SPOILERS
“A Many Splendored Thing” was an interesting episode. It was far from a favorite, but still had a few moments that made me jump. It starts off with a Navy Commander backed into a corner by a mysterious hacker and commits suicide to protect her daughter, and you just know thanks to the “previously on” it has something to do with Kai Chen. Reeves has a breakthrough in his own investigation into the Chen case and keeps Bishop in the loop as long as she doesn’t do anything. She decides she’s all in and they go investigating some leads and end up in the same place as the rest of the team. Eventually they all figure out Chen’s plan to blow out an electrical grid, but Bishop gets to him first, on her own, and backs him into the same corner as the Commander at the start of the episode. He chooses to commit suicide, and the episode ends with Bishop talking to Gibbs and feeling his quiet disappointment.
“A Many Splendored Thing” was an interesting episode. It was far from a favorite, but still had a few moments that made me jump. It starts off with a Navy Commander backed into a corner by a mysterious hacker and commits suicide to protect her daughter, and you just know thanks to the “previously on” it has something to do with Kai Chen. Reeves has a breakthrough in his own investigation into the Chen case and keeps Bishop in the loop as long as she doesn’t do anything. She decides she’s all in and they go investigating some leads and end up in the same place as the rest of the team. Eventually they all figure out Chen’s plan to blow out an electrical grid, but Bishop gets to him first, on her own, and backs him into the same corner as the Commander at the start of the episode. He chooses to commit suicide, and the episode ends with Bishop talking to Gibbs and feeling his quiet disappointment.
The small secondary plot doesn’t always tie into the main
episode, but this time it did. Torres teaches the team how to pickpocket (and
who would’ve thought Gibbs was a good one?) and Bishop ends up using these
skills in order to arrange her meeting with Chen by “borrowing” Congresswoman
Flemming’s phone.
The biggest problem I had with all of this was Qasim’s
storyline. Qasim seemed nice and all, and I’m glad that Ellie was happy with
him, but I totally called his death in that episode. Qasim was just plot
convenience. That’s the only way I can think of describing him. In the episode
he was introduced, they needed a translator and he happened to be there. It was
a memory of a date with him that made Bishop figure out the song lyric code. I didn’t
feel as much during the episode because we weren’t given much setup for it. I’m
feeling after the episode, with that hanging final shot of the card, and
suddenly the whole episode made sense. Was that the writers’ intent?
 |
| Flashback to an Ellie and Qasim bowling date. |
The title of the episode refers to a song title, “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing”, and its significance to the episode is very obvious. In
the Bishop parts of the episode, she is very much motivated by love. You could
also tie it back to the Commander Turner suicide; it was because of love.
The only possible foreshadowing I caught was when
Congresswoman Flemming and Gibbs were talking, and she mentions him possibly
becoming Director if there was a vacancy. I’m thinking this means there is a
good possibility that Vance will not be Director for much longer. I remember
there being hints of this last season too; I kept expecting one episode to
suddenly be his last.
I wasn’t expecting this is to be the end of the Kai Chen
storyline, but I suppose it had to be if Bishop was going to get any closure. I
just wonder what sort of thing they will come up with to be the background plot
for the final third of the season.
7/10
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