Scorpion opened with a high-octane, fast-paced thrill ride that entertained with intense action sequences and crisp character interplay, but in the end didn’t disappoint emotionally

Scorpion — Anyone who thought the Scorpion Pilot might have been a methodical, calculating procedural obviously hadn’t seen CBS’s frenetic blitz of geeky Fast and the Furious type promos. There were quiet moments to inject emotion, but honestly the dialogue and plot started with a roar and just got louder and faster.

We meet young genius hacker Walter O’Brien aka Scorpion at SWAT-style gunpoint and handcuffs after hacking NASA. That’s a traumatic thing to go through just for some cool shuttle blueprints on your wall.

Fast-forward to an older, more cynical Walter (Elyes Gabel) confronted again by Agent Cabe Gallo (Robert Patrick), the man responsible for those cuffs, trying to save 20,000 people from dropping out of the sky because of an airport software glitch. No pressure Walter.

Tension between Walter and Cabe is instant. They’ve got a history that didn’t go well, but the urge to save lives and do something more just can’t be ignored. A hefty pile of cash for Walter’s floundering company of dysfunctional geniuses struggling to make ends meet didn’t hurt.

Toby Curtis (Eddie Kaye Thomas) a “world-class shrink”, Happy Quinn (Jadyn Wong) the “mechanical prodigy and Sylvester Dodd (Ari Stidham) the “human calculator” set out to save the day from the closest place with reliable Internet (thanks to Walter), a small diner tended by waitress Paige Dineen (Katharine McPhee) and her young, mentally gifted son Ralph (Riley B. Smith).

The stage is set for high-octane hacking and calculating, but when all else fails, a crazy last ditch effort by Paige and Walter to pull uncorrupted software from a moving jet is the only solution. Plugging into a network isn’t that exciting. Doing it at 200mph between a Ferrari and low flying passenger jet is an entirely different matter. A lot of people probably left pucker marks on the couch during that moment—but is that even possible?

In the end, the day is saved and the Scorpion Team find themselves with an offer to work for Cabe saving the world from complex problems no one else can fix. The criminals are smart and he needs a team that thinks like they do. We all saw this coming. Even Walter had his list of demands ready for Cabe. But do any of them realize what kind of dangers could be in store for them working for Cabe?

With Walter’s lack of people skills, realizing Paige was the possible key to relating to the rest of the world led to what might be the smartest thing he did—offer her a job. But can she really make that connection to the world for Walter and team? And better yet, can he bridge the gap between her and Ralph?

Every Brain Needs a Heart

To say that Walter’s inter-personal skills suck would be doing a disservice to the word. As intelligent as he is, he’s seriously lacking in empathy and his reliance on logic certainly comes across as arrogant and even hurtful. Gabel played this pretty well even though Walter showed more emotion throughout given this setup.

Paige on the other hand, quickly assumed the role of the emotional and moral center of this episode and if this show is successful, she’ll need to be the heart of this team. They don’t lack of brainpower but they all have a serious void of empathy.

When confronted by the logical sacrifice of two planes to save the rest, Paige was the voice of moral objection and in that moment seemed to reach an emotional place in Walter he didn’t realize he had.

“You save everybody. Normal people save everybody.” ~ Paige

Where the Scorpion team works by logic and are somewhat removed from the rest of the world, Paige very much feels the world around her. She provided the emotional push Walter needed despite his protests that emotional pep talks don’t work on him like they do others.

It felt as if Paige were talking to her son in that moment, and when things FINALLY clicked for Walter that the right thing to do was try and save everyone, he didn’t give up on the problem. With her help, he eventually pushed through every obstacle and trusted Paige’s emotional reaction to be one the rest of the world would understand, even if he didn’t.

Just Because You Have Wings Doesn’t Mean You Have a Bird’s Eye view

Cabe comes across as a bit of a blunt instrument. He’s not shy to assert himself at all. Where the Scorpion team members lack empathy because they don’t see the world around them the way others do, Cabe seems to have had it trained right out of him.

He’s quick to accept the decision that two planes is an acceptable loss if you can save the rest, but that just went right along with every action he seemed to take in this episode. He’s going by the book and the book doesn’t feel anything.

Given their emotional limitations, watching Cabe and Walter interact felt at times very much like a turkey sparing with a penguin (albeit a very tough and smart pair of birds). Both flapped their wings frantically at what to do over the moral dilemma facing them all in the air, but neither of them could get off the ground for their own personal reasons. Gabel and Patrick played these bantering scenes pretty well and some of the strongest performances of the episode where when the two reacted to one another.

When all seems lost, Cabe is ready to put in play the ultimate in brutal solutions: shooting down all the planes to prevent ground casualties. His reaction to this option seems to not faze him. His empathy isn’t gone; it’s just seemingly repressed by years of training to not let it get in the way

“I don’t put protocol over lives.” ~ Cabe

“Lives? Suddenly you’re worried about lives?” ~ Walter

Again, it’s Paige that brings Walter around and pushes him instead of letting him shut down. In a profound moment of understanding, Walter takes Paige’s lead and trusts that her emotional wings take her to a place he and Cabe just can’t reach. He has to act to save everyone and not write off “acceptable losses.”

