DECEPTION Review: “Black Art”

Deception’s Black Art is Tearing Couples Apart

By Geannie Bastian

Things get a little bit awkward this week when Cameron’s ex-girlfriend turns up for fashion week, only to be kidnapped. It doesn’t help that she’s still bitterly angry with him for not telling her about Jonathan, or that she’s got a new boyfriend, a Silicon Valley tech genius. Naturally once she disappears it’s up to Cameron and the magic team to figure out how to get her back, in addition to figuring out how her new boyfriend’s tech company is involved in her disappearance.

This week there’s more than one Black brother in the middle of a love triangle, though he doesn’t even know it yet. After finally getting Dina to come see him in prison, Jonathan is clearly looking for his next opportunity to see her when he asks her to bring a set of Houdini Cyphers to him. But the always eager Mike asks to tag along because the FBI agent has never met Jonathan. Which makes things extremely awkward as Dina tries to cover up for the fact that agent Mike is a little bit sweet on her, while also not telling Mike that she was once Jonathan’s girlfriend. Awkward. Super Awkward.

A model, a magician and a tech wizard…

Set up for great joke, right? Well not if you’re Cameron Black. Because Lexi, the model in question, is his ex-girlfriend he can’t seem to get over. So much so, that the magic team has taken all of her social media and blocked it from his feeds so he can’t see her. So of course when word gets out that her hotel room has been robbed while the FBI was assisting with security, Cameron is obsessed with solving the case to get back in Lexi’s good graces. Kay and the rest of the FBI team are so convinced that Cameron is chasing smoke and mirrors they’re ready to turn the case over to the NYPD. But just in the nick of time Jordan comes through with a discrepancy in her social media feed that Cameron insists they run down.

They head to Lexi’s next shoot – only to see her disappear right before their eyes. Cameron realizes she’s been kidnapped using black art — that is to say, she’s been surrounded by a black background when the room suddenly goes dark, and she’s enveloped in black which visually means she effectively disappears into thin air. Since this all goes down right in front of Cameron, the team knows it has to be a particularly good bit of black art, and it’s not a surprise when they discover there’s a new high-tech black paint that is considered the blackest substance on earth was used in Lexi’s kidnapping. It turns out that patent for the paint, and all of the paint itself is owned by her new boyfriend Rafe’s company. But of course it can’t be that easy, and so we learn that the paint was previously stolen.

What the team doesn’t have to go on is ransom demands. But it’s a particularly unique ransom call. Lexi will be exchanged for the prototype for Rafe’s latest technology – a device that lets you call anything to you out of thin air. The problem is it doesn’t work. Lexi’s technical “Golden boy” apparently has a lot of grand ideas that don’t always work.

So of course it’s up to Cameron and the team to make keys and cell phones flew through the air like magic, in order to give the kidnapper the impression that the technology actually works. Trouble is, that when they do, the exchange goes down is not exactly the one they had in mind. The buyer who shows up agrees to buy the technology for money, and doesn’t know anything about Lexi.

And then suddenly a driverless car appears on the street with Lexi tied up in back. The team realizes that the car isn’t really so much driverless as remote-controlled, and they are able to trace the controller to his assistant Izzy. Izzy is so tired of being blamed for not being able to make Rafe’s impossible ideas work, he’s decided to give Rafe an impossible scenario – The pre-programed route is set to run Rafe down, then send Lexi careening into a parked truck – killing them both.

Izzy however, had not planned on Cameron, who shoves Rafe out of the way and then jumps onto the car to try to get at the controls. He manages to get into the car and is trying to make sure Lexi gets out before they crash when the car suddenly stops. As it turns out Rafe reprogrammed the car, so Cameron hadn’t necessarily saved the day after all. Although, as he points out, he did save Rafe first, without which he could not have saved Lexi in turn. She thanks him and they part on better terms.

Ciphers are better on codes than people

When Jonathan asks Dina to bring him the book of ciphers, it’s because he’s trying desperately to work on the sketches Blink left behind a few weeks back to try to discover mystery woman’s next target. It’s not clear if he is frustrated about the appeal in his personal life or the lack of luck with the ciphers when he suddenly hurls the set of cipher discs to the floor, causing them to come apart. But then again maybe he wasn’t frustrated all. The central circle now freed from the rest of the cipher fits over the mural of the mystery woman’s eye. Jonathan scribbles furiously. The scene switches to Cameron who picks up Jonathan’s frantic phone call – Cameron is the next target. Unfortunately, he’s already mysteriously surrounded by people, smart phone cameras raised and closing in until he’s completely trapped.

So, if Cameron is the next target, is it an immediate physical trap that presents the danger the here? It certainly feels that way. But what’s with all the cameras? Has some new horrible news broken that’s going to put Cameron in an inescapable spot? Hopefully we’ll find out next time.