"Quantico" makesit returnfor season two with another bang that will cause much more intrigue and mystery just like last season. The season premiere opening pretty much starts in the same fashion as last year’s pilot episode, where we find Alex Parrish (Priyanka Chopra) in the middle of New York City where a bunch of bombsgo off.
Right after the bombs explode, a terrorist group known as The Citizens’ Liberation Front has taken a room full of diplomats and politicians hostage, including US President Todd (Danny Johnson).
Ryan Booth (Jake McLaughlin) and Raina Amin (Yasmine Al Massri) also return, appearing at the G20 World Summit.
With Raina translating in Swahili, the terrorists offer their demands and end it with a shocking beheading. The episode utilizes the same flashbacks and flash-forwards technique as last season. We open up about a year and a half after the first season finale where Alex gets recruited into the CIA by Matthew Keyes (Henry Czerny). What is also crazy is that both Alex and Ryan are now forced to work together after the same program unknowingly recruited them. Now the two are caught lying to one another after trying to get back together.
Unlike last season, we get a few new recruits as we shift from the FBI to the CIA. This season, we have Leon Velez (Aaron Diaz), Springer (Ehad Berisha), Harry Doyle (Russell Tovey), and Lydia Bates (Tracy Ifeachor), who is actually is the case manager and daughter of CIA trainer Owen Hall (Blair Underwood).
We follow them to The Farm, the mysterious training facility for the CIA. With this new cast, they must set themselves apart from the old cast or else it will be more of the same. Some of these newbies have a chance to standout, but it appears for now that the returning ones are at their strongest. Priyanka Chopra remains at the top of her game playing Alex, who's now playing a new ball game.
If the setting of the second season has changed, why hasn't the show hasn’t changed it's title?Anyway, the recruiting process at the CIA vastly differs from the FBI, but one thing remains the same: It’s still a competition to those who want to make it on the team. Both Ryan and Alex are working undercover to keep things afloat, but must make it seem like they don't know each other.
Going back to the present, the hostage situation gets worse as Ryan tries to deal with these terrorists. It goes so far that the President ends up trying to negotiate with them. As the situation gets intense, Alex gets into a tight position when she tries to fight with one of the terrorists. Before jumping off the building, the man’s face was revealed to be someone Alex knows from The Farm. The only problem is that Alex already killed him. It will be one of the many mysteries that the show will be tackling this season.
Alex and Ryan must work on their relationship
Despite all the action and the time jumps, Alex and Ryan’s relationship seems so unpredictable. It appears that they are in this somewhat long-distance relationship as Alex and Ryan’s work lives are in the way of trying to connect with one another.This may be all said and done, but their relationship is what makes this show so complicated to follow.
It’s hard to invest in them when they can’t tell the truth to each other due to the nature of their jobs. It seems like the next time they break up; that might be it for them.
What needs to happen this season
Even though we were promised that the season would take it slow, the premiere put a lot of plots thrown in together, making it hard to catch our breath. The show’s structure remains the same with all these plot twists, which is the problem that this show has. If they want to go into the whole reality of bomb threats and gun violence, the characters, and their relationships should be a part of the show also. The second season has promise with all that’s going on, but the show still has to work on balancing its plot with its characters.
