Father's Day

"We have both spent our lives waiting for someone to come home just to know that we matter."

- Happy

"Father's Day" is the seventh episode of the first season of Scorpion. It aired on November 3, 2014.

Synopsis
Three convicts break out of prison and the investigation reveals that one of the escapees is a brilliant hacker who is being forced to help the other two steal billions of dollars online.

Plot
At Scorpion HQ, Paige freaks out when the answering machine (you can't hack analog) records a call from her son Ralph's father, Drew. The team all has thoughts, but she doesn't care to hear them.

Cabe Gallo comes by with the week's case: three inmates escaped from a prison and the prison wants the team to figure out how they did it. Driving back to the prison, Walter has a flashback to Callan, Ireland, 1993, and Cabe driving him in and promising everything will be OK if Walter just tells him how he hacked NASA. In the prison, the warden gives the rundown on the escapees: two Russians in for identity theft and Percy Tate, a borderline genius and a "hacktivist."

The warden shows them the one gate not under surveillance, in the basement, leading to nowhere. Happy notices a freshly spackled wall, punches a hole in it and finds a splice transmitter. After confirming the cons had work privileges with a little time to spare, Walter explains how they did it: they returned their supplies to the maintenance then went to the basement where they attached a transmitter to catch a signal to open the gate, which is then sent to a cell phone. With an EMP burst on a cell, they could black out the other surveillance cameras just long enough to get out.

Walter leads everyone outside to explain how they got the phone in. In the yard, during a baseball game, one of the cons played right field. A micro drone flew overhead and dropped in the phone. Walter hacks to get surveillance of the game three days ago, showing the drone dropping the phone. Sylvester does some calculations to determine the location of the drone. Walter keeps watching the surveillance and sees the two Russian dragging Percy then deduces they are dealing with two jailbreaks and a kidnapping.

Walter tries to talk to Paige about how difficult it was to lose Cabe as a father figure when things went south between them. She gets his clumsy point. Later at Scorpion HQ, Happy takes apart the bird drone. Walter tries to explain to Cabe how easy it is to dupe a genius, since they get hyper focused and speak in black and white truths and expect others to as well. Cabe gets a call that the cons just carjacked someone. Toby stakes out Drew's motel under the guise of looking for his lost dog. He approaches him, asking for a ride and concludes Drew's a jerk.

At the garage near the carjacking, they notice Percy grab something on the surveillance. When they check out a display they find a 5 ripped from a display and put next to an X on motor oil, with the can pushed all the way to the east. They decide the x is a roman numeral and he's telling them they're headed east on I-15. Happy and Walter want to send a coded message as an amber alert for Percy to see, but since he's borderline genius they have to make it just the right amount of coded.

When Cabe mentions protocol, Walter remembers Cabe citing protocol in holding him for three days as a boy. Cabe gave Walter a computer as he said good bye, asking him to stay in touch. At HQ, they've rigged the amber alerts to look like they're malfunctioning with Pascal's numerical triangle with numbers inside leading to a message board where Percy can contact them for help. Toby returns from spying on Drew and generally makes him sound like a scum, also mentioning he had a battery charge 12 years ago from before he met Paige. Toby suggests he's impulsive enough he might come by. Drew walks in.

Drew tells Paige he wants to see Ralph, but he's not aggressive about it and says it's up to her. Paige sends him away when they get a response from Percy. They have to confirm he's there before Cabe will act. They take the bird drone to get a look inside. Outside the remote house, Toby notices Sylvester flying it gingerly so as not to hurt the fake bird. Toby grabs for the controls and they manage to crash the bird through a window as they grapple. The Russians come out firing, and hustle Percy into the trunk and drive off.

Ireland, 1998 Cabe visits with Walter and asks him for help with software to track aid packages to refugees. When Cabe notices Walter's black eyes from bullies, Cabe shows him a few moves. Back outside the escapee's hideout, Sylvester shows Walter and Cabe footage from the bird drone before it crashed. It captured Percy's laptop screen with overseas bank info on it. Walter suggests they can trace the message Percy originally sent to them and maybe track their computer.

Back at HQ, Paige asks Ralph what he remembers of his dad. He remembers he left to see a movie, and did the calculations of how many options there were locally, figuring his dad must have just wanted to stay and watch movies. Toby gives Happy her social services file, in case she wants to know about her own dad. She notes that she's a decent hacker and could have found it if she wanted. She shreds it. Walter tries to talk to Paige about Drew and she realizes the team looked into him. She reads the team the riot act about butting it, pointing out this is an emotional issue and that, Walter especially, is ill-equipped to handle.

