NBC’s The Endgame is such a complex show. Every episode from beginning to end is filled with twists and turns and every little detail has to be considered. Each week Elena tells Val a story and every week we find ourselves hanging onto all the things she says. This week was a bit different. If you read our review of episode 1×04 “#1 With A Bullet” then you know we told you, we were getting a little tired of the story theme, so it was kinda nice not to have one this week.
That isn’t to say there was no story, its just that we didn’t have to be told by Elena this week that she was in fact telling us a story. This time it was done subtly with flashbacks, and we were okay with that. There was no need for her to tell us she was telling us a story. We just got to watch it unfold.
In episode 1×05 “Gold Rush” we finally got to learn who was responsible for the bombing at the church on Elena and Sergey’s wedding day. The episode takes us through a series of flashbacks from 2018 with the first one being Elena and Sergey torturing and interrogating Pasha the man who planted the bomb. We learn that Pasha was hired by someone from the Cutler Administration in America, and it happens to be one of the people in the photograph Val found which has every person Elena has targeted so far.
Val is trying to get Elena to tell her what it is that she hopes to achieve with everything she’s done. When she mentions to Elena that she’s already got four officials facing charges, Elena is completely unfazed because there are still more people in the photograph that haven’t been brought to justice. As Elena dodges Val’s questions, she poses her own. Once again, she brings up Isaac Bigsby the man who killed Val’s mom. Somehow, she knows that it’s Val’s mom’s birthday because of course she does, and she asks her what she would do if she were able to get the justice she’s always wanted. Val reminds Elena that Isaac is dead so there will never be justice for her mom’s murder. Clearly, Elena must know something we don’t. Before Val has a chance to find out more, she has to leave because Elena’s Snow-White Operatives are back at it.
We jump to bank six which is the Federal Reserve Bank. The Snow-White Operatives are working to break into the vault where all the gold bars are. It’s a very intricate mission to say the least. Because of this, two of the banks board members Ameera Ojjeh and Scott McPherson are taken hostage down to the vault. There are three vaults total and in order to get into them, Snow-White needs the two to get past all the high-tech security clearances. Seriously, it’s a crazy sequence to watch how they even got all the things that were needed to accomplish cracking through every vault.
As all of this is happening, Val, Doak, and Flowers along with Director Real are attempting to figure out who Elena’s next target is. They determine that it’s a guy named Ahmed Abdel who is this dude who is really good at all the tech stuff and just so happens to be the one who worked on the setup for the vault’s security. Val takes off to find Ahmed and warn him of the danger he’s in and when she shows up at his place, he has no clue why Elena would even be coming after him. As we all know though, Elena doesn’t do anything without a reason, nor does she go after someone without one.
It becomes clear that Elena’s reason for wanting Ahmed is because he was involved in the bombing of her husband’s family. As it turns out, he was operating the drone camera and he inadvertently hired the man responsible for planting the bomb. See, like we said, Elena doesn’t just go after anyone if there is no reason to. As Val is preparing to take Ahmed somewhere safe, some snow-white operatives show up and Val is involved in a shoot-out. Director Real gets word of this and immediately knows Elena must be involved so he demands that she tell her men to stand down. What was surprising about this moment was that Elena seemed a bit caught off guard hearing that Val was in the middle of a shoot-out. She tells Director Real she would not hurt Val and you know what? We believe her.
Remember that weird code thingy Val figured out at the end of episode 1×04 “#1 With A Bullet”? Well, Director Real’s team was able to figure out how Elena has been able to get her intel while she’s been in custody. Obviously, we know there are signals coming from her team inside the bank but there’s also one more and it’s coming from Peekskill Prison. Director Real knows there is only one person it could be and that’s Val’s husband Owen. He sends Flowers off to the prison to talk to Owen to find out what his involvement is and to let him know that Val’s life was almost taken because of whatever he’s gotten mixed into.
I gotta say, it was nice watching Director Real send Flowers on a mission without telling Doak and he was quite salty about it I might add. Doak’s feeling a little left out in this episode for sure and maybe that’s a good thing because it’s teaching him that he’s not the only one that matters on the team. When Flowers does go to see Owen, he’s utterly useless. He gives no information whatsoever and we were just as pissed off as Flowers was. It was like Owen just didn’t give a shit about what could happen to Val. He showed minimal concern and we can’t blame Flowers for chewing him out.
Back at bank six, Val and Doak have Ahmed working with them to get into the vault through the trapdoor he created. Doak suggests that he go with Ahmed and Val stay behind to interrogate Ivan the one living suspect from the shoot-out. Naturally, Val is a little like “umm fuck that, I’m going” but Doak convinces her that she’s so good at interrogation she should stay behind, and she does. Was I mad that she gave in? of course but I also know she was trying to help soothe Doak’s male ego because it was obvious, he needed to feel like a “big man doing his thang.”
