[dropcap]A[/dropcap]re you ready for some genius misfits? CBS’s new show Scorpion starring Katharine McPhee and Elyes Gabel premiered this past Monday. The show chronicles the fun, action-packed adventures of a group of super-geniuses who work together to prevent citywide disasters, and is inspired by true story of genius Walter O’Brien.
The pilot starts with helicopters and big men in black uniforms running into a house in Ireland. Scorpion has come to arrest the hacker, but guess what? It’s just a little kid named Walter O’Brian (Gabel). He hacked into the NASA computer system because he wanted the shuttle blueprints for his wall. Yep, the kid is a genius. They take him away, off to where, we don’t know yet.
We come back to the present with Walter sitting at a diner. He can’t connect emotionally to his girlfriend so he devised a document to help him connect all while he is in the middle of a wireless installation. The plan isn’t very helpful at all, but in the meanwhile he notices the waitress (McPhee)’ son is sitting by the counter playing chess with the salt and peppershakers. He ends up going to the boy, and makes some chess moves with the kid—letting us know the child is smart. He then leaves the diner telling the child’s mother to help the kid and not to yell at him.
Walter is now at the place where he works with a group of other misfit geniuses. He realizes they can never be normal. They also can’t even pay the bills. Walter asks for Toby (Eddie Kaye Tomas), who we then see running away from a car chasing him. It turns out he is a Harvard trained behaviorist, and has just double the money in poker by being able to read people very well. Unfortunately, he now has people chasing him because they think he cheated them.
The men are banging down the door, when we hear sirens. It’s the Department of Homeland Security looking for Walter O’ Brian. Federal Agent Cabe Gallo request the assistance of Walter and his genius friends to work with him. Walter is not happy to see him since he has worked with him in the past and didn’t like the results. Agent Cabe has been keeping an eye on Walter and his misfit friends, and lets them know that he knows everything about them. We are introduced to the super-genius team. First is mechanical prodigy Happy Quinn (Jadyn Wong). Next is world-class shrink, Behaviorist Toby, and Sylvester (Ari Stidham), the human calculator, and of course, Walter.
Regardless, Walter is still not convinced they should work with him. Agent Cabe needs Walter to hack into the LAX Control Tower, because a software upgrade with a bug has knock down the entire system and there are 56 planes that need to land.
So Happy has to give Walter a talk and convince him that they need this job. She doesn’t want to see bodies falling off the sky, and they need to help the people, and the planes need to land. Finally Walter agrees, but because of horrific traffic and a time limit, they can’t get to LAX, so Walter tells them to go to the diner where he just installed the wireless connection.
In comes Homeland Security with badges, giving money to the owner, sending people out of the diner. The owner leaves Paige (the waitress from earlier) to deal with the agents and geniuses. Soon they set up their laptops and begin to attempt to hack into the LAX cameras and control center.
They communicate with Mr. Brooks from control. He can’t seem to help because he doesn’t know where the backup files are since the system was installed 15 years ago. They have to reboot the system with the old software. Unfortunately, every 12 hours the software updates itself, which will cause the usable software to become corrupt. With the time crunch here, Toby and Happy go to Blackstern Data Storage facility to look for the backup files. However, they can’t open the doors. Fortunately, this is when Happy, the mechanical genius starts doing her thing, while Sylvester (in the diner) calculates the 500,000 Kilowatts necessary to create a brief power surge in order for them to get into the building. Viola, it’s done, and now they just need to find the right file. Toby psychoanalyzes a picture of the man that put the files in the servers, and just in time he gets the backup files.
They return to the diner and give Walter the hard drive. But oh no, it has an error. Turns out the facility had a magnet by the door, and erased the files. Now what?
Walter is about to give up, but Paige talks to him, and we see a shot of Ralph (Paige’s son) staring up at the sky. This gives Walter the idea to get the bug free software that’s on board the plane. Paige has trouble connecting with her son. She feels he needs to see her helping the team. Ralph gives his mom the keys; it’s what he wants her to do too. The team is trying desperately to reach someone on the plane, with an active phone.
With the geniuses hacking the streetlights, Paige drives super fast to get to the airport. Toby finds an older guy with an analog phone, and is able to connect with him where he tells him to give his phone to the pilot so they can establish communication.
Walter gets to the airport, and Happy tells him how to hack into the Ferrari. Now they just have to synchronize his speed with the airplane. Probably sure the plane could have landed by itself, but oh well. The Co-pilot (air force experienced) opens the plane door and passes the cable to Paige who is in the passenger seat of the Ferrari while Walter is driving the car at super speed. She is able to plug the cable, and starts downloading the software to her laptop. Wow! Sounds unbelievable, but the software is downloaded and communication is restored in the nick of time.
Cabe thanks Walter, pays him, and then offers him a home for him and his team. Walter expected this so he hands Agent Cabe the contract for himself and the team. He then goes to visit Paige at her home where he offers her a job to work with them and bring her genius son, Ralph. Ralph needs them and they need Paige for social interaction, plus the geniuses understand Ralph because he is like them. Ralph places a control on the side, silently telling Walter to play a video game with him. A very sweet ending.
Join us next week with another exciting episode of Scorpion. We can help save the world together, well at least pretend for now.
[photo credit: CBS]
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