In a flashback, two weeks ago, we learn how a rookie lawyer such as Owen Hendricks found himself in this tight situation. On his second day at work, his boss Nyland asked him to stop the head of the senate intelligence committee from revealing a classified document in a public hearing or get fired. The conversation didn’t start off easy but Owen handled it as best as he can and got the job done. On the third day, his two colleagues, Lester and Violet give him the terrible job to go through tons of letters threatening the CIA and see if the threats are valid. He finds a letter from a woman named Max Meladze threatening to spill secrets about a past covert CIA operation. He asks Janus, another colleague about the possibility of the letter being real. He tells him that the letter might be real but he shouldn’t follow up on it. Owen decides to do just that and investigate more about the old operation mentioned in the letter. He finds out that it was a Belarus operation in 2009 but Max Meladze is not in the system. He approaches Nyland with the information he found and he gives Owen the green light to investigate further. Nyland reproaches Lester and Violet and asks them to pick up Owen’s job as he investigates the case. Violet and Lester feel slighted by Owen and fails to warn him about the protocol when he flies out to Yemen to meet with the operative, Dawn who was involved in the Belarus operation. Once he arrives in Yemen, Dawn tortures him and takes out one of his fingernails as she thinks he is a spy since he didn’t follow protocol. Luckily, Owen manages to convince her that he is just a rookie lawyer one week into the job. Dawn tells him that Max was a good asset and that if someone managed to soft file her (having no file on the operations she has been on) then he should tread carefully. Owen returns home from Yemen and heads to his apartment which he shares with his best friend, Terence and his ex-girlfriend, Hannah. He is not in a great state but he refuses to tell them where he was or what happened. He tries to catch some well-deserved sleep but a call from Nyland forces him to go to the office. Nyland asks for an update about Yemen and orders him to visit Max in the Phoenix prison. Max tells him that she has classified documents hidden in a storage locker. Nyland asks him to secure those files immediately and get back up from the local FBI office. Owen has a tough time getting through to the local FBI office and decides to go alone. At the storage locker, he is accosted by two men carrying a gun and they ask him to hand over the bag he retrieved from the locker. The bag doesn’t have classified documents but money and is booby-trapped with acid. Owen tries to make a run for it and once he is cornered he hands over the bag. The two men get sprayed by the acid and Owen uses that chance to grab the bag and run. He goes back to the prison to meet Max and tells her he is done being her lap dog and threatens not to help her. He thinks she is bluffing about the information she has and she tells him that she is serious. She tells him that they can work together to survive because they are both in a minefield and need each other. Owen refuses to help her and tells her he will update his boss and walk away from her case. Max warns him that the case is bigger than he can imagine and it will be dangerous to update his boss. She asks him to leave the money at a garbage can at the end of the parking lot in the prison as it is the safe thing to do. She brings up his social media pages and the fact she has learnt about the people his close with through his Instagram feed. Before Owen leaves the prison, she tells him that her handling agent was Not Bob. Owen thinks about Max’s warnings and decides to delete pictures of the people close to him on Social Media. He leaves the bag of cash hidden in a garbage can and heads back to Langley. At Langley, he asks Janus about the identity of Not Bob. Immediately Janus hears the name, he freaks out and asks him to leave his office. He tells him that he wants nothing to do with his investigation as Not Bob is currently the Chief of Staff to the President of America. After the revelation from Janus and the warning from Max, Owen decides to only update Nyland on the mere basics and asks to continue the investigation. He opts not to tell Nyland about Not Bob. After the brief meeting with Nyland, Owen gets back in his office to find a subpoena letter on his desk. He calls Max and asks her to give him an honest answer on whether he can trust her. She tells him that he can only trust her when their interests align… and he’s all in!
The Episode Review
This might be only the first episode but it is clear that viewers will be in for quite the rollercoaster ride. Owen walked into a lot of trouble even though this is just his first week at the job. At this point, he is not on a minefield, he is pretty much carrying a ticking time bomb and it is only a matter of time before we see it explode. The question is, how far and fast can he throw it before it explodes?