Minor spoilers follow (But do you really care?)
That seems like a line that would fit in snugly in a Quantico script, to describe a character’s incredulity at discovering something very obvious, for example, or to exclaim when yet another bomb goes off in the middle of New York. Clearly, Quantico writers aren’t happy with one major terror attack to keep viewers engaged. “Why have one blast, when you can have two?” seems to be the mantra to keep a flagging narrative from going entirely limp.
If you’ve read any of my Quantico reviews so far, you’ll know that the show has been pretty dreary ever since it premiered, in spite of a promising plot line and a decent protagonist in Priyanka Chopra.
Then there is the bipolar narrative, struggling to be a gritty thriller and fun campus drama at the same time, the two elements hardly ever tying in neatly. The past-present narrative style is difficult to maintain over entire seasons – as How To Get Away With Murder has shown us in the past – and Quantico writers can never do justice to more than one timeline per episode. When the drama gets pulsating in the present, unwanted scenes from the characters’ past pop up, and just when you get hooked to a storyline unfolding at the Academy (told through flashbacks), you are rudely pulled away to the aftermath of the Grand Central explosion (in the present).
The show took a mid-season break (American shows, just like the audience, get to go on Christmas breaks), and the last episode ended with what should have ideally been a wicked twist.
At the season’s mid-point mark, Chopra’s character Alex Parrish is still a suspected terrorist, and has managed to win the confidence of her ex-batchmates and superiors, who’re helping her sort her mess out.
Quantico might return as a better show early next year (with that cast, there’s little hope), but I doubt I’ll be watching it anymore.
(Aniruddha Guha is a film & TV critic. Follow him on Twitter: @AniGuha)
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