Nikita

A nice morning in a suburban neighborhood takes a scary turn when Roan interrupts a man’s treadmill workout by bursting into his house with a gun. He orders him to stick electrodes onto his chest, which are attached to a small device. Roan uses it to zap him, and he immediately collapses off the end of his treadmill, dead. As quietly as he came, Roan pulls the electrodes off him and leaves. A moment later, Amanda contacts another man to tell him that his “order has been filled.” The man hangs up and dials someone else to instruct them to “Sell Brightling. All of it.”

In prison, Nikita’s former CIA agent friend Ryan Fletcher is distracted from his chess game by the news: Walter Bendavid, the chief chemist of Brightling Pharmaceutical died from a heart attack. Ryan bails on his game to run back to his cell. He tears a photo of Walter out of a magazine and hangs it on his wall next to other clippings — a fire in Ireland, a riot in China, etc. He then requests a phone call to his mom.

Elsewhere, Nikita and Michael are holed up in a temporary safe house. Michael is reading up on Cassandra and Max, who have relocated to London. He and Nikita begin to argue about whether or not he should join them when their computer intercepts Ryan’s call. Nikita realizes he’s using a code that means he needs to speak with her. Unfortunately, she’s not the only one listening in. Amanda and Sean hear it too, and Amanda orders a team to be ready for Nikita at the prison. Sean asks her about Ryan, and Amanda tells him that he’s a CIA analyst that Nikita corrupted.

Wanting answers, Sean finds Alex, who is helping herself to Division weaponry. She admits that she has felt like someone’s been tailing her since she left Belarus. Sean goes all Dr. Phil on her and says, “So this is the safest place you feel like you can be?” Alex corrects him, explaining that the guns are what make her feel safe. She’s taking them home and spending as little time in Division as she has to. This brings Sean back to why he sought her out: He has questions he doesn’t think anyone else will answer, and he’s asking for himself, not Oversight.

At the prison, Roan and the Division grab team are in action. They expect Nikita, but Ryan’s visitor is a man who claims to be Bob, Ryan’s old racquetball buddy. With gadgets Nikita has given him, she and Ryan can talk remotely. Although they had a plan to get him out, he couldn’t wait to talk to her because he figured out that Oversight gets funding by engineering events that affect the stock market in ways that they can profit from. If she checks out the riot, fire, and Walter’s heart attack, it will lead her to whoever controls Oversight’s money. Suddenly, Roan bursts in and forces Bob to tell him what Ryan told Nikita. Even though Bob didn’t really understand much, it’s enough that Ryan is Division’s newest mark.

Sean and Alex are off on a romantic stroll in a park. Okay, they’re actually talking business. With Ryan’s pristine record, Sean doesn’t believe that Nikita seduced Ryan into committing crimes like Amanda said. Alex explains that Percy and Division were behind all of it. “The only thing Nikita ever offered Ryan was the truth,” asserts Alex. They’re both surprised at how little Oversight has shared with him, and Alex asks why he works for them. Before he has to answer, he notices a man. Sean grabs her and spins her so she can see if she knows him. There’s chemistry, but the moment is ruined when the guy starts shooting. She pushes Sean to the ground, and they both fire back. Once he’s wounded, Alex insists they bring him in for interrogation. Strangely, he calls her a traitor.

With Ryan’s intel, Nikita and Michael learn about the operations behind the riot and the fire. Both caused disruptions to the production of Brightling Pharmaceutical products. By hacking into the Securities and Exchange Commission, Birkoff is able to ID Transworld Consortium as the company who benefited most from these events. At the same time, Amanda is doing damage control with two Oversight members: a woman and the man who issued the order to sell all Brightling. They’re not happy to discover that Ryan uncovered their plan… all from the comfort of his prison cell. Amanda offers to arrange an “accident,” but the man wants a chance to speak to him first so he can learn how Ryan did it and make sure no one else does.

