- "Walter, don't be afraid to love. I just want you to be as happy as I am. I love you. Thank you. Thank you for being my brother."
- —Megan to Walter
"Arrivals and Departures" is the tenth episode of the second season of Scorpion, and the thirty third of the series overall. It aired on November 23, 2015.
Synopsis[]
When Team Scorpion and Walter’s parents visit Megan in the hospital as her health deteriorates, they are quarantined after a deadly fungus outbreak threatens to infect everyone.
Plot[]
The episode begins with an SUV driving top speed through the busy streets. Happy is driving Walter and Paige. They hit traffic and Toby gives them tips. Cabe says he called for help and they’ve got clearance at LAX. Walter holds up a sign for Sean and Louise and Paige asks why he needs a sign for his parents but he says he hasn’t seen them in 15 years. He’s awkward when his mom hugs him.
He and his dad face off then finally shake hands. Sylvester adjusts Megan’s blankets and she wakes a little. He says her folks will be there soon. She’s disoriented. Walter gives their parents an update on Megan’s medical details. Sean says he can wait to hear it from the doctors. Toby is there and the parents brush him off. Walter tells them about an experiment he’s working on for Megan.
A security guy sends them to another elevator because of a quarantine patient. Walter explains his plan to store her brain and his dad calls it science fiction and then Sylvester introduces himself and Megan’s parents brush him off too. Megan greets her parents and her mom pets her head. Her dad gently pets her leg. They see all the Super Fun Guy stuff and think Sylvester has kids.
They are concerned when they hear he doesn’t and the toys are his. Walter wants to go work but Megan says no. He agrees to stay. They hear an alert for ICU for infectious disease. Toby says something is up then they hear there’s a lockdown of the hospital and a quarantine in effect. Toby says the person who made that announcement is terrified based on their tone.
A kitchen worker comes yelling for a doctor but Toby is the only one available. He goes to check and Happy sees black stuff that splashed where he was working. Toby says he thinks that’s a deadly fungus. The guy is seizing and Happy says they’re in the middle of an outbreak. Doctors are running security is sealing doors. Walter wants out and says he doesn’t have time for this.
Paige says there is no choice and says he needs to be there. He says he’s trying to save his sister. Toby works with the kitchen guy and says if this is an outbreak it leads to respiratory failure and can be as little as two hours until death. He sees the mold has spread and follows it down the hall. Toby draws lines on the wall and talks about the spread of it and when it will kill them.
He tells everyone to get away from the gunk on the wall. A woman is going into labor. Toby gets a doctor from infectious disease. She says the ward is nearly overrun with fungus and they’ll send help when they can. Toby says that baby will have no chance. He calls Walter and Happy takes a tablet from a guy to get the infoon Dr Castillo. Walter pages her.
He says he runs a team of geniuses and then she hangs up on him. He tells Toby to find out all he can about the patient. Paige tells Walter’s family he’s trying to assist. Toby assesses the guy’s breathing and then checks a blood spot on his leg. He says this guy could be typhoid Larry since he was serving food. The guy is a hiker and they wonder if he picked it up in the forest.
Toby scrapes goo off the guy’s shoe and says it’s gold. Toby calls Walter and says the guy became a host for milioa infracta. Walter gets on the PA and says stop spraying that fungicide and says that will make it spread more spores much faster. Sure enough spores start spraying down on them. Walter tells the doc to cover the HVAC return and they get plastic on it.
Toby says the entire infectious disease team is down. Walter tells Sylvester to contact Cabe and get CDC reinforcements. Walter and Paige go to the infectious disease ward and he comes up with a plan and sends her after parts. He’s making something to help – plaster of Paris to block the door. His dad comes to help but calls him stupid when he doesn’t get what his dad is talking about.
Walter blasts it with liquid nitrogen to harden the seal around the door. His dad is impressed. Toby drags the infected guy away and Happy and Toby talk about the mold getting near the HVAC intake. They have to shut down the air intake. Happy gets Walter basement access and they hear sirens and realize cops will seal off the building. Cabe is there and says it’s four hours before the CDC gets there.
Toby says they don’t have four hours. Sly, Megan and her parents watch the news but Megan is out of it. Sean demands to know who Sylvester is and what kind of man he is. Sylvester says he loves her and hasn’t left her side in the three weeks. He tells Sean to accept it then one of his Super Fun Guy toys chirps and kills the moment a bit. Paige and Walter have poles and will use an MRI machine too.
The magnet will slow the blades so they can wedge in poles to slow them. Sylvester hacks into the MRIs then Megan hacks and Sly says to hurry and get there. Sylvester readies the MRI magnets and turns them on at highest capacity. Sly says this won’t last long and they start with the poles. They jam them into the fan blades but it doesn’t work and the fan starts up again.
Louise says Megan is asking for Walter but the pole jammed the door. They’re trapped. Walter wrestles with the door and says he has to get out. Happy shows Toby that the mold is growing faster than they thought. Walter says finding a cure is the only option since within 60 minutes, the whole hospital will be infected. Walter and Paige find a dumb waiter behind a cabinet.
