Season 1, Episode 5 — ‘Zero Sum’ – TVLine

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The Irrational Recap: You Win Zero-Sum, You Lose Zero-Sum"/> <meta class="swiftype" name="body" data-type="text" content="In a zero-sum situation, one side wins only because the other loses. Therefore, if you have zero-sum bias, you see most (all?) situations as a competition. And in case that definition isn't clear, don't worry: The Irrational spends a LOT of this week's episode explaining it.

The hour also gives us Jesse L. Martin singing and Kylie finally telling us what she does for a living — a mystery I was starting to put on the level of Wes Banning's involvement in the church bombing. (We get some important intel on that, too.)

Read on for the highlights of "Zero Sum."

A FATHER'S DESPERATE PLEA | A man pushes to the front of the line at Alec’s booksigning, but he’s not interested in an autograph: His daughter, Veronica, is missing. She hasn’t been gone 24 hours yet, so the police won’t help. Also, the guy is an Alec Mercer superfan. Alec agrees to help him, free of charge.

While Alec is at the house, the parents get a call from Veronica’s phone. A modulated voice demands $2.7 million (oddly specific, no?) by a certain time or the girl dies. When Alec asks for proof of life, they all hear Veronica screaming for her parents to do what the kidnapper says. After the call ends, Veronica’s parents are beside themselves: They don’t have the money, nor anything worth that much. “Why kidnap someone whose family couldn’t possibly afford the ransom?” Alec wonders aloud.

YOU, SIR, ARE NO MICHAEL SCOTT | Alec brings Marisa into the fold. She’s briefing the family when a black SUV pulls up and a guy gets out, flanked by two people. Tara, Veronica’s mom, introduces him as Ted, the owner of a very successful paper company; she used to work for him. After getting Tara’s call, Ted has brought along a corporate fixer who specializes in kidnappings.

Marisa wonders why Ted is this involved if he and Tara are, as they both say, just “friends.” But Alex reads everyone’s body language — including the barely tamped-down hostility exhibited by Veronica’s dad, Keith — and just says it out loud: Ted and Rose had a long-term affair. “Are you Veronica’s biological father?” he wonders. After all, that would explain why she was targeted. But it’s not the case; the affair happened after Veronica was born. The other person with Ted, his son, says Veronica is like a sister, and they all just want to see her brought home.

Alec wonders who else knew about the affair; after all, the high ransom makes sense if you knew Ted would become involved. Keith says Veronica knew, and she told her ex-boyfriend Corey, a party-drug dealer. So Alec and Rose, the corporate fixer, pose as a couple in order to look less threatening/suspicious when they arrange a meeting with Corey. The rationale? Silly. But it highlights Marisa’s jealousy of Rose and Rose’s flirting with Alec, so I’ll allow it. But Corey’s got a drone with him, so he can see Marisa, Jace and the other FBI agents hiding in the trees. After a brief car chase, they bring him in for questioning.

Marisa gets Corey to admit that it was his car Veronica got into the night she disappeared, but she only arranged the meeting so she could ask to borrow $200,000 to attend a design college that she got into but that she can’t afford. He said she then texted someone for a ride and then left. Just then, Veronica video-calls her father. While Marisa and Alec listen in, she tearfully says that they need to pay up by sunrise or “he” is going to kill her.

WELL, THAT'S ONE WAY TO GET DADDY'S ATTENTION | Rose thinks the young woman is staging the whole thing. Alec thinks there’s an actual kidnapper. And Keith thinks he’s going to kill Ted when Ted reveals that he’s supported Veronica’s interest in art for a long time, including when he footed the bill for an art camp the previous summer. “Who do you think paid for that? Because you didn’t,” Ted says, seconds before Keith lunges at him. Alec hauls the distraught father into the hallway to calm down and wonders if anyone else hates Ted as much as he does.

According to Kylie’s research, a lot of people do! But because we’re more than halfway through this episode, I’m going to guess that the kidnapper isn’t someone we haven’t met yet. Rich douchey son, I’m looking at you! And my suspicions prove correct when Kylie unearths that Trey, Ted’s aforementioned kid, needs a $2.5 million infusion into his startup or his investors are going to lose everything. Alec guesses that Ted said no to Trey, which would infuriate him especially because Ted has supported Veronica for so long.

They figure out that the the extra cash in the ransom ask is for Veronica’s art-school tuition, indicating that Trey initially thought Veronica would go along with his scam. There’s a lot about the rationale behind his thinking; because of zero-sum bias, Alex explains, Trey likely thought that his father’s affection for Veronica meant there was less for him.

Rose slips Alec’s theory to Ted, who sneaks off and finds the spot Trey is hiding Veronica. Marisa, Alec and Rose arrive just after Trey shoots his dad. Alec talks him down by reminding him that “love is not a limited resource” and pointing out that Ted came to find Trey himself instead of outsourcing it to Rose like he did Veronica’s predicament — he MUST love him!

WHAT'S BANNING HIDING? | Ted survives. Veronica is reunited with her parents. Rose flirtily floats the idea of dinner with Alec. And Jace brings good news: Wes Banning, the sernial bomber we met in the series premiere, has agreed to talk with Marisa about the bombing. He says he’s ready to give her his full confession, then does so. She’s suspicious. For more than a decade, he wouldn’t admit anything. “Why the change of heart?” she wonders, bringing up the mystery figure at his parole hearing. “Who was it? What do they have over you?” She brings up him short by catching him in a lie: He confesses to driving a stolen FedEx van, but we all know now that the vehicle belonged to the drycleaners. “You may have made that bomb, but you didn’t plant it, did you?” He refuses to say anything other than that he was solely behind the bombing, then angrily demands to be returned to his cell. “End session,” Marisa says into her recorder, looking pleased.

BACK ON CAMPUS | Rizwan teaches Alec’s class that afternoon. He’s a sweaty, rambling mess up in front of the lecture hall, but that doesn’t stop Alec from having him teach the following class. Phoebe reassures him that worrying about it just shows that he cares. And off the look a visiting Kylie gives the pair as she witnesses the exchange, it seems like maybe we’re supposed to take note of an attraction there? Anyway, when Rizwan talks to Alec, the professor’s not bothered: “You don’t fail if you learn, only if you stop. So give the lecture. Learn!” He does. It goes a little better. [A qualified] yay!

WHAT DOES KYLIE DO? | Now for the REAL reason you're still reading: Kylie's method of employment. At the start of the episode she reveals that she works three information-technology jobs remotely (and concurrently). But by the end, she's quit them all to figure out what she really wants to do/how she'll truly be happy.