‘FBI’ Season 1, Episode 2 ‘Green Birds’ Recap: Food Struck

If the pilot was more than enough to blow your mind, then the second episode of FBI might just be hard to swallow. This time, the special force calls in Sela Ward as the new boss lady Dana Mosier to add more spice to the agency and to bust one of the most controversial rival groups they ever had to face.

In this week’s episode of FBI, explosions blasted through the streets of New York. This time, a mass poisoning hits the city that causes panic and fear. Special agents Maggie Bell (Missy Peregrym) and OA Sidan (Zeeko Zaki) hop right on the case. They quickly find out that this mysterious epidemic was no ordinary food poisoning scenario caused by poor hygiene. This was a plan forged by terrorist group Isis, and it was executed perhaps in the most heart-wrenching way possible.

The plague strikes

It’s lunch break at the financial district where two entrepreneurs, a young man, and a middle-aged woman, share a meal over a chat about work. Suddenly, one man from a distance collapses and another quickly follows. Not before long, the young man collapses and goes into shock as well. The FBI arrive at the scene to collect samples in the crime scene as well as obtain security footage in the deli where the victims bought their final meals.

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They examine the security footage and identify a teenage girl who sprayed a weird substance at the salad bar. They find more footage of her with a bag near a dumpster. Before they could find her, they get word of a girl that matched the description of their culprit in the footage. Plot twist: she’s been poisoned as well.

Maggie and OA speak with her mother and asked what happened. The young girl’s name was Caroline, an unpopular high schooler with rebellious tendencies due to the immense bullying at school. They take her laptop from her mother to look into a metal band she listened to that may connect her to committing the mass poisoning.

Bell then gets a call about the evidence Caroline left behind the alley. The spray bottle that she used to poison the victims was tainted on the outside as well. Whoever compelled the young girl to do this didn’t want her alive after she committed it. They then get a mysterious hit from her laptop where they find a site she’s visited multiple times. It was a site connected to terrorist group ISIS.

The dark internet circle

The agents find a post on Caroline’s social media where her last post was on the day the poisoning happened. It read, “Today should be fun,” with a smiley emoji. Among the flood of negative comments on her post was one post left by an account with an alias of Cloudcover33. The comment was a green bird, a symbol significant to terrorist groups.

The comment leads the agents to Tara, another teenage girl who’s made connections with ISIS. She had the same insecurities Caroline had and believed that the people behind the website were going to take her to the middle east, promising a better life. OA quickly identifies the strategy that ISIS used to recruit young and insecure girls to do their bidding.

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They seize Tara’s account to chat with Cloudcover33, who goes by Green Bird. They agreed to meet up with him, except they need Tara to be part of the sting operation. Through the operation, they seize a Muslim woman named Kayali who Green Bird uses as a recruiter.

The website has changed since the last time they checked it. In it now was an aggressive video addressed to the FBI. They linked the video to Khalid Bahrom—a terrorist OA has faced once before. They get word on three other recruits. Two of them were located. The other one, however, was marked absent. They suspected that she was Bahrom’s next target.

Don’t eat that!

They find the young girl at a farmer’s market who they seized before she could escape. Inside her bag was the same spray bottle, but it wasn’t poisoned on the outside. They also found toiletries and clothes, which meant Bahrom had real plans to take her overseas.

OA and Maggie head to the docks where Khalid Bahrom was waiting for the young girl. He seizes a hostage as a human shield. OA confronts him about the attack he knew Bahrom from and how the terrorist was painting an awful reputation of the Islam culture. OA shoots him and hits straight through his forehead, and his hostage escapes safely.

When they get back to the office, Maggie sends an e-mail to Tara reassuring her that she could turn to her if ever she needed any help.

‘FBI’ Season 1, Episode 2 ‘Greenbirds’ Overall Verdict

Last episode we saw Maggie mourn for a young boy who was a casualty in the bombings. This time we see Maggie showing compassion for an insecure teenage girl who was tricked by ISIS to thinking that they would bring her a respectable life. The episode begins unraveling the core of the series’ characters, slowly piecing together OA’s past and affirming Maggie’s mama bear instincts. The episode did have a more creative stretch from the pilot, using poison instead of the typical violence in crime shows.

From the pilot to the release of the second episode, it’s clear that the series follows a specific pattern typical to most TV crime shows.  The show also brought out the big guns right away by involving Isis in the second episode. What makes the series stand out so far is its involvement of young people, perhaps to add to the emotional appeal. If the show could continue its creative streak with even more unusual but not unlikely criminal scenarios, it would definitely be able to hold its own among other similar series.