Eleina’s discovery of Dr. 909’s “hidden wallet” was thoroughly explained in the opening scene, making up for my issue from last week’s episode of the odd placement of setting up decoys for the hacker who is helping Skinner. Now that Dr. 909 has been identified as the hacker, the team digs deeper into the contents of his hidden wallet and find a ledger with large deposits of money. It turns out Dr. 909 helped Skinner disappear three years ago in exchange for Hapna information which he used to make money with the help of a stock trader named Sam Stephenson. The objective for this episode is to find Sam in hopes it will lead to Dr. 909 while Eleina continues to monitor transactions on the hidden wallet. The cat and the police officer made their weekly appearance but this time it was together, adding more humor to this running gag that I hope continues to the end of the series.
Axel, Doug, Chris, and Leland (disguised as “Laura”) go to one of Sam’s clubs in order to see if he’ll make an appearance. The team looks for ways to get into the VIP lounge which is either by a digital tattoo for men or being one of the “chosen” women to be invited. Chris is able to get the bartender to spill the beans on Sam arriving at the club with the DJ, called DJ Visionary, by helicopter, while Axel scans a copy of the digital tattoo by knocking out a drunk attendee in the bathroom. Doug and Leland hit the dance floor, with hilariously awkward moves working in their favor as Leland is chosen to go to the VIP lounge. Chris is able to latch on to Leland while making his way to the lounge, instantly meeting the entitled and misogynistic Sam whose behaviour shouldn’t be surprising. Axel and Doug both enter the VIP lounge with the copied digital tattoos but are stopped immediately because the guards know the tattoos were stolen. It’s certain we’re about to get an action sequence!
Before we get to the best parts of the episode, I have to mention a scene worthy of a trigger warning. Sam boasting about punishing the “gold digging” women in his VIP lounge with the drug-laced punch, giving permission to his friends to take advantage of the unconscious women was troubling and found it unnecessary for the progression of the story. The only satisfying moment in this scene was Chris jumping into action, showing her impressive fighting skills, with Sam deserving each hit, and the roundhouse kick causing him to fall into the DJ booth.
Back at HQ, Eleina and Hursch have been following Dr. 909’s deposits at ATMs internationally but his latest transaction is local. Eleina is able to use corrective software to make the image clear as Dr. 909 was getting onboard a helicopter and his identity is revealed to be DJ Visionary, explaining his ability to make these deposits around the world. Once Eleina reveals Dr. 909’s identity, the team begin their pursuit. Begin the action sequence!
It was exciting to see both Doug and Chris display combative abilities while Leland summons the car. The most impressive part of this scene is seeing how Axel maneuvers Chris, with her agility and shooting abilities, to take out security, so I applaud the action director, Chad Stahelski, for those amazing moves. We all know Axel has no fear as he decides to leap and hang on the helicopter as Sam and Visionary escape. Thanks to Leland’s assistance in providing a rideable drone, Axel is able to shoot down Sam’s helicopter into a river. Visionary confesses that hacking Delta Medicinal to get the Hapna information is the reason he made money but neither he nor Sam have a connection to Skinner. This means the hacker helping Skinner is still unknown. Sam is able to get Visionary’s necklace, containing the information from Delta Medicinal and gives it to Axel. In the end, Sam and Visionary (real name Donald McDonald) were arrested for insider trading. The cliffhanger this week is a monkey collapsing in what seems to be a research facility, making this a possibility of one of the first casualties of Hapna.
This episode did a better job than last week with the storytelling. It was easier to follow and the action made the experience more entertaining aside from the potential harm to unconscious women. Seeing each member of Lazarus bringing individual skills together while showing more of their personalities is what I’ve wanted to see and I hope we get more of this in the future. There’s 24 days left and Delta Medicinal will be next week’s target so tune in!
Umeko is a staff writer for ToonamiFaithful.com. Feel free to follow her on Twitter @blu_temptation
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