There’s more than one wrong side this season on Quantico. The real questions are: Who is on whose side right now? And: Is there a right one?

After last week’s somewhat streamlined episode, this week, Quantico was back to all the confusion and double dealing that we’re used to. And if anyone can tell me exactly what Harry Doyle’s end game is, I’d probably bake them a cake.

This week’s episode is all about betrayal. At The Farm, the recruits are working together (sort of) to convince a Venezuelan official to betray his country and turn over valuable information. Alex and Ryan are trying to decide who will betray who first, with Harry Doyle doing his best to force Alex into destroying her personal relationship with Ryan.

In the hostage crisis storyline, Miranda tells Alex she’s a terrorist, precedes to tell Alex that she’s about to be one too, and Nimah reveals her motives in this mess. Check out our recap of the episode below and decide if all this confusion is worth it or not on Quantico.

Hostage Crisis

When we left Miranda and Alex at the end of last episode, they were driving away from FBI headquarters after Miranda revealed to Alex that she is a terrorist. This episode picks up right where we left off, with Miranda explaining her reasoning for her actions. Someone other than Ryan noticed that Alex failed to infiltrate the AIC at The Farm, and contacted Miranda. We don’t get any clues as to whom this could be, but they are powerful enough to convince Miranda to join their cause, working against her own country’s intelligence programs.

President Haas, who has just taken over the duties of the highest job in the land, shows up at FBI Headquarters and kicks the agents off the floor. She quickly confides in Shelby that she doesn’t want to launch the missile strike that is set to end the hostage situation. She doesn’t want to be responsible for killing everyone in that building. She admits to Shelby that she helped create the AIC. That definitely came as a bit of a shock. Who knew that the creation of the AIC went that high up.

I’m starting to think that a flowchart could really come in handy these days. Keeping track of who is playing who, who is on whose side, and whether or not one of those we think we know is playing us is starting to wear me out.

Alex and Miranda arrive at their destination and are greeted by Nimah. Before anyone can get a word out, Nimah makes it clear to Alex that Ryan is not a part of the terror cell. It sounds like Nimah pulled him in so she would have an ally. There’s so much chaos going on and so many people running around in masks, clearly the Citizen’s Liberation Front won’t catch on to an extra set of hands. Once it’s clear that Alex believes Nimah, she sets her weapon and her sights on Miranda. Nimah is definitely having trouble believing Miranda’s lies. Who is she actually working for at this point?

President Haas explains how the AIC came to be and where they are getting their funding. She was unaware that the group had actually been formed until she read Shelby’s report. The President wants Shelby to disavow the paper she wrote revealing the AIC, but Shelby is hesitant.

Nimah was told that she was going undercover to stop people from losing their lives. Alex sees the story that Nimah is telling and it makes so much sense. Miranda sees her role unraveling before her eyes and takes matters into her own hands. She subdues Alex and puts a gun to her head. Miranda keeps reiterating that the drives are the true objective. She needs Alex to help convince Lydia to hand over the drives. Alex makes her move and gets one up on Miranda. She escapes her grasp and steals her gun. Alex rushes into the building to try and save the hostages. She learns from Shelby that President Haas cancelled the missile strike, but authorized a hostage rescue team that is about to breach the building guns blazing.

The Farm

Money, ideology, coercion, ego… and according to Owen Hall, doubt make up the bedrock of betrayal. Each of these can be used against a mark to turn them or convince them to betray their previous allegiances to help you out. This is the lesson that the recruits are learning this week: How to get someone to betray their country.

I’m pretty certain this is the first time that any of these recruits has touched foreign soil on the job. Granted, that foreign soil was the Venezuelan embassy in the US, but any crimes committed in the embassy are treated as having been committed against the Venezuelan government on their own soil. The stakes have definitely been raised. Honestly, it’s about damn time. I’ve always thought that some of these training sessions have made this seem more like Glee: Intelligence School than a group of young people learning to be stealthy and underhanded for a living.

Harry Doyle continues to be in contact with his handler for MI6, and it seems that he’s considering trying to get on Ryan’s good side. Best of luck with that. I don’t think Ryan hates anyone at The Farm more than you buddy. Alex has Ryan believing that she was recruited by the AIC as well as him, thanks to her dummy phone. We are still unconvinced. Was she or wasn’t she?

Back to the Op, the Venezuelan official catches on to Plan A very quickly, having investigated the details behind these supposed “investors”. Alex and Harry step in with plan B. They use Gabriel’s husband against him, and convince the poor man that his husband has run away with his daughter back to Venezuela, and if they touch down there, he will likely never see his child again. The ruse works, and Robbie seems convinced.

Seconds later, Robbie loses his certainty, and Harry and Alex are forced to utilize another of betrayal’s core principles: coercion. They change their story and tell him that they have his daughter and will only release her after they have what they came for. It works, and Robbie instantly gives them access to protect his daughter.

Ryan tries to get Alex caught by sending a security guard after her and Harry. She repays the favor by getting him to follow her upstairs and handcuffs him to the unconscious security guard. Mid-mission they have a heart to heart about how this working relationship is detrimental to their personal one. Just when I think these two have passed the point of no return, they find a way to get back to the core of who they are when they’re together.

A few fun facts we also learned in this episode of ‘Quantico’:

What did you think of ‘Quantico’ season 2, episode 10?