Your Mom Did That

As Walter is wrestling with all the variables needed to race through L.A. and save everyone by retrieving an older uncorrupted copy of the software they need from one of the planes in flight, it’s the simple gesture of Ralph handing his mother her keys that provides everyone the clarity on what to do. Drive Walter to the airstrip where a dangerous flyby attempt has the chance to save everyone.

“I’ve tried really hard, but I’ve never been able to fully connect with him. Not in the way that I’ve seen him connect with you guys today. What my son needs—is to see me—help you. Please Walter. ” ~ Paige

Impatient of waiting on Cabe to clear the roads, Walter and Paige take off in a blur in her little red car. Cabe follows suit and runs interference for them as they push through city traffic and the race is on to save thousands circling the city. That brought about the episode’s funniest moment when at 100 miles an hour she was worried they didn’t have airbags. He casually informed her that at those speeds it didn’t matter anyway. Drive faster. Her look was priceless.

At the airstrip and with Walter driving a stolen Ferrari at 200 mph to match a plane’s speed, Paige and the co-pilot, clinging to the landing gear, plug in the plane’s system to a laptop to download the software just in the nick of time. The scene was dramatic and visually stunning if you suspended the belief that the landing strip was long enough for that exchange.

Emotionally, it was a satisfying ending. As everyone celebrates the against all odds success, Sylvester leans down to Ralph and hits the emotional center of the show, telling him, “Your mom did that.”

We Are A Team. We’re Stronger Together

It would be easy to say that Scorpion is a procedural show with action and geniuses solving problems, because at a glance, that’s what it is. With Justin Lin of Fast and Furious fame directing, this episode’s pace was non-stop whether through character interactions or the action sequences, which were top notch.

What became most apparent to me throughout the episode was that every character needed something that they couldn’t get on their own—but someone else around them had what they needed. That was a pleasantly unexpected interplay that Nick Santora worked in throughout the script.

Happy couldn’t get into the server room without Walter and Sylvester. Toby couldn’t get the server blade without Happy and Walter getting him inside. Happy wouldn’t have had a clue how to pick which blade they grabbed without Toby. Walter couldn’t hotwire the Ferrari without Happy. Cade couldn’t save the people in the air without all of them. Walter couldn’t push through without Paige and Paige couldn’t reach her son in the way both Sylvester and Walter did so easily.

Probably the biggest moment of all of them was when Walter realized in the end that where he lacked an emotional connection to others he could potentially trust Paige to help him. And in turn, where she couldn’t connect to her son, Walter could help her. That’s a win-win for both.

In the final scene we see this play out first hand between Walter and Ralph.

For all the wild action and the drama throughout the episode this one one felt very real and emotionally grounded. The interaction between Walter and Paige during the job offer discussion felt very honest. Elyes Gabel and Katharine McPhee have some good chemistry and this brought it out. Let’s hope there’s more of this to come as the series progresses.

When Ralph casually slid the controller over for Walter to join him to play a video game hit it home with us emotionally.

Walter: You ever pause your dreams Ralph?

Ralph: Yeah.

Walter: You ever rewind them?

Ralph: Sometimes.

Walter: Yeah, me too.

Paige just learned something about her son that she never would have thought to ask. That hit home with her too.

Everyone else found themselves in similar places where working on his or her own would never have solved the problem they all faced. As talented as they all were, no one person could do everything needed to make things work.

If we are to believe in these characters, we need to connect with them even if we don’t understand them. Because it’s that trust and personal growth amidst crazy scenarios that can give this show a chance to be something more than just good and let it become one all of us can identify with and will want to watch each week.

Final Verdict

The pilot was definitely a thrill ride. Justing Lin directing brought an energy and pace that you don’t normally see on TV. My main question after it was over (and I could breath again) was can this show sustain itself and provide that kind of pace every week? I’m not certain it can, but there are other ways to build and sustain tension on a smaller budget than I’m sure was spent on this first episode.

I’m struggling a little to relate to the rest of the cast outside of Walter, but I’m hoping that in the next few weeks we see trust moments and a deeper look into the way these characters come to believe in each other. I did have a lot of fun watching the pilot and I’m looking forward to next week. I’m invested enough to see where this goes next. Some of my immediate reactions on Twitter as this was live:

Questions, Comments, Concerns, Reactions…

• I loved how Walter immediately noticed Ralph and recognized the game of chess on the counter and defended Ralph on the way out the door. Help him—he left Page thinking about.
• Walter confronting Cabe: “You cross me on this, I’ll go online and in less than an hour—erase you.” Damn, that was ballsy.
• I am not comfortable with you hacking into anything at this airport. Walter: Then don’t make it so easy. Loved seeing Ernie Hudson!
• What my son needs is to see me—help you. This show is starting to sink it’s hooks in me I think. #TeamScorpion
• Greater good theory in practice. Just don’t make me regret this. Yep. I’m liking this show.
• I did laugh out loud when Paige said “You’re the world’s smartest computer guy and this comes down to plugging something in?” Loved it! #TeamScorpion
• You ever pause your dreams? Yea. You ever rewind them? Sometimes. Yea, me too. <- The heart of this show. Right there. #TeamScorpion