Transworld Consortium’s address leads Michael and Nikita to a house in Delaware. A seemingly clueless woman answers the door and shows them that her house contains a bunch of PO boxes used by companies that wish to remain anonymous. Apparently, it’s such good business that she feeds her cat salmon fillets every day. She goes off to find him, and Nikita breaks into Transworld Consortium’s box and snatches their mail. But the cat lady isn’t so nice after all: She returns with a huge gun. Although she’s Division, she doesn’t put up much of a fight. Nikita takes her out before Michael even has a chance to step in.

Back at Division, Alex, Sean, and Amanda observe the Gogol agent’s interrogation. Amanda grudgingly admires how well their agents withstand torture. She says it’ll be a while before they even learn his identity. Turns out it won’t: Alex knows him. He’s Yuri Lavrov, her childhood friend and the son of one of her father’s bodyguards. His dad was killed in the raid on her family’s home. This means that Semak knows that she’s Alexandra Udinov. She wants to talk to him herself, which Sean strongly advises against because she won’t be able to stay emotionally detached. When Alex counters that Yuri won’t either, Amanda totally approves.

That night, a guard leads Ryan out of his cell — against protocol. He finds himself face-to-face with Oversight’s money man, who he recognizes as Wall Street tycoon Jonathan Gaines. He realizes that they can only divert so much money from the Pentagon without suspicion, so they need Wall Street funding too. Gaines cuts to the chase and asks how Ryan picked up the pattern. It was designed to be invisible, so Ryan must be special. He starts to offer to get Ryan moved to a minimum security prison, but Ryan interrupts by noting that Oversight must have someone in the Justice Department. Gaines doesn’t deny it. Instead, he tells Ryan he needs to start thinking about his future. Ryan says that he knew his future was over the second Gaines showed his face, and he’s just sorry he won’t be there when Nikita takes him down. As he returns through the corridors, his guard attacks him, but Ryan’s prepared. They sail over a railing in the scuffle, and luckily for Ryan, the guard cushions his landing. The papers report that he attacked the guard, but Nikita springs into action knowing that “Amanda won’t fail twice.”

At a park by the Potomac, Sean sits with the Oversight woman from Amanda’s meeting with Gaines. She’s concerned about him after the shooting, but he wants to discuss the hit on Ryan Fletcher. He doesn’t want any part in it, even as she claims that Ryan is an enemy of the state. “Can the doublespeak,” says Sean. “I’m not 12 years old anymore.” Wow, looks like she’s his mom. She tells him that she’s proud of him and his father would be too. He’s not swayed and he tells her to let Amanda clean up the mess, but she admits that she doesn’t think Amanda can. Instead, she hopes he will. He decides he’ll consider it if Ryan is spared. Strangely, Amanda’s been able to listen to this whole conversation through his mother’s cell phone. It’s unclear who orchestrated it, but Amanda’s not happy.

Alex begins her walk down memory lane. She presses Yuri to explain what turned him against her, and he explains that he’s been working in Zetrov’s security department since his father died trying to protect hers. Until two weeks ago, he thought she was dead. He thinks that Division spared Alex to bring her back to be raised by them. She was brainwashed into agreeing to take over Zetrov one day, ostensibly in the name of her father but actually as Division’s puppet. He pities her and volunteered for this mission to put her out of her misery.

Ryan’s rescue is underway as Nikita and Michael pose as a guard and a transfer inmate. They’re sent to the infirmary for processing, and they split up. Nikita makes it to the infirmary, but Roan’s already there. She watches in horror as he closes the curtain around Ryan’s bed. She tries to open the locked door, but a guard catches up with her. She takes him out and shoots her way into the room, but by this point Roan has already injected Ryan with something and escaped. Nikita rushes to Ryan’s side. He manages to give her Gaines’s name, and she promises she’ll get him before Ryan flatlines. With guards approaching, she and Michael have to run.

