Quantico season 2, episode 6, “Aquiline,” paid homage to some of the characters and elements that we missed most from season 1.
It was the one year anniversary of Liam’s death and Simon’s sacrifice, and everyone was feeling the effects of it. No matter how deep they get into their new missions, these characters just can’t seem to shake the events that happened at Quantico.
Related: Quantico: 8 things we already miss from season 1
Of course, we didn’t get too much time to reflect. As Quantico season 2 keeps advancing, things are only getting more complicated. When we actually get answers in one timeline, it seems to only bring up more questions in the other timeline! Let’s dive into the episode to decipher what we learned, and all of the information that we still need.
The Farm
After Alex and Ryan’s plan to get rid of Harry failed, they needed to come up with another plan to dispel his curiosity. Together with Nimah and Shelby, they devised a plan to figure out something from his personal life and use it against him.
This invaluable personal information came from none other than Harry’s roommate/maybe kind of friend, Sebastian. Sebastian has definitely kept to himself and been one of the more mysterious recruits so far in Quantico season 2, but he’s really coming into his own at the Farm. Between helping a struggling Léon, standing up for Harry, and holding his own in the assignment along with Alex, he was one of the highlights of the episode.
The Harry mission was important, but Alex’s focus was divided as she remembered her friend, Simon. Normally when you’re dealing with the memory of a personal tragedy you can expect some semblance of privacy, but in this case, everyone knew. Alex was even forced to give a statement to the media about it.
The cherry on top of everything was the theme of their mission: being ready to take someone’s life. Despite everything she was dealing with, Alex worked hard to make sure her decision was informed. Unfortunately, everyone was quick to dismiss her ruling and chalk it up to her own personal issues, including Ryan.
One thing that bothers me about Ryan’s relationship with Alex is how often he assumes that she’s making her decisions from a biased or damaged place. She has amazing intuition (even though she was wrong in this particular case) that he never seems to trust. I loved that Harry stepped in to say that he trusted her since she was a fellow agent and that Ryan followed suit.
Harry has shown us so many times that he’s only looking out for his own self interest, so why do I still want to trust him so badly? Is it his charm, his accent, or simply the fact that he’s a master manipulator? He told Ryan that he wasn’t going to get in their way and he told Sebastian that his confession was real, but it’s so hard to tell if he’s ever telling the truth.
Elsewhere, at an FBI safe house, Nimah and Shelby patiently waited for information from Alex and Ryan. Shelby picked up a bit of a distraction in the last episode of Quantico, and he continued to distract her (albeit, under a pseudonym) in season 2, episode 6. That decoy Caleb text was cruel and unusual punishment to the residual Shaleb shippers out there.
Nimah, who was less distracted, discovered that Shelby was actually texting Léon and didn’t waste any time in calling her out on it. What could have been an explosive moment actually turned into a really sweet conversation between the girls!
Shelby confessed that she was desperate for an escape, and Nimah finally revealed the state of her relationship with Raina. They’re talking, but it’s not the same as it was when they were working together. Now that Nimah is going to help Shelby go undercover with Léon, it’ll be interesting to see what happens with these relationships.
The episode finished with Ryan, Alex, Nimah and Shelby holding an unveiling ceremony for Simon, and it was perfect. Simon had a large funeral at the end of Quantico season 1, but it was great to see everyone say goodbye in a more intimate way, and to show how important he still is to them even a full year later. Rest in peace, Mr. Asher.
Related: Quoting Quantico: Simon Asher’s most enlightened remarks
The hostage situation
We finally got to see the hostages interact with each other in Quantico season 2, episode 6, thanks to Raina Nimah Amin! She’s been mysteriously absent in the future timeline, so far, so it was very cool to see her reappear in this way. I’m still very confused about who she’s working for and the nature of the switch, but it’s exciting to have her in play in the hostage situation.
To gain some information from the hostages, Nimah convinced them all to find a connection between them. After some heated discussion between the Farm recruits, it came out that Leigh and Dayana both had a connection to Serbaya within the last year. Leigh was extra suspicious since it appeared that she tried to hide it, so she paid the ultimate price in an extremely gross and intense scene! As for Dayana, we’re still not sure if the same fate awaits her.
On the other side of the hostage situation, Alex and Lydia gave us a lot of information about the year that we missed in between the Farm and the future timeline. Apparently, Lydia kicked Alex out of the Farm, Ryan was her prized pupil, and Alex had something to do with Owen going to jail! I guess that rules Owen out as a suspect for one of the AIC operatives (maybe).
On top of all of that, Lydia actually divulged at least some of the AIC’s plan in Quantico season 2, episode 6! She managed to fool Alex into using the phone she found to access a safe which contained encrypted hard drives from the G20 attendees. The AIC wants to decode that information, which was gathered through surveillance techniques that the G20 was seeking to get rid of.
Alex eventually figured out that Lydia was playing her, but it was too little, too late. After an awesome showdown, Lydia got away with the hard drives and pulled the alarm to alert everyone of Alex’s whereabouts. Alex accused her of being “one of them,” but Lydia did kill at least one AIC operative along the way, so it’s possible that there’s an entirely different team in this fight!