‘Quantico’ episode 4 review: Alex Parrish on a knife’s edge

For Alex Parrish, the good news after four episodes of “Quantico” is that she is still both alive and not in custody. As for some other good news, she is also now in a position where she starts to think that there are some suspects into what happened with the explosion.

Of course, all of this is really offset by a really unfortunate caveat: The FBI has at this point given more or less a firm shoot-to-kill order, and there is almost no way for her to get out of this pending a near-miracle. Simon’s status playing both sides has become clearer, and Alex now realizes more of how alone she truly is. Also, she’s got a hostage in Shelby. Fresh off of Quantico she found a way to trap her until she gives up some information tying her to the bomb … which she hasn’t done yet.

Obviously, some terrible stuff happened regarding Alex and the story of Shelby’s parents in Quantico to cause a deep divide in what was at least a fairly-stable friendship at some point, just as there were also some other issues that came up to cause her to lose so much trust in the eyes of others. We wish we did care more about the Ryan Booth story, though, than we do at this point … though we’re also not surprised that he was hiding something about his true credentials.

The Quantico section of the storyline this time was at least thoroughly entertaining, mostly because it showed us further just how hard Alex is willing to go for justice. Unfortunately, she’s willing to be so aggressive about it that it could put other people in jeopardy judging from the results of some of the training simulations. Foreshadowing much? We have to think so.

As a whole, “Quantico” is still doing a really good job of balancing out the intrigue with the character stories, making us care more about than just the female lead. Some of the men on this show still need work, but tell us a network drama four episodes in right now that has accomplished so much in getting us enthralled. Grade: B+.