INTELLIGENCE 1×03 ‘MEI CHEN RETURNS’ – “HE’S NOT AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER. HE’S A HUMAN BEING.”
“Intelligence” delivered another stellar hour of television this week with their third episode, “Mei Chen Returns”. In this episode, Gabriel’s chip is hacked and the Cyber Command team quickly realizes that not only has Mei Chen survived the surgery that we witnessed in the Pilot episode to implant a chip similar to Gabriel’s in her brain, but her chip also appears to be even more powerful than Gabriel’s. Unlike Gabriel, however, Mei Chen has no interest in using her chip for good; instead, she uses her chip first to taunt Gabriel by invading his cyber renders, but her ultimate goal is to steal the technology behind the chip and sell it so that it can be mass produced and create a new species. As Gabriel aptly proclaims, she is one ‘crazy bitch’ and so Lillian and her team have their work cut out for them: they need Gabriel’s help to stop Mei Chen, but to not take Gabriel “offline” is to leave him vulnerable to the mindgames that Mei Chen seems to enjoy playing with him.
The highlight of this episode for me was watching Lillian at odds with the leaders of some of the other federal agencies. She held her own quite well against her counterparts and even took the CIA Director to task for daring to spy on her agency. Her hard-nosed approach to dealing with them also countered nicely with her staunch defense of Gabriel and his right to mourn his recently deceased wife and her complete faith that he will come back to them and do his job. She might be tough as nails because she has to be, but like Gabriel, she is not a machine. I do still have a lingering question about Lillian’s motivation for not telling Gabriel the truth about Amelia, especially since his unanswered questions are obviously plaguing him and his cyber renders, but I’m sure she has her reasons and that all will eventually be revealed.
In addition to my continuing love for Marg’s character, other highlights of the episode for me were Jameson, Nelson, and Dr. Cassidy. I think Lillian’s boys makes a great team, and I especially enjoy Nelson’s humorous one-liners and his enthusiasm when he’s getting his ‘geek on’: “Booyah!, I’m in!” I also enjoyed the unexpected comic relief that the return of our ‘fat friend’ Amos and his four buckets of fried chicken provided. Those unexpected moments of humor interspersed throughout all of these otherwise intense moments are probably what I enjoy the most about “Intelligence”. It’s just a fun hour of television and I look forward to tuning in each week.
