True Colors

"For a guy who says he has no feelings, you sure are sweet."

- Paige

"True Colors" is the sixth episode of the first season of Scorpion. It aired on October 27, 2014.

Synopsis
Team Scorpion must pass a mandated psych evaluation or face being disbanded after they are accused of destroying a priceless work of art.

Plot
Standing amid wreckage and nearby a flaming car, Walter and the team get yelled at by a fed for causing a Homeland Security nightmare and over $100 million in private property damage. They're all being sent for psych evaluations.

24 Hours Earlier Cabe Gallo comes by to tell the about a cushy security job at an art museum, guarding a $100 million Franz Bierman painting. In the car on the way there, Walter mocks the painting and art in general and Paige suggests him not bashing things 99% of the population enjoys could help them get more jobs. Later, in with the shrink, Paige defends the team. Back at the museum, Cabe meets the head of security, Dr. Paulson, who is skeptical of the team. Walter goes over to the painting and peers at it closely, making everyone nervous. Then he takes out a knife and slices into it, to everyone's shock and horror. Back with the psychiatrist, she finds him contemptuous and unstable, but he maintains his actions had a purpose.

At the museum, Walter announces the painting is a fake. Sylvester counted the brush strokes and found 48 too few, Happy offers that the nails in the frame weren't even manufactured yet when it was painted. Dr. Paulson is apoplectic until FBI art crimes agents show up and announce that they carbon dated it and it is a fake.

Walter says the painting was made by a computer, but the FBI agent Carey doesn't think it's possible. Dr. Paulson asks them to leave. Back at Scorpion, Gallo tells them painting was authenticated at customs, so it had to be stolen somewhere between then. He calls in an expert, NCIS Agent Hetty Lange. The team explains how the forger might have accomplished it, included that they'd need a high resolution image to copy. Hetty suggests US Custom keep such things.

The painter was killed in a concentration camp and since then, three generations of the Mueller family have been trying to get it back. Sylvester looks up who downloaded the painting, including someone at Galactic Toys, which would have the tools necessary to make the fake. They scroll through the employee records and find a likely candidate, named Phil Daniels. Back with the shrink, Sylvester says Walter helps him control his anxiety on jobs.

Outside Galaxy Toys, they see Daniels jump out a window. Walter runs after him as Sylvester goes inside to get Cabe, in an excuse to see the HQ of his favorite comic. Happy bounces the van off trucks driving after Daniels as he runs from Walter. Finally, Cabe levels Daniels as the gang shows up in the van, which is now covered in chicken feathers. With the shrink, Toby defends going after Daniels and also gives credit to Walter.

Back at Scorpion, Gallo is angry that Daniels is spooked by the team and won't talk. Toby gives it a crack, saying the idea of forging appealed to Daniels' artistic ego. Daniels insists there's nothing illegal about making a copy of a painting, but gives them a name when Toby points out Daniels will be the one taking the fall. He says Jacques Lebeau, a real estate tycoon and friend of the mayor paid him. After looking into him, Sylvester reports that Lebeau pays a separate electric bill to a climate controlled room. Cabe says that's not enough for a search warrant but leaves to try to get a wire tape, telling the team not to do anything until they hear from him.

Walter immediately starts planning how to bust Lebeau with the real painting. A news article says Lebeau is preparing for a gala, so he wants the team to go and stop the painting from being smuggled out of the country. Happy and Toby will go as waiters and try to find the painting while Paige and Walter try to get close enough to Lebeau to clone his phone. Sylvester will wait in the van. But first they go back to Hetty for help with outfits and comm devices.

At the party, Walter has hacked the guest list and he and Paige breeze in. Jacques addresses the gathered partiers while Sylvester hacks the security system to let Toby and Happy in. Walter and Paige need to be near Lebeau for three minutes to clone his phone, so Paige drags him onto the dance floor. Happy breaks into the locked room and they find it's a wine cellar. On the dance floor, the clone device resets so Walter slips Paige the device to dance with Lebeau and then watches anxiously, possibly a bit jealous.

Down in the wine cellar, Toby thinks it's too cold for fine wine and must be hiding something. Toby sees a wine rack that looks recently installed and tries to move it to lok behind it, even when Happy tells him there's nothing there. He manages to knock the rack over, while concluding it really is a wine cellar. When they hear people approaching, Sylvester blows the lights and the team all runs for the van. (Happy had to hide by cake and comes back to HQ covered in cake.) Sylvester finds Lebeau called Dr. Paulson, the museum curator, half a dozen times before the painting went missing. And they find an email from Paulson to Lebeau with bank routing numbers. As the team heads back out after Paulson, Walter gives Paige a note to hand deliver to Hetty.

Back with the shrink, she asks Happy if any of them think about how Walter puts their lives at risk ad how no one has anywhere else to go, especially her. She says they all have faith in Walter and points out that at this point, they caught Cabe up to speed. Back to that night, Walter tells Cabe they followed Paulson to his house and saw him put the painting in the car. Cabe says because they went without a warrant, it's inadmissible, but Walter points out they weren't working under his orders so it is.

Sylvester finds Paulson booked space on the cargo hold of a ship to Hong Kong. He tells Cabe they'll hack into Paulson's car and stop it and all Cabe has to do is meet them and arrest Paulson, no risk. They hack the car as planned and overheat the engine, just as Cabe pulls up and gets Paulson. Cabe is congratulating the team for a job well done when the car explodes behind them, incinerating the painting. "That might be our fault," Walter allows. Back to the opening scene on the bridge, with the team getting yelled at.

Then to the shrink, with Walter. She shows him his cloning device and tells him she tried to get it to accidentally reset and couldn't. She thinks he reset it himself so he could dance with Paige another 30 seconds. He denies that he would ever jeopardize the mission like that, as we see a flashback of him doing just that. He defends the team, saying all he ever tries to do is protect them and they can do things together that no one else can do. He leaves. Back at HQ, Cade brings the good news that they passed the psych test. He reads from the shrink's report, saying that he has created a home for his team.

Cade is bothered by a few things from the mission, mostly that the tech experts accidentally exploded a car. He checked the evidence room for the fake painting, but it was gone. He's worried about making a case against Lebeau and Paulson, but Walter assures him their records will uncover other past thefts. When Cabe suggests they forensically test the ashes of the painting, Walter says it was totally destroyed as we see a flashback of the team swapping out the original in Paulson's trunk for the fake and rigging the car to blow. Then cut to Hetty, Paige and Walter meeting with Mrs. Mueller to return the painting. Alone with Hetty, she tells Walter that she saw the way he looked at Paige and something, or someone, made him understand the family's connection to the painting.

On Halloween, Paige brings Ralph by the loft to find the team dressed up. Toby is Sigmund Freud, Happy is wearing painted whiskers, Sylvester is his favorite comic book character and Walter puts on sunglasses and does a great Cabe Gallow impression. Then they give Ralph his costume—a giant brain. They all head to Ralph's costume party.

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
 * David Fabrizio as Merrick

Guest

 * Linda Hunt as Henrietta Lange (Hetty) from NCIS:LA

Trivia

 * Henrietta Lange's appearance makes this part of the NCISverse.
 * The name of this episode is a clear reference to the song True Colors, by Cyndi Lauper.

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