They're interrupted when Sylvester gets the webcam feed from Percy's computer, but no sound after the drone crashed into it. When they notice a potato chip bag vibrating, they get an idea. They have gravelly-voiced Cabe speak into a bag to compare the soundwaves on the bag to the ones from the Russians. Paige pulls Walter aside and tells him that Drew's battery charge was from a wild pitch in a game that broke a batter's arm and the prosecutors trying to get press, so he took a plea.

They get results from the sound wave comparison and come up with stock exchange. Sylvester explains that they're using Percy's old vote tampering hacktivist software to get trades in in the fraction of a second before everyone else. There's a software upgrade scheduled for next month. The team points out Percy will be killed as soon as he finishes the code. When the Russians aren't looking, they flash the webcam light at Percy. He taps out his location in Morse code on his forehead.

They're rushing off to save him when Cabe announces the Treasury traced the overseas account on Percy's laptop: it's only in his name. They realize that Percy was using the Russians all along, at least until they nearly busted them at the safe house. Then the Russians beat the truth out of him and he's back to just making them rich. Back in 1998, Walter watches TV footage of drone strikes and tells Cabe that he knows it's his software and thousands of innocent people will die. Cabe tries to tell him he didn't know that was the plan.

Back in HQ, Walter fumes about being used and lied to by a "normal" and vows to get Percy. Outside the warehouse complex, Cabe leads a team to storm building S, but they have to go in without comms in case the Russians have a police scanner. Watching Percy on the webcam, Toby sees him tap out "selp" and realizes he confused s with h and sent Cabe to the wrong building. With no comms, they can't call them back and they think Percy is dead as soon as he finishes.

The team heads outside the warehouse. Walter uses the drone remote to short circuit the building's wiring, then Paige pep talks Sylvester into tossing the jars of gasoline through the warehouse attic window, igniting the fire. When the Russians come out with Percy, Happy reflects the DVD light from Toby's laptop through a junk car's side window, making it look like a rifle laser sight. The Russians are stopped until the laptop battery dies. Then Happy and Toby are forced to surrender, followed by Walter after they hear Sylvester trip. Walter sends Paige and Sylvester away as he gives up.

The team is following the Russians inside when Cabe and his team appear. Toby, Happy and Walter duck as the firing starts. Walter decks one of the Russians, remembering what Cabe taught him. Later, Cabe asks why Walter is taking Percy's betrayal so hard and figures out it's about him. Walter admits that Cabe was the closest thing he had to a father and he betrayed him and he's never quite forgiven him. Cabe realizes that's why Walter doesn't want Ralph to meet his father.

Back at HQ, Happy can't keep herself from sharing her thoughts with Paige. She tells Paige that she spent her childhood looking out the window of foster homes for her dad's truck and Ralph calculated all the movies his dad could have seen. She tells Paige that if she has a chance to end Ralph's waiting, she needs to take it. Paige decides to let him meet his father. Walter, after realizing that she's going to allow them to meet, states that he will not meddle anymore in the future.

Later, Happy goes to a mechanic to see if he's hiring. He's not, but they share how "wrenching" relaxes them. As Happy walks away, she takes out the taped-together photo of her dad and mom that she shredded, then turns around and goes back to the man, offering him a tip on how to fix the car he's working on. Paige takes Ralph to a conglomerate of tables in a park to meet Drew. Walter watches warily from a distance. Cabe joins him. "You look after the kid, I'll look after you, just like I used to. This is how this is going to work, OK?" Cabe says. Walter agrees and Cabe offers him a peek frean cookie, which he takes.

Main

 * Elyes Gabel as Walter O'Brien
 * Katharine McPhee as Paige Dineen
 * Robert Patrick as Cabe Gallo
 * Eddie Kaye Thomas as Toby Curtis
 * Jadyn Wong as Happy Quinn
 * Ari Stidham as Sylvester Dodd

Recurring

 * Riley B. Smith as Ralph Dineen
 * Brendan Hines as Drew Baker
 * David Fabrizio as Merrick
 * Jamie McShane as Patrick Quinn

Guest

 * Robert Smythe as teenage Walter O'Brien

Trivia

 * First appearance of Drew Baker.

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