Season 1, Episode 16:
Risk
The latest number is Adam Saunders (Matt Lauria), a gifted young Wall Street trader with a penchant for expensive suits, adrenaline and sleeping with his boss.
Despite this, Adam is a relatively straight arrow and has a close relationship with his foster father, Bob Sowoski (John Scurti), who runs a franchise of food trucks. Reese gets close to Adam by posing as the representative of a very wealthy client, and intervenes to save him from two separate assassination attempts, but isn't fast enough to stop those conspiring against Adam from murdering his boss and framing him for the crime.
While Finch investigates Tritak, a pipeline company whose rising stock prices are central to the conspiracy, Reese hides Adam at an abandoned slum building populated by homeless people and introduces him to Joan (Deirdre O'Connell), an older woman who took care of Reese during his homeless period.
With Carter's help, Reese and Finch uncover a conspiracy by a broker and an SEC investigator to short the stocks of Tritak, which is about to go under thanks to a pro-fracking bill in New York. They're able to thwart the final stage of their plan by having Adam use Finch's money to reinvigorate the stock, and the conspirators are arrested by the New York Police Department.
The SEC investigator is found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but Carter realizes this happened after the officer was arrested. She examines security footage of the arrest and realizes that the arresting policeman was Scarface, who also dropped a burner phone in a nearby rubbish bin.
Carter retrieves the phone and delivers it to Reese, along with her suspicions about who could organize such a slick money-making scheme and could use $300 million to fund a personal war. John dials the only number in the phone's memory:
Tropes
- 555: The phone number on Adam Saunders's business card is (212) 555-0122.
- Always Murder: Minor example. Everyone writes off the SEC officer's death as a suicide except Carter, who realizes the death took place after his arrest.
- Climactic Music: Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Down Boy" as we discover that Elias was behind the whole thing.
- Continuity Nod: Adam makes a truckload of money on the short sale of Virtanen Pharmaceuticals when the executives are imprisoned.Reese: I'm familiar with the case.
- Disappeared Dad: Adam's father left him with his uncle while he went to find work in another state. A decade later, Adam tracked his dad down, only to find out that the man had started a new family without him.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Sydney Baylor is found beaten to death with a bottle by Elias' men
- Hidden Depths: Finch's talent for tailoring.
- Homeless Pigeon Person: Joan lacks the animal familiar, but otherwise fits this trope.
- I Know You're Watching Me: The fake police officer looks directly at the CCTV camera before leaving Elias' phone for Carter to find, knowing she would be checking the tapes later.
- I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: "I'm a prop trader, not a tour guide."
- Impersonating an Officer: Scarface again. This time he infiltrates the conspirators' arrest and personally takes charge of the SEC investigator's arrest so he can isolate and execute him.
- Ironic Echo: "That's the smart money", "You just went pro too early", and "What are friends for?"
- Laser Sight: With the well-armed mooks that raid the homeless area. As usual, it just gives Reese an opportunity to shove the person aimed at into cover, but also hints that there's more going on that a simple insider trading deal.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Adam is set up for a road accident, then a Murder-Suicide.
- The Man Behind the Man: The whole scheme was orchestrated by Elias.
- Not Named in Opening Credits: David Valcin (Scarface) and Enrico Colantoni (Elias) aren't credited at all.
- Shout-Out: There's a lot of Wall Street.
- Shown Their Work: The episode uses correct terminology and the like when it comes to showing how Wall Street works.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Adam looks dumbfounded when Reese easily knocks down a couple of his colleagues in a Bar Brawl.
- Wham Shot: In the end, when Reese uses the phone Carter gives him, it cuts to the man on the other end of the line. Even from behind, he's instantly recognizable as Elias.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The SEC investigator.
