Jake Rowland, a 35-year-old engineer at Aero Velocity Research (AVR) was found dead in a Mars simulation chamber. He’d been shot. AVR has high-level military contracts, so it’s possible someone killed Jake to get classified information.
Kirsten stitches into Jake. She watches him argue with a co-worker. Jake screwed up something deliberately. In another memory, Jake argues with a girl named Zelda at a video game competition in a warehouse. Jake also got in a fight with someone. Kirsten sees Jake with a black eye.
In the death memory, Kirsten sees Jake get shot as he’s leaving work. The shooter drove away and Jake crawls back inside. He tries to reach a phone, but he can’t make it past the Mars simulation chamber. Jake uses his last seconds to write a message in the sand.
Kirsten bounces out and the team gets to work. They look at the crime scene photos, but they don’t know what Jake wrote on the sand. He bled out over the message.
Maggie wants Cameron and Kirsten to go to AVR. Kirsten’s still mad at Cameron for telling Maggie her mother’s location, which led to Maggie moving her mother. So Kirsten takes Detective Fisher with her instead. (Linus tells Cameron to be nice to Kirsten, but being nice doesn’t work. Kirsten isn’t ready to forgive him. Camille and Kirsten were quick to make up, though. They both apologized to each other for their fight over Ivy).
After they leave, Cameron talks to Maggie. He doesn’t think the situation with Kirsten will blow over. Kirsten’s at an emotional simmer and eventually she’ll reach a steady boil. He wants Maggie to tell Kirsten where her mother is.
Maggie refuses. It doesn’t matter how much Kirsten and Cameron whine and moan. Maggie would never knowingly put any of the Stitchers team members in danger. So she’s going to keep Kirsten’s mother safely hidden away.
Meanwhile, Ivy and Linus finally talk. Ivy assures Linus that she's not as flaky as he thinks she is. Linus is willing to back off if Ivy thinks they aren't good together. Ivy planned to say that, but she changes her mind. Ivy kisses Linus. Looks like Ivy and Linus are still going strong.
Detective Fisher and Kirsten talk to Mark Fleming at AVR. Mark says Jake took the Mars communication satellite offline. If they can’t get it back and control it, the satellite will collide with space junk and crash back to Earth. The government wants AVR to self-destruct the satellite before that happens in 48 hours.
Jake worked as a “gremlin” for AVR. His job was to creatively and deliberately screw with the simulator so they would know how to deal with the simulator if things went wrong.
Kenny Lee, the “fixer”, had to figure out how to solve the problems that Jake created. Then Kenny and Jake would work on a solution. Kenny and Jake had an intense rivalry. Kenny’s the one Kirsten saw arguing with Jake in the stitch.
Detective Fisher and Kirsten question Kenny, but he isn’t much help. He’s focused on recovering control of the satellite. Kirsten offers to bring Linus in to help with the satellite. Kenny doesn’t want any help, but Mark overrules him.
Back at the Stitch lab, the team figures out Jake was into competitive video gaming. Coincidentally, so is Cameron. Cameron proudly shows the team a video of himself receiving an award from Kiyoshi Otatsume at the 2010 World Online Gaming Awards.
The team knows Jake was competing at an abandoned automotive warehouse, so Cameron and Kirsten check it out. Cameron is enthralled by the video game competition.
While Cameron watches, Kirsten copies files from a computer in the backroom. She finds out the video game competitions are bringing in thousands of dollars every night. Jake was winning most of the matches against Zelda. The warehouse doesn’t have internet access, so the game is off the grid. That makes the gaming system unhackable.
Cameron wants to stay at the competition a little longer. Kirsten’s still pissed at him, so she takes off. “You can’t stay mad at me forever,” Cameron tells Kirsten. “Challenge accepted,” Kirsten responds.
Zelda, played by Zelda Williams (actor Robin Williams' daughter), chats with Cameron about the game War Zone. It isn’t available to the public. No one knows who developed the game. (Random fact: actress Zelda Williams played Drew Reeves in the Freeform supernatural horror show Dead of Summer).
Rick, who acts as a promoting machine in this underground digital fight club, takes bets on the matches. He offers $500 to whoever can beat DK. Zelda volunteers Cameron. Cameron wins and DK accuses him of cheating. DK punches Cameron and a massive fight breaks out.
While Cameron is icing his bruised face, Rick invites Cameron to come back next time. After Cameron leaves, Rick tells Zelda to find out more about Cameron when he comes back.
Maggie shows Detective Fisher photos of Ivy talking to her father Daniel Stinger. Maggie hired a private investigator to follow Ivy for a few days. This could be a problem, but Maggie sees it as an opportunity. She has Detective Fisher bring Ivy to the interrogation room. (There’s no love lost between Detective Fisher and Daniel Stinger. After all, Daniel Stinger paid someone to kill Fisher). Fisher catches Ivy just as she’s leaving to bring Linus dinner.