The rope is old and Walter almost falls in. Toby says unless an antidote falls from the sky, they’re screwed. The pregnant woman’s water breaks and he says that was not what they needed to fall. Happy shows Toby more fungus and a spot where Sly’s hand touched where no fungus grew. Walter says to test it. Sylvester wipes some of his hand goo on it and he finds spores too close for comfort.
He loads a spitball and shots it at the mold and it sends it into retreat. Sly says he has superpowers. Cabe says every genius he knows is in the hospital but Paige says one genius is not. Cabe goes to get Ralph from school to help. Walter thinks about how to get Sylvester’s super bacteria out to Ralph and Cabe. Walter comes up with a plan and sly readies a sample.
Sean helps Sly and tells him to scrape his hand. They put it in a petri dish then cram it in a rubber bulb and then he has tubing to make a slingshot. Sean says maybe his toys are helpful. Toby gets ready to deliver and tell Happy to deal with the nervousdad. She makes him pass out by overloading him with information. Cabe has a leaf blower from a garage sale to create suction.
Walter is furious that he is trapped there and Megan, the only person he considers family, is dying. He tells Paige his parents don’t matter and Megan is the only person who has ever mattered in his life. That hurts her feeling. Cabe and Ralph suck the sample out and then Megan goes into a seizure. Louise calls them in and Sly and Sean watch helplessly. Then they call Walter to update him.
Walter tells Paige that Megan is close to dying. He tries the door again. Paige watches him punch the door. At the garage, Ralph and Cabe start making a big batch of the bacteria to spread around. Sylvester asks to have a moment alone with Megan. Sean agrees and he and Louise step away. Sylvester turns off the light and tells her he made something for her.
He sits down beside her and puts his arm around her. He says she told him she was sad she’d never see the stars again. He has a galaxy on the ceiling. He tells her marrying her was the smartest thing he’s ever done and says he will always love her. He kisses her on the forehead. Cabe makes it back to the hospital and a cop says CC has jurisdiction and says he has the cure to save lives.
The cop won’t let him pass and he and Ralph have to turn back. He calls Walter and asks how they can get it inside. Paige says boil it and they can make the steam go all over the building. Toby tells the pregnant women he’s Harvard trained and the dad to be asks in what field and he says psychiatry. Happy calls Walter and he says to use the gas pipe and another nearby pipe.
Problem is it’s covered in fungus. She goes and gets a hair net and apron. Toby says the kitchen is ground zero but Happy says either this works or they all die anyway. Happy goes to work up against all the fungus. She pokes a hole in the gas line and lights it. Sean tells Walter that he can’t leave the room. Walter says he needs his help to save everyone.
Sean gets on the PA and tells every to get to the fire hoses unscrew the nozzle and hold it out. Walter tells Paige they can move back to back up the dumbwaiter shaft but they have to move in perfect synchronization. Toby says the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck and he needs Happy. But she stages out of the kitchen and collapses from the fungus.
Toby runs to Happy but then the parents call him back. He has to choose what to do. Toby tells Walter that Happy is down and Toby goes to save the baby. Cabe and Ralph dump the bacterial solution into the pipe. It starts spreading throughout the hospital. Megan is close to death. Paige and Walter are in the shaft working their way up.
People start to come to once the cure vaporizes. Walter bangs the dry wall and his dad breaks through the wall and pulls them out of the shaft. He tells his dad to hurry. Toby save the infant and delivers her. Toby then sees that Happy is up on her feet. Megan’s breathing is labored and Walter runs in and holds her hands. She tells him not to be afraid to… then she passes without finishing.
Louise starts bawling. Sly is in shock. Paige is crying. Walter says okay. He holds her hand but can’t seem to grasp the loss. The team comes back to the garage with Ralph and Walter’s parents. Everyone is glum. Walter starts looking at his research. Paige says he was there for Megan when she needed him. He says he failed. He goes upstairs alone.
Walter unplugs the computer and all the stuff he had going. One computer starts scrolling and he gets an email video that Megan says he asked Sylvester to send after she passed. It’s a video of her and Walter at the beach and then he walks away and she tells the camera she’s not sure if she will send it. She says she wants him to remember her healthy, happy, and someone who loves him so much.
She says don’t be afraid of who you really are. She says he’s not his brain, he’s his heart. She says don’t be afraid to love and says there are people in the world that love him so much. She says she wants him to be as happy as she is. She says she loves him and thanks him for being her brother. Walter comes back downstairs. He says they should all get some rest.
Cabe offers to take the O’Brien’s to their hotel. Sean tells Sylvester that he’s family. Louise tells Walter she’ll see him soon. Sean says he’s sorry for discounting his plans for Megan and says he knows Walter didn’t want to lose Megan and neither did they. Walter asks if he ever told them when Megan pulled the fire alarm to get him out of trouble at school.
Toby says he’d like to hear that and Happy goes to make some coffee. They all gather and Walter says Megan promised never to tell. He says he kept correcting his math teacher and just as the cane was about to whack him, she saved him.
Cast[]
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[]
Trivia[]
- Last appearance of Megan O'Brien-Dodd.