When Brian decided to take matters into his own hands, and track down Piper on last week’s episode, it felt like Limitless was finally about to kick into high gear. After all, as we get closer and closer to the season finale, there needs to be no more silly cases of the week bogging things down. Notably changing the pace by setting itself in Russia, and focusing completely on Brian and Piper with Rebecca and the FBI folks hardly featuring at all, Bezgranichnny certainly seemed promising at the outset. However, what we ultimately got was at its core yet another “Brian goes on a heist” episode, with some key plot material thrown in for seasoning.
Most important to this week’s story was Brian’s relationship with Piper, which unfortunately seemed a bit manhandled in the writing. There’s a great deal of time spent on Brian’s pursuit of Piper, ultimately realizing that she’s in prison. In order to break her out, he bribes the deputy prosecutor with a phone call from an newly inspired George RR Martin, who reveals to him the ending of Game of Thrones (no, I’m not kidding). It’s a funny joke in theory, but the whole scenario went on for so long that by the time we finally got to see Piper, we were already a solid way through the episode. So much so that the most important part, which found our two NZT’d freedom fighters planning to steal the last ingredient to the immunity enzyme from a Russian big wig and falling for each other in the process, was rushed through in a montage. Yes, these two certainly had chemistry before, and believe me, am I glad that we’re not putting Brian and Rebecca together, but there just wasn’t any time to let their connection breathe.
Piper even seems to know this to some degree, because when she and Brian prepared for their heist, she mentioned that their fling “wasn’t real.” Damn right, it wasn’t you hormonal bastards, but I digress. The heist was fairly generic business, infiltrate the nice party in hot suits, distract the mean man and escape. Of course, Brian wasn’t particularly smooth on the last part, but Piper (who just might love Brian after all, who knew?) came to the rescue by getting Mr. Game Of Thrones to pull some more strings. I love how weird this show is, but sometimes it definitely feels like it likes to use its absurdity to cover up lazy writing.
Although Rebecca and the American side of things didn’t immensely figure into things this week, the most emotional scene ultimately did come from her visit to the Finch house. Watching Brian’s dad lay into her about how his son’s disappearance was fairly wrenching, especially considering all that Rebecca has done for Brian at this point. It seems as she might go AWOL at this point too, taking “vacation days” that nobody buys into for a second to go look for Brian on her own. Or at least, that was the plan, until Brian’s sister came forward with a description of the man Brian took care of in front of her, Sands. Cherry on top to Rebecca knowing that Brian is a traitor, Sands now knows that Brian has found Piper thanks to some dude that texted him.
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Ultimately, this was one of the lazier episodes Limitless has given us. Instead of jump starting the climax as it was supposed to, it meandered a bit and essentially just gave us more of the same. However, after finding out that next week’s episode features yet another coveted cameo from Bradley Cooper, the quality of this episode starts to make sense. After all, this show has always functioned best when its main antagonist has actually been able to show up, and I’m expecting big things from A Dog’s Breakfast next Tuesday.
6/10
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