As if Dr. Skinner hasn’t caused enough chaos, this week’s episode picks back up when Eleina’s facial recognition software determines there’s over 100,000 people who share the good doctor’s face. Eleina is able to determine that only three hackers, including herself, have the ability to trick surveillance cameras, leading the team to rule out plastic surgery. From here, Chris and Leland are sent to Skinner’s house for clues while Doug brings Axel along to follow a lead of his own.
Chris and Leland are able to gain access to Skinner’s home by posing as a cleaning crew. Chris is curious about Leland’s persuasive skills and Leland redirects by asking what Chris was doing before joining Lazarus. Chris answers by saying she was a secret agent which Leland doesn’t believe. I liked this exchange between these two because Chris remains tight-lipped about her past and Leland isn’t gullible. Even though the local police and FBI have already searched the house, team Lazarus didn’t leave empty handed as Chris found a pill under a couch cushion and jokingly asked if it could be the cure for Hapna. It’ll be interesting to see if the components of this pill are actually important later.
Doug’s lead is his mentor, Claude Cline, who worked with Skinner on research projects. Doug learns Cline retired but ended up homeless, which is where Axel’s jailhouse connections become useful. At a tent city, Doug and Axel look for the leader of the community, Jerry, who Axel knew from one of his stints in prison. Jerry, who has now transitioned into Jill, is found and Doug tells the story of wanting to thank Cline for standing up for him after punching the university’s Dean for racist remarks. Jill leads them to Cline whose only lead is Skinner mentioning his Grandmother Belinda’s baklava and that she lives in Istanbul. It was an intriguing insight into Doug’s academic background as a researcher and knowing he punched the Dean was satisfying. Watanabe is no stranger to including LGBTQ+ characters in his works so I was happy to see Jill and how Axel was respectful of her transition.
Back at HQ, Eleina locates a high crime area with no surveillance cameras in Istanbul which could be the area Belinda lives since there’s no data she exists. Axel and Leland (who sticks out like a sore thumb in an effort to “blend in”) make a run for it in a short but awesome chase scene after arriving in Istanbul. The locals take Axel and Leland to Belinda’s home after stopping short of cutting Leland’s hand off when he mentions the baklava. Grandma Belinda, who raised Skinner, says the last time she heard from him was three years ago via a video message with him saying he’ll visit after things calmed down since he’s been busy. Axel finds a hidden camera once he figured out Skinner was keeping an eye on Belinda to make sure she was ok. After threatening Skinner through the camera, a person watching smiles and triggers a decoy Eleina set up to find one of the hacker’s “hidden wallet.” It was not clear in an earlier scene what Eleina was doing with setting up decoys so I was confused and it felt out of place with everything that was going on in the episode.
This episode was more story driven than action which is good because Lazarus couldn’t survive off of Axel’s action sequences alone. My only issue was that Eleina setting up the decoys could’ve been placed at the end since what she’s doing leads into the next episode. Something I thought was amusing were the Skinner and Shaggy doppelgangers at the homeless area. Next week’s episode may be more exciting with the team going clubbing so it’ll be interesting to see what lead takes them there!
Umeko Long is a staff writer for ToonamiFaithful.com. Feel free to follow her on Twitter @blu_temptation
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