Review: No Activity “Tea for Two! Two for Tea”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

After Magnolia’s failed attempt to infiltrate The Collective, Cullen and Risoli are invited to meet with its leader Terry (Hannah Simone). Meanwhile, Sue returns from her meeting a changed woman.

Our Take:

So last week, Magnolia chickened out and rejoined The Collective instead of helping Cullen and Risoli. Luckily for them, they got themselves another chance to infiltrate this mysterious cult. How? Why, the cult just happened to invite them, of course.

The episode finally showed who the cult’s leader Terry is, and it turns out that she’s a woman. The reveal is quite surprising because Dirk suggested that since Terry with a “y” is a guy’s name, it strongly indicates that the cult’s leader is a man. It goes to show that you can’t judge a person by their names and their appearances. Not only was Terry’s reveal nicely handled in terms of its surprise value, but her personality represented how manipulative she can be. This was primarily due to New Girl actress Hannah Simone’s impressive vocal performance.

In addition to Terry’s shocking reveal, the episode showcased how she managed to get her victims to join her cult, especially Special Agent Buckley and Sue. It looked like she’s using deception and a cup of drugged tea to get them to see things from her perspective. In other words, she wants them to “open their eyes”. That puts a severe strain on Cullen’s case and Sue’s relationship with Dirk. The drugged effects for Cullen made some solid use of its animation. However, that still doesn’t excuse its poorly-rendered character movements. 

The Dirk and Sue segments returned in this week’s episode following Dirk’s “father-daughter” time with Madison last week, and it appeared that their relationship is sadly coming to an end. Sue is getting ready to leave Dirk while stating that she never loved him to begin with, which broke his heart in half. I’m not sure if Terry’s manipulation techniques caused her to say those things or if it’s her own free will. Whatever the case may be, it’s pretty sad to see their relationship end like this. They seemed like a good fit together.

We’re halfway through the fourth season, and it looks like Cullen and the others may have met their match in the form of Terry. Despite its distracting animation and weak humor, the episode offered enough surprises to keep the main plot as enjoyable as possible. With Cullen and Risoli encountering life-or-death situations while being drugged, there’s no telling what will happen in next week’s episode. While I didn’t care about what happens to Risoli compared to Tolbeck in the first episode’s cliffhanger ending, I still found it shocking that she got shot by Dirk. Hopefully, we’ll know what her actual fate will be next week.