STITCHERS Takes Us by Surprise

S1E5 “The Stitcher in the Rye”

This week the Stitcher team investigates a conspiracy theorist named Justin Link, who died of a heart attack. They also ask themselves an important question: whom can they trust?

This episode begins with Kirsten and Camille having typical roommate spats in the kitchen, and Kirsten receives a package. Inside is a copy of The Catcher in the Rye, and there is no return address.

In the lab, Maggie tells the team that their next stitch is going to be Justin Link, a 30 year old food truck owner who also happens to be ex-CIA. He died of a heart attack, and they are stitching into him because he has published conspiracy theories online about the government that have been too close to the truth for comfort.

When Kirsten stitches into his memories, every thing is happening too fast and she doesn’t understand the images she is seeing. The team puts a filter on Link’s memories, but they’re deteriorating quickly. Kirsten sees something in the last second before she bounces out, and she, Cameron, and Fisher head to the food truck.

Kirsten finds the government files in the truck, and she pulls one out. They hear a ticking sound and run out of the truck, and then it explodes. The file she grabbed has a floppy disk inside of it.

The team can’t pull anything from it with the high tech equipment they’re using, so they plan to find another way to decrypt it. Cameron and Kirsten talk about the stitching, and Kirsten tells him that she keeps seeing a teddy bear in the memories of different people. Cameron suggests that its her memory, and she confides that she can’t remember anything before her father left her. Kirsten has a flashback to a moment when she and Ed Clark were arguing about who can use the computer. This prompts her to go back to her house and dig out one of Ed Clark’s old computers, and she is able to decrypt the disk.

Kirsten is receiving text messages that she thinks are spam, so she just deletes them.

Once she prints out the results of the disk, she goes straight to Cameron’s apartment and accuses him of giving Link the Stitcher algorithm. He disproves her because he has an alibi, so she hacks into Linus’ computer. He also has an alibi, but he knows Kirsten and Cameron hacked into his computer so he calls Cameron. Kirsten and Cameron then find out about Camille and Linus hooking up.

The team heads to the lab to confront Maggie, but once she arrives in the parking garage she is shot. Luckily it only grazed her arm, and once she is patched up Kirsten accuses her of handing over the algorithm. Maggie gets mad at all of them for even suggesting that she would do that, and then tells the team to find out who stole the file and who shot her.

Camille finds out that Marta Rodriguez has been released from the hospital, and no one can find her. Kirsten then realizes that Marta could be sending the messages. The messages decode a sentence from The Catcher in the Rye, and it says, “You are in danger. Trust no one.” Kirsten asks Marta to protect her, and they meet up.

Marta takes Kirsten back to her house, and tells Kirsten to start packing. Kirsten alerts the team of what is happening and Cameron rushes to her house.

Marta tells Kirsten that Maggie is dangerous and wants to hurt them. She tells her that they are just test runs for something larger and more menacing. As they’re about to leave, Cameron comes in and the police are outside of the house. Marta pulls out a gun and threatens Cameron, but then she receives a phone call. After she hangs up, she walks out side with the gun and the police shoot her.

Maggie refuses to let Kirsten stitch into Marta’s mind, claiming that it would affect Cameron too much. The last scene of the episode shows Maggie talking to Leslie Turner, who is the head of the program. It is revealed that they killed Justin Link so that he couldn’t reveal the program, and that Marta was right. There is something larger happening than the team just solving crimes.

We definitely learn more about Maggie this week. She’s lying about what the program is really for, and she isn’t telling anyone about her past. We do know that she cares for the team though. After they accused her of stealing the algorithm she made sure to remind all of them that she gave a greater meaning to their lives. When will she tell the team what the program is really for? I think we’ll know by the end of season one.

Cameron and Kirsten find out about Camille and Linus, and Cameron is shocked. When Kirsten asks what the fuss is about, he explained that it was awkward because they were coworkers. Kirsten doesn’t seem to care, and Cameron asks her if she’s okay with coworkers dating. So he has feelings for her, and Kirsten is still oblivious or doesn’t care. The two have improved their open communication skills, and Kirsten is trying to stay on his good side as far as stitching goes. On screen moments between these two are never boring, and they have an endless banter going. It’s a great friendship. Emphasis on the friend part.

Kirsten looks into the death of Ed Clark this week, but only for a couple of minutes. I’m wondering if this story arc will be wrapped up by the end of season one, or if we’ll have to wait longer. At this rate, we’ll never know. Kirsten is very reckless, and it is going to get her hurt at some point. She breaks into an apartment that is hidden by dry wall, she runs after an armed gunman, and she meets up with Marta without telling anyone. That has happened in just the last two episodes. The residual emotion from the stitches is also affecting her, and she is seeing her own memories. At some point she’s either going to get hurt from her recklessness or a stitch – it’s just a matter of which will come first.

We are starting to learn more about Kirsten’s past, and Kirsten might have known Maggie from when she was a child. Maggie personally knew Ed Clark and Kirsten’s mother, and we already know Maggie has secrets. On a side note, was anyone going to question that a thirty year old died of a heart attack? He also just so happened to receive the Stitchers algorithm. So when will we find out about these secrets? Hopefully the photograph comes up again next week, or maybe Kirsten sees another one of her own memories inside a stitch.

Marta was the mysterious black figure who broke into the lab last week! It was great to see Marta in this episode, but now she’s dead. That’s anticlimactic, to say the least. She seemed to be a little off the rails, but she has been in a coma for four months. She tries to warn Kirsten that the program is extremely dangerous, and at the end of the episode we find out she’s right.

Leslie Turner is a new character this week. He is an opposing force to the team, and doesn’t feel too bad about killing people. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of him for the rest of the season, probably giving Maggie giant headaches.

We didn’t find out who was spying on Kirsten this week, and I still think it is her father – and maybe Turner had something to do with him abandoning Kirsten and the program.

Not to get too crazy with the predictions.

This week’s nicknames:

Bones

Little Darling

Stretch (again)

Dopey (that is an insult, still counts)

Sherlock

Cameron is big on movie references.