Summary
Prime Target picks up a little in Episode 2, introducing a new POV character and several important clues that widen the story’s scope.
Apple TV+ tends to debut the first two episodes of their new shows at once, which is good news for Prime Target, since Episode 2, “Syracuse”, is where it gets going. This is not to say that some of the problems from the premiere have magically disappeared, of course; the protagonist still sucks and some of the dialogue remains leaden. But baby steps, I suppose.
There’s a real sense of danger here, though, and the plot casts a wider net to provide a new, valuable perspective, expanding the scope of the story and giving it more urgent stakes. This isn’t an easy feat in a show about mathematics, so credit where it’s due.
Things once again start with a cool cold open.
The NSA was watching Robert
The opening of “Syracuse” doesn’t have the same dramatic intensity as the gas leak explosion from the premiere, but it does answer one of that episode’s key questions and introduce a new POV character.
Robert Mallinder, it turns out, was under surveillance by the NSA, but not for any particular reason. As surveillance agent Taylah Sanders informs a new recruit, the U.S. intelligence apparatus is always keeping tabs on prominent mathematicians in prestigious academic institutions. In an increasingly – almost exclusively – digitized world, numbers are everything, so boffins are especially dangerous.
Taylah is operating out of Cassis, a very picturesque coastal commune in the south of France. Her job is to take screenshots of any visible algebraic work her subjects might be working on and upload it to a server codenamed Syracuse, so-called after the Siege of Syracuse, during which the titular city was defended, albeit temporarily, by weapons developed by famed polymath Archimedes. How fitting.
Taylah’s Perspective Is a Valuable Change of Pace
Taylah features quite heavily in Prime Target Episode 2, which is good because it means less time spent with Ed. It also means that we have a new angle. It doesn’t seem like the NSA killed Robert, but they might have done. After Taylah finally figures out that they’ve been crediting Robert’s work to the wrong person, and Ed is the correct author, she runs her suspicions about Robert’s death up the chain and she and her colleague, Olson, immediately become victims of an assassination attempt. Olson’s brains are splattered all over the place and Taylah is on the run.
This development – which comes right at the end of the episode – lends Prime Target the conspiratorial slant it needs. If the U.S. government are trying to cover up the prime number theory, and the key to unlocking that theory might be in Baghdad, of all places, that seems like a geopolitical calamity waiting to happen.
And, as mentioned, it means less Ed. Though the chances of these two hooking up – geographically, I mean; Ed does the right thing and apologizes to Adam, so it looks like he’s already got a love interest – in the near future are high.
Sidse Babett Knudsen and Leo Woodall in Prime Target | Image via Apple TV+
Ed Gets Expelled
There’s plenty of Ed to be going on with in “Syracuse”, to be fair, but his scenes are comparatively long-winded. They’re also unfolding in the specter of Robert’s death, which everyone except Ed and Andrea are writing off as a suicide.
Andrea, still grieving, sends Charan to Baghdad in her stead, but I imagine she’ll find herself out there sooner rather than later. But in the meantime, she teams up with Ed to get to the bottom of Robert’s sudden disappearance, preceded as it was by some obvious and out-of-character acts of sabotage.
The sabotage is, initially, all Ed cares about. He barely emotes about Robert’s death, instead worrying exclusively about getting his research back. When he breaks into Robert’s office and realizes he burned it all, he goes postal and smashes his office up and then gets expelled from Cambridge because he stubbornly refuses to apologize for doing so.
New Clues Tie Some of Prime Target’s Themes Together
Robert seems to have left behind a clue – a picture of an icosahedron, which the ancient Greeks believed was the shape of the universe. The shape of the universe, the DNA of the universe; all roads seem to be converging on the idea of this elusive prime number sequence unlocking some of life’s key mysteries. But the specific threat it poses to whoever killed Robert and is trying to kill Taylah is likely less esoteric; it’s probably something to do with hacking and controlling digital systems.
Either way, Ed also finds out who Robert was referring to when he said the prime numbers had already destroyed someone’s life – his old lover, Safiya, whom Ed eventually learns died 30 years prior, also, apparently, of suicide. This is all looking mightily suspicious – and definitely connected.
Towards the very end of Prime Target Episode 2, Ed is approached by a man named Nield, who claims to be from the Kaplar Institute. What are they up to? Subsequent episodes will surely let us know, but I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest it isn’t anything good.
