- Title: Intelligence – The Grey Hat
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When virus takes down the power grid of the entire West Coast Gabriel (Josh Holloway), Riley (Meghan Ory), and Nelson (P.J. Byrne) head to Los Angeles to track down a teen hacker going by the name of Cortez (Octavius J. Johnson) who created the worm but is unaware it is being used by Ukrainian terrorists who threaten to melt down a nuclear reactor if one of their own isn’t released from prison.
Unable to reason with Cortez, Gabriel loses the hacker just as Nelson discovers the kid is the only one who can stop the worm from fulfilling its mission. Even after locating the young man, and saving his life for a second-time, Gabriel and Riley are still screwed unless they can get their hands on the computer that made the worm which means turning over an Ukranian terrorist (Kristof Konrad) being traded to the Russians in order to try and prevent the disaster.
When all else fails, and the team looses their terrorist who escapes with his wife (Agnes Olech), Gabriel attempts to construct a fake reactor to lure the worm to attacking a reactor that doesn’t exist thus fulfilling its programming. Once again, as has been the show’s way of doing things, Cyber Command puts America’s most prized asset directly into harm’s way (this time at the center of a possible nuclear meltdown) which only Gabriel’s quick thinking helps prevent.
“The Grey Hat” leaves several hanging plot threads as the terrorist whose escape the entire plot hinged around was allowed to make his getaway and Cortez (who we are told over and over is a genius) realizes there is something very different about Gabriel and the impossible things he’s able to accomplish. That Cyber Command doesn’t think to silence a possible huge security leak of a known hacker and blackmailer is more than a little circumspect (but wouldn’t give the episode the warm fuzzy ending of the teenager being reunited with his estranged brother).