Maggie joins the interrogation. She asks how long Ivy has been in contact with her father. Ivy initially denies everything, but she can’t argue with the photos Maggie has of Daniel Stinger in Ivy’s house.
Ivy demands a lawyer, but that’s not how the Stitchers team operates. Ivy tells Maggie that she refused to help her father. Maggie doesn’t know if she can trust Ivy. What happens to Ivy will depend on the decisions Ivy makes next. Will Maggie use Ivy to get to Daniel Stinger?
Back at the lab, Cameron’s bruised face leads to questions from Maggie and Kirsten. It doesn’t get him any sympathy from Kirsten, though.
Kirsten stitches again. She sees Zelda accuse Jake of cheating. Kirsten also sees Jake playing the game at AVR (so somehow he was able to access the game outside of the warehouse).
Kirsten also sees Jake awkwardly receiving money from Rick. In another memory, Jake puts a satellite dish on a rooftop.
And Kirsten finds out Jake and Kenny were dating. They kept it a secret because AVR has a strict dating policy.
Back at AVR, Linus is hitting a dead end with the satellite. He can’t get it back online. Desperate for answers, Camille turns to Amanda for help. She asks Amanda to figure out what Jake wrote in the sand in the Mars simulation chamber.
Amanda is able to digitally recreate the sand message. Unfortunately, it isn’t the killer’s name. It’s a pattern. The Stitchers team has no clue what the pattern means.
Cameron tells Kirsten they can’t keep doing this to each other. Being mad at each other is turning Cameron into something that he’s not. Kirsten doesn’t like it either, but she doesn’t know how to stop. She needs time to figure things out.
Cameron and Kirsten are trying to work things out, but it doesn’t look so good for Camille and Amanda. Amanda is happy to help with work, but nothing more. Camille still wants to be with Amanda, but Amanda seems done with the relationship. She says they are on totally different planets. Camille wipes away a tear after Amanda leaves.
The Stitchers team looks at Jake’s secret work station. Kirsten saw Jake’s password in a stitch, so she easily gets access to his computer. The team finds 41 iterations of the War Zone game. They realize Jake wasn’t cheating. Jake created the game. Linus notices that Jake made a recent addition to the final level of the game. They don’t know what it says because it’s encrypted.
The warehouse doesn’t have Internet access, so Jake used the satellite to alter the War Zone game from AVR. The satellite isn’t offline. It’s pointed at the warehouse instead of at Mars. Jake put the satellite on the roof next door to the warehouse. He did that for a reason, so the team races to find out why.
At the warehouse, Zelda steals Cameron’s wallet. She tells Rick that Cameron is NSA. Rick tells Zelda to sneak it back to Cameron. After Zelda leaves, Rick grabs a gun out of the safe. “Game on,” he says.
Kirsten rushes over and tells Cameron to win the game. Jake’s coded message is hidden in the final level. They have to reposition the satellite in 45 minutes.
Zelda warns Cameron that Rick knows he is NSA. She tells him to get out while he can. Cameron refuses to leave until he wins the game. That’s not going to be easy though. Zelda is easily beating Cameron at the game.
With a couple minutes left, Cameron asks for Zelda’s help. Jake’s hidden message will lead them to his killer.
Zelda wants to help, but the game is designed to prevent one player from letting another win. If Zelda takes it easy on Cameron, the computer will take over the game play. That’s a risk Cameron’s willing to take. They can beat the computer together.
They win the final level together. Cameron uses Jake’s sand pattern as the passcode. A pre-recorded video of Jake plays on the screen. Jake admits that he created the game War Zone. Rick DeToro took advantage of his secret and threatened everything he cared about.
Rick turned War Zone and Jake into his own cash machine. He forced Jake to play and rigged the odds.
Rick pulls out a gun, but DK knocks him down. Detective Fisher steps in to arrest Rick.
Cameron apologizes to Kirsten again. He’s really sorry he betrayed her trust. He doesn’t want to lose her, but they don’t know how to fix it.
Kirsten goes home and drinks wine on the porch. Ivy comes over and says she needs a friend. The two sisters sit together and share a glass of wine. Ivy leans her head on Kirsten’s shoulder. It’s a sweet sister moment, but can Kirsten trust Ivy?
What did you think of Stitchers episode 3x06 “The Gremlin and the Fixer”? Do you think Ivy will betray her father and help the Stitchers team? Leave your thoughts and comments below!
does the game exist what they were playing
ReplyDeleteI don't think it exists. I think they just made up Warzone for the show.
Delete