When Val talks to Ivan, she mentions that she believes he’s involved with Snow-White and Elena’s operation, but he tells her “I don’t work for that bitch.” Were we surprised by that revelation? Yes, we were. The name Belok which is a rival of Elena and Sergey’s keeps coming up, so Val tries to find out if that’s who Ivan works for. Before she can, he says the dreaded statement “I want my lawyer” and all questions stop. Val being Val has some sort of epiphany about teamwork which is of course because she thinks back to her conversation with Elena where she said something about teamwork earlier in the episode. I legit heard the word teamwork and thought absolutely nothing of it while I was listening to Elena. Val hears it and a light bulb goes off.
While Doak and Ahmed are down in the vault, they eventually make it into the secret entrance where the server room is. Ahmed is supposed to reset everything in order to prevent Elena’s team from accessing the vault with the gold bars. Doak and Val attempt to contact each other but realize their communication on their radios has been lost. See, for us we just assumed it’s just like a cellphone where you have bad service when you’re in a certain area but that was not the case. As we continue to tell you, Elena is always, always several steps ahead and boy did we get fooled because helpless Ahmed didn’t turn out to be so helpless after all. He was working for Elena the entire time.
We should have been paying closer attention to Ahmed’s cellphone. Dude did everything from his phone and his energy was a little off when Val showed up to his place. Ahmed threw off Val and Doak’s entire operation which made it easy for the Snow-White Operatives to get inside to the gold bars. Oscar who is the leader of this bank operation takes some propane tanks into the vault with the intent to melt down all the gold which would lead to an economic collapse. Val realizes that Elena’s mission has never really been about money, only gold. She, Doak and their team make it into the vault in time to stop Oscar, but he has already activated the detonator. In order to neutralize it, Val and Doak end up having to use you guessed it teamwork, to remove the detonator. They are then able to rescue the hostages and bring in some of Elena’s people. Crisis averted. Or so we thought.
Like we told you, The Endgame always gives us tons of twists and turns and it would appear that the gold bars are still at risk. Elena is smart and she has a plan A, B, C, D, you get the point. Oscar did a little switcheroo and had Val and Doak thinking that the detonator he set up was the one that would destroy the vault, but he planted a fake gold bar that is an explosive device. We can’t wait to find out how Doak will react to that bit of news since he got on a call with the President’s chief of Staff and basically took all the credit for stopping the Snow-White Operatives.
After the dust has settled Val meets up with Elena again because that’s typically have these episodes end. Elena once again asks Val about Isaac Bigsby, and she cannot for the life of her understand why she just won’t let it go. Elena tells Val to check her pocket where she finds Isaac’s address. As we suspected, Isaac is alive so what Val will do with that piece of information we have no idea. Elena has just turned the tables and the episode ends with her saying “Now it’s time for you to tell me a story.” Whatever that means, we will soon find out.
Other Thoughts
- I want all of Elena’s wardrobe. Blue is my favorite color and I want all the things. Also, I feel like there’s a significance to her wearing blue all the time. Even Val wears blue a few times. It must mean something.
- Not Sergey telling Elena she’s so domestic as she washes torture tools in the sink.
- How did Elena know it was Val’s mom’s birthday?
- “You called the White House Chief of Staff to say what, ‘all is right in the world’? Get to it.”
- We love watching Doak get put in his place especially by women.
- I’m still trying to figure out if Elena’s shock over Val being involved in the shoot-out was genuine now that I know Ahmed was working for her.
- Okay so, Elena found out she was pregnant in 2018. Now we need to know if she did have her baby and if so, where is her child?
- Apparently, Owen does care what happens to Val. He said as much to Sergey. Why couldn’t he be honest with Flowers then?
- Forensics cracked the blinky light code and it said “Val and Abdel under fire. The new players are here.” Just who the hell are the new players and why was Owen the one who sent this message?
- Val asking Flowers how Owen was and if he showed any type of emotion was sad. She was clearly heartbroken that it felt like his message wasn’t one of concern.
- “Owen made his choice. He’s with Elena not me.” Damn Val. DAMN!
- “ThE jOb HaD tO gEt DoNe. I gOt It DoNe.” Ummm… no Doak, you didn’t.
- Doak hasn’t learned shit. He is still a narcissistic POS. Asshat gave ZERO credit to Val for that mission. You know what, since it technically wasn’t a full-on success, he can take ALL the credit he wants.
- We really need to know what is up with Isaac Bigsby because we know there is so much more to this story.
- HOW THE HELL DID ELENA GET ISAAC BIGSBY’S ADDRESS INSIDE OF VAL’S POCKET???????