Quantico certainly continues to feel like fall 2015’s answer to How to Get Away with Murder. That’s definitely not a bad thing since there seems to be some more potential with Quantico. While it was a fairly solid second episode, there was a bit of overkill with the amount of secrets hinted at.

It’s easier to talk in terms of “present” being the Quantico days and “future” being the terrorist attack. Things get a little more confusing when the episode starts with a flashback to FBI interviews where each recruit explains why they want to join the FBI. The episode subsequently ends with Miranda saying they claimed their initial reason was the truth, but she couldn’t wait to find out what the actual reason is. That about sums up the present storyline: recruits hiding their true intentions. And the secrets are as follows:

• First we meet a new recruit to the series, Natalie Vasquez. Natalie has a scar on her ear and an immediate hatred for teacher’s pet Alex.
• We also meet Elias (an FBI analyst in training) who takes an immediate interest in Simon. At first he’s flirting with Simon, but then he comes to question how Simon made it into and out of Gaza. He also realizes Simon’s glasses are fake. Who knows why?
• Caleb Haas returns as an analyst (glad they brought him back). He has some sort of secrets as well but I’m not entirely sure what? I guess at the end we find out he was forced to become an analyst after being kicked out of the recruit training. Also, that he’s maybe not as much of a dick as he’s letting on (he talks about spending all this time looking online at different people’s pictures but it turns out they are his own?).
• Miranda learns that Booth is undercover and mistakenly thinks he’s here to spy on her. We also find out that something happened with her son and she also did something to save a group of people and the guy responsible for the attempted attack is “up for parole”. More things to discover.
• Shelby has a friend who she deletes from her phone (the name looked like it was written in Arabic but I could be wrong). Later, she’s talking to the friend on the phone and saying that they weren’t supposed to call her.
• Liam continues hiding his secret of why Booth is tasked to follow Alex. He also finds out about the twins.
• Nimah/her twin- It seems they are just a secret experiment which is the first of its kind for the FBI program. One of them seems to secretly like Simon which is not going to turn out well for her.

So many secrets and so little time! It’s only episode two and there are too many stories to follow!

Now back to the future: Alex steals a walkie talkie and communicates briefly with Liam. She professes her innocence and shock that he doesn’t believe her given they know each other so well. Miranda is arrested and we find out she somehow leaves or loses her prior position at the academy. Miranda confirms what was obvious in episode 1: that Alex and Liam will eventually have a relationship of some sort. Meanwhile, Alex creates a distraction so she can enter back into her apartment and view the scene of the supposed crime. She’s confronted by Natalie who is now a full FBI agent and the two fight it out. Alex escapes after a mini chase scene and also finds that the building next door is likely where the real terrorist was working to set her up. She steals a clue from the floor and leaves. By episodes end, Booth is alive following the gunshot wound and tells Alex via phone that he’s ready to help her but will need to pretend he think she’s guilty. Immediately, Liam walks in and Alex flat out throws her under the bus by saying he saw Alex shoot him. I assume this is all just a way of casting some doubt about Booth but that would be a bit annoying. I can’t really figure out why he would incriminate her thereby putting her face all over the country.

Overall, a solid episode that starts to drown a little from the secrets. I can only hope that the next few weeks will slowly start to answer these questions instead of piling on more.