‘Quantico’ season 2, episode 10 review: Who is really running the AIC?

On Monday night, “Quantico” gave us your latest new episode, one that showed us exactly where some of the cards lied on the table … especially when it comes to the true architect of the AIC.

For most of the season, we’ve felt like this alternate subgroup within the CIA was run by Owen, and in all honesty, this made a lot of sense given that he was not exactly doing a great job of presenting himself to be some sort of card-carrying hero. However, instead it was actually Lydia all along who was operating this group behind the scenes; in the closing minutes of the episode, she spoke with Leon, Ryan, and others all about their mission, and about how they would be holding many of their missions in secret from here on out.

So where was Alex? Despite her heroics and her continued efforts to prove herself, she was on the outside looking in. Unfortunately, her efforts getting close to Owen may have actually come back to bite her in a most unfortunate way. It pushed her further away from the person she needed to be close to.

Shelby’s found out – We give her credit for managing to keep her whole Jane alter ego under wraps as long as she did. We just knew that this was going to have an expiration date. We saw that happened tonight, when Leon finally uncovered the truth — but unfortunately, he didn’t get all of the answers that he wanted just yet in terms of her name. Given that he IS now with the AIC, though, we figure that he is going to be figuring all of that out soon enough.

Can Claire Haas find redemption? – Through most of the series, what we’ve learned about Claire is that she’s a rather devious woman, someone who has a history of some devious actions. She’s had her hands in both cookie jars, and is trying to figure out her next move.

This is where Shelby came into play. During this episode, we saw her lay almost all of her cards on the table in an effort to get through to the President, making it clear to her that delivering a strike was not an answer to any problem. There were other ways to solve the hostage crisis, and we’re very pleased that in the end, she did manage to get through to her! She called off the strike, and in the closing minutes of the episode we saw Alex and Shelby have a quick conversation in which the former told her she’d clue her in on the next move shortly.

Overall – We’re still not going to pretend that the two timelines are working for us, but at least both presented some quality storytelling tonight, especially when we got to Shelby and President Haas. We wish that Miranda and Alex’s scenes were a little more pronounced, but in the end, we do still consider this to be one of the more entertaining hours of the season. Grade: B-.

Next week – We’re going to see more battles when it comes to allegiance, and Alex is going to make a bold move when it comes to Owen.