Summary
Things become a lot clearer in The Recruit Season 2, Episode 3, with a flurry of late reveals raising the stakes.
Episode 3 of The Recruit Season 2, “H.H.I.I.T.K.A.L.”, finally makes the scale and the severity of the threat against the CIA clear. Now that it’s obvious what Jang Kyun is blackmailing them with, it stands to reason that they won’t let their secrets see the light of day, which can’t be good news for Owen or anyone else on the wrong side of things.
And this is to say nothing of another thread that emerges in this episode, with an old face taking matters into her own hands in pretty extreme ways. And, to be honest, I don’t trust Jae either, though for now, I’m unsure quite how he fits into the wider plot.
Let’s get on with it.
A Meeting with the Taliban Goes South
At the end of the previous episode, Owen found himself on a plane to Qatar with his new friend Tom, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. On the way there, Owen reveals that his dad was killed after tripping an IED in Helmand Province, which gives him a personal resentment towards the Taliban that Tom worries might threaten his ability to negotiate the release of four Americans.
As it turns out, Owen is the least of anyone’s worries, since the meeting is ambushed by ISIS and a firefight breaks out, with Owen doing everything he can to protect his other new friend, Tom’s British contact Oliver. It takes Owen murdering someone – his second victim after the one in the Season 1 finale – to win Oliver’s trust, but he gets it eventually. He pulls some strings and finds out that the Russians don’t have Nan Hee after all.
Nichka calls at the same time with the same news. However, Nichka also knows who is holding Nan Hee, but she won’t reveal it until she’s paid. Owen tells Lester to pay her on the promise that Dawn will provide him an asset, despite her having already said that she wouldn’t.
Dawn Is Trying to Have Owen and Lester Killed
I should have probably clocked this earlier, but Dawn putting Owen’s name on the office’s “expiration list” board was a bit of a clue. It turns out she was the one who hired the assassin who tried to kill him at the airport. She doesn’t trust their mutually assured destruction arrangement.
When Lester calls Dawn to demand an asset from her in exchange for paying off Nichka, this earns him a place on the board. Later, Lester pays Nichka, who informs him that the Yakuza have Nan Hee, and then notices he’s being followed by a masked, armed man. Another of Dawn’s hires.
Lester is able to take out the assassin and take a few photos of his face, but this won’t be the end of Dawn’s efforts to eliminate anyone who can harm her.
Jae Isn’t Trustworthy
Terence finally turns up in The Recruit Season 2, Episode 3, but only for a brief scene wherein he talks to Hannah about Jae. She clearly has a thing for him and since she’s relatively sure that Owen will be busy ruining some other woman’s life, she’s willing to make a move. However since they have a professional arrangement, this represents a bit of a conflict of interest.
Luckily, Jae is unconcerned about this, and he and Hannah hook up. When she wakes up, though, things get a little weird, since Jae is rooting through her phone. He manages to play this off as playing second fiddle in a previous relationship making him paranoid, and Hannah rather inexplicably just accepts it, but this guy definitely cannot be trusted.
We’ll be keeping an eye on him.
(L to R) Maddie Hasson as Nichika Lashin, Colton Dunn as Lester Kitchens in Episode 203 of The Recruit. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024
Salazar Turns the Tables on the CEG
In Owen’s absence, Salazar is still being investigated by the CEG, who seem especially interested in her connection to Hannah, or at least her connection to Hannah’s mother (if you recall in Season 1, Hannah’s ex, Jeff, was fired thanks to Hannah’s mother.) It’s all very fishy.
Later, Nyland calls Salazar to warn her that the CEG are about to storm her home, which is a bit problematic since she has videos of her and Owen there together, pretending to be talking heads in her homemade news studio (this remains a very funny character quirk for her to have. But it’s not, as she points out, against Agency protocol.)
Luckily Salazar isn’t stupid and lays out to the CEG her concerns that they’re using her as a scapegoat to cover up their incompetence in the Max Meladze case, since she was able to turn an Agency asset, Xander Goi, under their nose. Whether this is true or not, it sounds believable enough that the CEG decides they have exhausted this particular avenue of inquiry. For now, Salazar seems to be in the clear.
It’s Always Crypto
Towards the end of The Recruit Season 2, Episode 3, some of the pieces finally come together for Owen and the audience. After returning to Korea and being interrogated by Cho for a couple of hours, he goes to see Yoo Jin, which is where he is when Lester calls to give him the news about the Yakuza.
This is just as well since Jang Kyun jumps Owen in the bathroom asking for the latest news. When Owen reveals the Yakuza connection, it triggers something in Jang Kyun, who immediately legs it, claiming everything is his fault. Owen accompanies him to the contact he pressed in the previous episode, who reveals that Nan Hee is being held by the Yamazaki Clan, right before Jang Kyun throws him off a building to his death.
But why the Yakuza? Owen demands the truth, and Jang Kyun tells him that he came up with the idea of creating a cryptocurrency with a tracker embedded in the code, allowing the NIS to trace it to organized crime and foreign governments. Then, without Nan Hee’s knowledge, he uses the bribes her NGO paid to mobsters to seed that crypto into the black market. But the tracker in the code must have been traceable.
There’s also another bombshell. The CIA co-developed the traceable crypto with the NIS, and it has now made its way into the civilian population. So, the U.S. government is spying on ordinary citizens through their digital wallets. There’s no wonder they don’t want this getting out.
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