Back in their safe house, Michael tries to reason with Nikita, who’s channeling her sadness into a revenge plan. He points out that Division will be waiting for them at Gaines’s house, Roan included. “Let’s hope so,” she responds. She doesn’t think they’ll ever get Gaines if they wait because he’ll hop from one island to the next. “He’ll answer to me tonight!” she insists. Unable to sway her, Michael decides to go too. However, he was shot by Roan, so Nikita thinks it’s too dangerous. He insists but realizes he can’t even stand up because Nikita drugged him. She explains that he has a son who may need him one day, but she has nothing to lose.

Alex struggles to set Yuri straight. Gogol’s story is logical, but Alex’s involves being saved from Division by a rogue agent who hadn’t gone rogue yet. Yuri can’t understand how she can claim to have been saved from Division when that’s where they are. He asks why she isn’t with Nikita anymore, and Alex starts to cry. She explains that Nikita killed her father, but she defends Nikita as not having had a choice. The interrogation has gone from bad to worse: Alex just revealed inside of Division that she still cares about Nikita. Finally, Yuri says, “They have their claws so deep in you, you don’t know what to believe,” and Alex runs out. Disaster.

Sean meets up with his mother again to announce that he plans to turn Gaines in since Ryan was killed. Meanwhile, Division is preparing Gaines’ escape. Like clockwork, Nikita arrives and scales the side of his apartment building. Noiselessly, she enters and takes out the first guard. “Ryan Fletcher says hi,” she says to a shocked Gaines. As she demands names of Oversight members, Sean comes in, followed by Division agents. Nikita uses Gaines as her shield as Sean negotiates with her. He genuinely believes that Ryan was innocent and wants her to let Gaines answer to his crimes in a courtroom. Roan is skeptical of the whole scenario, so he gets Amanda on the phone for advice. Always one to hold a grudge, she tells him to hold while she checks with Oversight. After examining her nails, she orders him to kill both Gaines and Nikita. Desperate, Gaines announces he’ll give names. As he drops “Senator Madeleine Pierce,” Sean shoots. Looks like he didn’t anticipate his mom being implicated. Gaines is killed, so Nikita seeks cover behind a couch. Suddenly, shots start hitting Division agents. It’s Michael! He’s picking them off from a nearby roof. Again, he’s the best boyfriend ever. With his help, Nikita makes it back out the window to safety.

Back at their safe house, Michael’s livid that she went in on her own, especially since she considered it her mission. “There’s no ‘my’ anymore. There’s only ‘ours,’” responds Michael. “As in we share the losses,we share the risks, and most of all, we share the decisions.” (Aww!) She says she was thinking about him, but he asks if she’s ever stopped to think about how he’d feel if he lost her. If she ever pulls a stunt like that again, he threatens, they’re through.

Later, Alex asks Amanda to ask to speak with Yuri again so she can make him believe the truth and join their side. Too late. Amanda had him cancelled already. She pulls the concerned card and tells Alex that the safest place she can be is Division. From now on, she can only leave if she has an armed escort. Uh oh… this must be a ploy to monitor her.

The next day, Sean and his mom rendezvous at the park again. She’s annoyed that Gaines is dead because it’ll hinder Oversight and wonders why he fired the first shot. He says it’s for the same reason that he has to go back to Division: because Gaines put her in danger by naming her in front of Nikita. He says he’ll do whatever to protect her since she’s his mother, but he’s out as soon as he eliminates Nikita. Sigh… just when we were imagining him on her side.

Finally, we have a moment to mourn Ryan when Nikita visits his mom to tell her he was a hero. But then comes the twist. We cut to Amanda entering a basement room in Division to see someone — Ryan. She explains that she went to great lengths to keep him alive without anyone knowing because she needs his help to take down Oversight. We can’t help but be impressed by the care that went into her plot — she even ensured that Nikita saw him die. But hey, you can’t underestimate Amanda, especially not when she’s pissed off.