- Title: Covert Affairs – Grounded
- wiki: link
After witnessing an innocuous conversation between Ryan McQuaid (Nic Bishop) and a man who Annie (Piper Perabo) believes may have been responsible for murder of her last chance at discovering the truth behind the Chicago bombing, the now-benched CIA operative takes the initiative to publicly resign from the agency and accept a job within McQuaid Security to discern the truth about a man she’s already begun falling for. She won’t like what she finds.
Along with the Annie’s medical condition, the major thread of the season has been McQuaid and his true motivations. It doesn’t take long for Annie to confirm her suspicions and finding evidence of a secret unit of McQuaid’s company and the staging area for the bombing which she shares with Caitlyn Cooke (Perrey Reeves) and Arthur (Peter Gallagher). Despite her gut feeling that McQuaid is innocent, Annie cannot ignore the evidence as is forced to turn it over to Joan (Kari Matchett) and Calder (Hill Harper). However, the ease with which Annie proves his guilt, and the conversation between the pair to end the episode, suggests that McQuaid may have been framed leaving the possibility of the continuation of the Annie/McQuaid relationship in the weeks to come.
The episode’s B-story involves Calder being ordered to take Auggie to task for helping Annie hide her medical condition from the CIA. Although he takes steps to do so, Calder eventually has second thoughts after the news of McQuaid breaks. Given how things shake out in “Spit on a Stranger,” I’m inclined to believe McQuaid has been set-up (and guessing that Annie will come to a similar conclusion). If that’s the case the now unemployed CIA field operative may have time to get to know McQuaid far better should she choose to help a fugitive from justice prove his innocence against the very proof she brought to the CIA.
