The Enemy Within season 1, episode 2 recap: Black Bear

Tal strikes again on this week’s The Enemy Within.

“Black Bear” continues building up Mikhail Tal’s reputation but it also makes Will Keaton come off as willfully ignorant. In the premiere of The Enemy Within, Shepherd warned Keaton that Tal has a proclivity for using moles. However, this week when Tal’s men literally seem to be a step ahead of the FBI, Keaton doesn’t seem to suspect that someone could be feeding information to the other side. Maybe his loyalty to his coworkers is supposed to be endearing but for now, it shows why Shepherd was brought in to help with this case and he’s barely made any progress.

The latest attack

The episode opens up with a man offering to help a young mother with a baby board a train. However, it’s revealed right away that this guy isn’t exactly a good Samaritan. On the train, he confronts a different man and demands his laptop as well as the password. Naturally, the guy isn’t willing to hand over his laptop so he takes off. Unfortunately, the train conductor is in on the whole thing and shoots the guy after receiving the password.

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This grabs the attention of the FBI because the victim is a former intelligence officer. His name is Dean Merriman and he was once an operative working under Erica Shepherd. While the team is reluctant to work with her again, Keaton is aware she’s helped them make more progress on Tal in two days than ever before. He approaches requests her help but makes it clear that this will be the only case the two work together.

Shepherd isn’t hanging around with the FBI because she hopes to return to her former glory. She just wants to kill Tal and reunite with her daughter. In exchange for her help, she demands Keaton get FBI protection for her daughter, to which he agrees. Other than that, she’s frustrated by the lack of progress he’s made since arrested Viktor. They haven’t spoken to Anna Cruz or Nemec yet and Shepherd thinks they need to press these two for information.

THE ENEMY WITHIN — “Black Bear” Episode 102 — Pictured: Raza Jaffrey as Daniel Zain — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

Looking at all the wrong things

Daniel is referred to as the interrogation specialist on The Enemy Within, but I’m not exactly sure what makes him so good at his job. Is it his boy scout charm which manages to win over the people on the other side of the table? Shepherd points out that Tal’s associates never flip but Keaton is confident Daniel can make him turn. However, I tend to agree with Shepherd. Why would a guy like Viktor flip on a man who has assets within the government?

She’s equally disappointed by Kate, who spends the entire time trying to identify Merriman’s killers. Kate is shocked when Shepherd says they shouldn’t care about the murderers because it’s their motive which is more important. Ultimately, Keaton lets Kate continue tracking the killers while he teams up with Shepherd. She knows Merriman had a storage unit where he kept all of his intelligence information. He’s initially hesitant to let her come but caves because he knows she’s the only one who might be able to find what they’re looking for.

THE ENEMY WITHIN — “Black Bear” Episode 102 — Pictured: Pawel Szajada as Victor Nemec — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

Who is Anna Cruz?

The twenty-six-year-old CIA analyst spends a majority of “Black Bear” just lurking around the Bureau. Her boss shows up but he’s not thrilled that the FBI has partnered with Erica Shepherd. He confronts Shepherd but we don’t get to hear the extent of their conversation. Could he be a Tal operative? Or is the CIA playing a game of their own?

Nevertheless, he’s ready to pull Anna Cruz out of this conversation because he won’t cooperate with the Bureau so long as they’re working with Shepherd. Cruz, realizing she might not get the insider info she needs, gives a speech about wanting justice. Ultimately, it’s enough to keep her on the team where she can update Tal’s operatives of Keaton’s every move.

THE ENEMY WITHIN — “Black Bear” Episode 102 — Pictured: (l-r) Jennifer Carpenter as Erica Shepherd, Morris Chestnut as Will Keaton — (Photo by: Will Hart/NBC)

Black Bear

Jason, Keaton, and Shepherd head to Dean’s storage unit where they’re greeted by a helpful handyman who opens the door for them. Inside the unit, Jason discovers that Dean was continuing a private investigation into Tal despite exiting the CIA. The team realizes he must have been close or else Tal wouldn’t have had him killed.

To no one’s surprise, Cruz had notified the handyman because he’s also working with Tal. He tries to shoot the team but Shepherd is able to pull Keaton behind a table to safety. Unfortunately, the man falls to his death after getting shot at by Keaton. Looks like it’s another dead end on The Enemy Within!

At least a few good things come out of the investigation. In the files, the team finds someone referred to as Black Bear like the episode title. Shepherd reveals that Dean liked to give assets codenames so Black Bear would mean this person has the initials BB. Also, Keaton agrees to get Shepherd a face to face with Hannah after she saved her life. What’s not helping them out is Anna Cruz continuously playing dumb while gathering up intel.

THE ENEMY WITHIN — “Black Bear” Episode 102 — Pictured: Noah Mills as Jason Bragg — (Photo by: Will Hart/NBC)

One step forward, two steps back

Kate is able to figure out BB is Beverly Brooks, a woman who works at IVS, the intelligence agency where Dean was hiding his files. She gets a call from the FBI to stay put but she realizes the black unmarked cars outside don’t appear to be on the up and up. When the men beginning shooting at her coworkers, Beverly takes off with her laptop and somehow manages to get to safety.

Keaton and his team arrive on the scene shortly after where they quickly dispose of most of Tal’s operatives. Unfortunately, Beverly isn’t able to get all of Dean’s files onto her computer. Apparently, he had kept his entire investigation there. The lone Tal operative drops a grenade on the computer forcing Keaton to save Beverly but not the intel.

Beverly does reveal that Dean had her researching a lot about Cuba. Apparently, Tal has some kind of invested interest in the country. While Keaton does get this information, he loses his star witness. Viktor is killed in his cell thanks to Anna and she managed to disable the security cameras while this happened. With their only witness dead, Keaton is officially going to be forced to look at his own team.

THE ENEMY WITHIN — “Black Bear” Episode 102 — Pictured: (l-r) Sophia Gennusa as Hannah Shepherd, Jennifer Carpenter as Erica Shepherd — (Photo by: Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

Memories

The Enemy Within does reunite Hannah and Shepherd before the end of the episode. Their fifteen minutes together isn’t a happy walk down memory lane though. Hannah wants to know why her mother did it but Shepherd refuses to answer. Of course, the audience knows she did it just to save her daughter’s life. Eventually, this truth is going to come out and it’s going to effect Hannah a lot more knowing that her mother underwent all of this pain just for her.

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Seeing Shepherd interacting with her daughter just reminds Keaton about the loss he suffered because of her actions. By the end of “Black Bear”, he tells Shepherd that he’s nothing like her. He cares about the victims and it’s not all about motive. Once again, Shepherd doesn’t care and she only encourages him to not trust anyone. At least she thanks him for setting up the visit with Hannah even if it didn’t go well.

At Hannah’s house, it’s also shown that she saved the hat her mom had been wearing in her escape. Inside was a little note reminding Hannah how loved she is. Here’s hoping the series reunites these two for good soon!

What did you think of this week’s episode? Do you think there’s another mole on top of Anna? Be sure to tell us in the comment section below!

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