Owen Hall, and their infatuations in working with Alex (Priyanka Chopra) and Ryan, respectively. Owen and Tracy keep saying they see potential in each of the recruits, but my Law and Order: SVUesque mind is telling me there is more than meets the eye.

As they did in the first season, the time jumps from training to present day prevail, so Ryan and Raina are trying to hold down the fort and try to diffuse (no pun intended) the terrorist situation in New York. Meanwhile, Alex is in the building somewhere trying to find a way to communicate on the outside and ask for backup. While searching for a way to communicate, she runs into an NYPD officer who eventually leads her to a bunker, but being the noble NYPD officer that he was, he pushed her in, so no one knows that the hometown hero was in the building. He stayed on the outside and alas, and that was his noble demise.

The final twist comes in the last final scenes of the episode, where Alex connects to Miranda via the phone in the NYPD bunker (okay, the sigh and cut to commercial was a tad cheesy, but eh). After some ongoing banter and Miranda’s FBI version of a pep talk to Alex, we see one of the terrorists inside the building receive a message saying “Alex Parris is Inside the Building.” Cut to the final scene and you see the message came from none other than MIRANDA! There’s your OMG moment folks.

I’ve always had some odd suspicions about Miranda even in the first season, so we’ll shall see if my conspiracy theories are validated in future episodes.

You’ll have to tune in and find out what happens in TWO WEEKS as next week’s episode is pre-empted by endless political fodder, also known as the Town Hall Debate.

Final Tip: ABC, do a better job of marketing this show. Help Quantico find its voice and not just promote this show as sexy, seductive, or steamy, because you have two attractive looking people leading the show. There’s great acting and an intriguing storyline as well, that’s frankly quite relevant considering present day affairs.