Mikes Film Talk

This  week on “The Catch” in “The Princess and the I.P.”  Alice Vaughn (Mireille Enos) is still on the trail of Benjamin/Christopher, who is in still scamming Princess Zara Al-Salim when another case comes into the firm of Anderson Vaughn.  Alice is aware of the “departure”  of Qasim Halabi (who was shot dead last week) but not why. She is also pleased the Zara is more accessible.

Vaughn also partners up with Agent Dao to catch Christopher.

This episode puts Alice back out in the field to do what she does best, play the game against the players.  On the con front, Christopher/Benjamin learns that Zara’s brother is coming to take charge of her and the princess asks the conman to help her disappear.

Military contractor Olympic Edge come in to seek help finding a missing employee, Glynn (Abby Miller). The woman in question has all the specs to the company’s cutting edge technology with her. This new Tech  can see through walls and flesh.

Christopher and Margot get a visit from their benefactor’s collector, Felicity (Shivani Ghai) complete with a silenced gun. Felicity agrees to a 48 hour extension to their deadline. The woman tells Margot that they need to speak privately.

Alice pulls a switch on Christopher/Michael and becomes the charity case that Zara choses to donate her money too. At the same time, Vaughn is wearing a wire to catch Michael’s confession.

The company find Glynn dead, only to learn that she faked her death. Alice and her team track down the missing laptop, by its I.P. and retrieve the machine. As they leave a vehicle smashes into their car and some attempts to grab the laptop.

It is Glynn.

Pause for a sexual interlude between Felicity and Margot (Sonya Walger) during which it is revealed that Bishop left the family, despite being next in line.

Zara’s brother arrives and cuts Michael out of his sister’s life. Dao helps the agency on the laptop issue, acting as the middle man to facilitate the  hard drive being returned. The mastermind behind the contractor’s scam turns out to be Glynn’a  friend and business partner Marie.

Before the princess departs the country she give “Michael” the check for 15 million dollars  made out to Alice’s charity after auctioning off her personal things on line. Michael appears to be moved by Zara’s crediting him with turning her life around, while she is unaware the whole thing is a con.

The young royal has affected the conman and this obviously moves him to reveal all to Alice at their rendezvous.

Later, as Alice  attempts to get Christopher to incriminate himself, he confesses he loves Vaughn. He reminds Alice that he tried to get her to leave with him and she lets him off the hook. Dao calls in the troops to catch Christopher who evades the FBI agent’s colleagues.

Alice then  lies to Dao about why things went wrong and she ceases working with the law enforcement official. It appears that Alice is now going to team up with Christopher.

Whether Vaughn’s getting back with Christopher will enable him to break off with Margot or not remains to be seen.  It is already apparent that Bishop will kill, she has done so once, if not twice, or more.  Clearly Alice will be in danger once Margot finds out that she is back in the picture.

“The Catch” has taken a swing to the left and abandoned the Christopher/Alice cat and mouse premise the series started with. While the show may still focus on games con artist’s play, it now looks to be more about Margot and less about catching Alice’s former  lover.

In terms of character arc, it was nice to see the princess eager to battle for the cause from within instead of fleeing and disappearing. It made more sense and one gets the idea that she may just succeed in ousting her brother from his imposed role of “guardian.”

There is a lot of interoffice romancing going on in the form of an awkward triangle and this subplot seemed to reaffirm that underlying theme of relationships. Even Margot has a triangle going on with her physical relationship with Felicity.

It will be interesting to see how Christopher/Benjamin manages to play both sides against the middle while trying to appease the angry benefactor and to win back Alice’s trust.

“The Catch” airs Thursdays on ABC.