Scorpion 'Risky Business' Review: Occupying Your Mind

Your mileage may vary on the latest episode of Scorpion, entitled "Risky Business." The show is starting to do what I have been hoping it would since it started. It's developing the characters and turning them into more than just cardboard cutouts that dump technobabble and exposition. But your interest or lack thereof in the romantic elements of the show is what would cause you to enjoy or roll your eyes at what Scorpion is trying to do here.

After seven or so episodes, we now have a handle on these characters. We know who Walter is, though there's plenty more of him to discover and he is quickly becoming the most interesting character. We know how Paige relates to these people and we know how much she defines herself by her son. We know enough about Happy, Toby and Sylvester to understand why they take certain actions. And Cabe. Well, Cabe is still the T-1000, so he gets a pass on almost everything as far as I'm concerned.

So an episode such as "Risky Business" that delves into the relationships among all these characters is, well, it's risky. I've talked in the reviews for the first several episodes about how some of the more emotional elements of the plots didn't feel earned because the show just said to us "these people are a family" rather than showing us how and why they got to that point.

But at this point, we've spent enough time with them for an episode like this to work. It's completely plausible that Walter would develop feelings for Paige now. He's spent months working with her. He's practically a second father to Ralph. Six weeks ago, Walter's feelings for Paige would have come off as "the show is trying to smash their two attractive leads together." But now, it makes sense. It feels earned.

And it seems the show is going for the slow play here based on Walter's actions throughout the episode. The opening scene in which he drag raced was completely out of place until he later explained why he had to do something like that as opposed to, say, golf. When he is at risk, his mind is completely occupied. He literally can't think of Paige or Ralph or Paige's ex who is back in the picture. He can only focus on the task at hand. At other times, his mind can field multiple tasks at the same time, and one of those streams of thought always contains Paige. It was a completely logical explanation that fit the character and the tone of the show.

Walter has also seemingly decided to take the noble route and keep his mouth shut about his feelings for Paige. He's even helping David bond more with his son by helping them speak the same language about baseball. Again, these are the moments when Scorpion is at its strongest, and Walter's pain at being so close yet so far from Paige and her family came across very well.

Toby has also decided to try to strike up a relationship with Happy, but it feels different from Walter and Paige because Toby is a complete goofball most of the time. He may just have the hots for Happy, but he's nervous about asking her out and you can actually sympathize with the guy a bit and root for him to succeed.

The plot of the episode was decent, with guest stars Kid Cudi and Method Man pulling their weight. As I've said before, the procedural elements of this show aren't that interesting to me because they remain consistently even from week to week. Get case, think we've solved case, mess up a few times, actually solve case. The most interesting part of the case this week was the tidbit that Walter cannot feel fear, which is actually kind of awesome.

Scorpion is starting to find its legs, so let's see how long it takes before the show starts to run.

What did you think of "Risky Business"? Let us know in the comments section.