"Primacy"
Another fine episode, and one that actually builds in part on the last one... a rarity so far this season.
We begin with the investigation of a possible suicide but more probably murder: a middle-aged man, who turns out to be a U.S. attorney from the Midwest, has fallen from a building in a scruffy part of Los Angeles. He's also a team leader, in a real-life scavenger hunt that has grown out of a multi-user online battle game called Primacy. The prize for the winning team in the real-life game is $1 million, which seems motive enough; and certainly there is no lack of suspects, including members of the attorney's team, who have left markers at the murder scene from previous visits. Megan takes the lead on this case, but her secret weapon, she soon learns, is Amita, who has been playing Primacy for years. An obsessed gamer, who has been using fake identities to create his own "team" and who has killed his one actual coconspirator, has been intimidating and harrassing other teams to force them to quit. Having lured him into confrontations in the Primacy environment (which spurs the killer into a botched attempt to mess over Amita, Charlie and Colby), Amita agrees to be the bait to lure the murderer into a real-world encounter (even though Charlie, distracted by his book-promotion obligations, demands that she not be put into any more dangerous situations). They catch the obsessed former designer for the company that hosts Primacy, who hoped to use the prize money as the seed for his own more idealistic virtual environment, and was going to let no one stand in the way of his dream.
Fans of Amita and of
Numbers' feminist spirit might be particularly impressed by this episode, since Megan and particularly Amita were the focus tonight. Even as Don seeks counsel from his father about his troubles with Liz, Larry attempts to move back into the academic life and the secular (if still spiritual) world. Julie Hébert's script strikes a nice balance between suspense and more warm-hearted interaction, whether it's Amita and Charlie not quite saying how they feel about moving in together, or the gentle teasing the agents and academics engage in with each other. Charlie's less than smooth response to his television interviewer's flirting (he manages to mention how cute Amita is, but not how accomplished) is somewhat made up for by the demonstration by the end of how Amita and he are starting to understand even what they don't say to each other.
I was unconvinced by the staging of Colby's being swept away, but even more unconvinced by the CGI water-flow doing the sweeping. I have to wonder about the name-checking of DJ Qualls' young and helpful geek character, Anthony Braxton. The rigorously intellectual (but still playful) jazz composer and reed-instrument player who made his living playing chess during the lean years might be amused - given that a murder suspect who recently returned to Philadelphia shares a name with both the late jazz composer and the still-active civil-rights activist and politician John Lewis, perhaps Braxton is well ahead in this game.
