First off, I’d like to take a moment to apologize for not writing a review up to this point. I’ve been incredibly busy and was originally planning to write reviews 5 episodes at a time, but there has been a demand for more frequent post, so you can expect weekly reviews from now on.

Secondly, to get us all up to speed, here are 3 mini reviews for the previous episodes..

Satellite of Love
The second season starts out with the team regrouping to stop a rouge satellite from crashing into the United States, doing the potential damage of an atomic bomb. If that wasn’t intense enough, things get even dicer when Walter hacks the hospital video footage and catches Paige planting a kiss on him while he was unconscious just after his accident that concluded the first season this spring.

This episode was a fun start to season, with a lot of humor and a dramatic plot line. Viewers already get the sense that the cast has found a new hold of their characters and are working to bring new elements. Noticeably improved are the characters of behaviorist/psychiatrist/wise-cracker Toby Curtis (Eddie Kaye Thomas) and the lovable mathematician Sylvester Dodd (Ari Stidham). Sylvester gets many more lines than he’s used to getting and Toby’s famous one-liners got even snappier.

The acting was definitely better, so props to the whole cast on that. It’s really fun to see how the actors have embraced these characters and are now willing to test what they can do with them. Season 1 was about creating the mold and respective personalities of these characters, while season 2 will be exploring what happens when they are pushed out of their comfort zones.

Walter and Paige were certainly a little uncomfortable in this episode (and audiences faced MAJOR second hand embarrassment from these 2). They danced around each other awkwardly all episode until finally they shared their long-awaited steamy kiss in the final scene. Waige fans are stilling screaming.

As for Quintis fans, they were not disappointed. Happy and Toby shared a couple heartfelt confessions and things seemed to be looking up for these two. But then Cuba Libre comes along and, well, I guess we’ll cover that later.

Overall, this episode was pretty good. It was a very interesting choice to make the premiere episode so relationship heavy, and while diehard fans got their wait’s worth, I do believe it ultimately cost them in viewership (2.02 dropped to a series low in ratings). New viewers don’t care all that much about the interpersonal relationships yet and would rather just like to see a really epic case with some really awesome genius moments (which this episode did have, just not on par with episodes like Dominos or Shorthanded). I do wish they would have opened with a stronger episode, but Satellite of Love seemed to satisfy.

Cuba Libre
For the sake of saving my word count for the next, far better episode, I’ll just say that Cuba Libre really didn’t do it for most viewers. This episode took the team to Cuba, where they were attempting to take out a guy for some reason???? Actually, to be truthfully honest, the plot of this episode was so boring I didn’t even care to pay attention. Of course it had it’s moments, but this episode was just forgettable overall. There were no major character development or plot moments, and really we’ve already seen this episode. It was called Going South. Let’s just move on.

Fish Fillet
Now THIS is the Scorpion episode we’ve been waiting for! This episode was so creative and original and clever! This episode does as much for the casual viewers as it does for the diehard fans.

This episode was very Sylvester-centric, and you know what, IT’S ABOUT TIME. Ari Stidham really shines in this episode and the writing was phenomenal. In this episode, Sylvester has to pretend to be a prisoner in order to find coded information one of the other jail-mates has been using to kill politicians on the outside. Things go awry when the Warden (the only guy on the inside who knows Sylvester is not a real prisoner) goes down with a heart attack, Sly is forced to pick a fight with a dangerous criminal for the sake of the job, his coms go out, and he has to fend completely for himself.

We get some really good Sylvester character development in this episode as he is faced with some of his worse fears and is forced to push through it if he wants to survive, quite literally. In some very intense moments, Sylvester decides to be brave and do what he knows is the right thing even when it is not the easy thing and puts him in immediate danger. His newfound bravery then allows him to tell Megan the truth about his feelings and that he loves her.

Not only is this episode emotionally powerful and character driven, it is also hilarious. The one-liners were spot on and always kept the plot moving forward. In talking about one-liners, the obvious character to look towards is Toby, but while he did have his moments, the real winner this episode was Ray (played by Kevin Weisman). Ray was introduced as a guy Walter met while doing his community service to pay for the damages left to the road due to his accident. Walter doesn’t appear to like Ray at first, and he’s not the brightest or the most courteous, but Ray’s charm eventually rubs off on Walter and the two become friends. As it turns out, Ray has friends in the prison Sylvester gets locked in and he ends up a crucial part of the rescue mission. Ray is such a great addition to the show and Weisman does an amazing job with this character. He’s funny, unorthodox, charismatic, and a great paradox to Walter’s character.

This episode was fantastic all around and I think that viewers really took a liking to it. I hope the good reception lets writers know that this is what we want to see from the show and it’s this kind of episode that proves the potential Scorpion has to be great.

Robots
In an episode on par with Plutonium is Forever, Walter, Happy, and Cabe are all trapped in a submarine 300 feet below the ocean’s surface. This was an exciting episode for casual viewers as well as the diehards because it combines action and suspense with deep character development and stand-out moments.

Like Plutonium is Forever, viewers are aware that Team Scorpion (or, well, half of it) is going to make it out alive. We’re only four episodes in, people. But just like in Plutonium is Forever, the episode manages to keep your heart pounding and also swelling with emotion. During their time in the sub, Walter and Happy think about their mechanical and “robotic” way of life which has moved them through life with relatively no emotion. But recently, Walter notices that he has been making decisions that are less based on math and science and more based on his connection to humanity. It is hinted at the end of the episode that it is Paige that has brought out this change in him and he even says he may want to reconsider his decision to be “just colleagues” (que screams from the Waige fandom).

The character that gets a lot of light in this episode is Happy, which, in all our humble opinions, has been long overdue. Happy’s father, Patrick, makes a reappearance in this episode and he has a deep talk with Toby about Happy’s life as a child. Toby tells Patrick that he loves Happy (que screams from the Quintis fandom) and Patrick seems to understand the severity of his daughter’s situation as she rests mere minutes from death at the bottom of the ocean. Happy opens up to Walter in what she thinks could be her final moments and says that she’s been the master of denial and that for the first time, she really doesn’t want to die. This extremely emotional line means a lot when you think about Happy’s life as a whole and about the fact that she finally feels like she has something to live for.

Both Happy and Walter admit that perhaps they aren’t such robots after all, and also that it might not be such a bad thing to have feelings. These deep character revelations are what I personally look for in Scorpion episodes, as the main point of the show is that these geniuses struggle to understand what it means to be human. Life or death situations bring out people’s true characters and it’s so interesting to watch this group of emotionally closed-off heroes be real people. It will be fun to see how they develop in the future, what pushes them over the edge, and how they deal with more emotionally charged obstacles.