“	Oh, I don't like being invited into museums. It spoils the fun.	”
— Parker

The team takes on a brilliant software developer who is selling a groundbreaking facial recognition system that threatens everyone’s privacy except his own.

The Client

Libby Barnes. She is a client from a previous (unseen) job four years prior to this episode, where the team helped created a new identity for her so she could get away from her abusive ex, Reece. However, Reece was able to find her with the help of Searchlight.

The Mark

Joseph Cheng, creator of Searchlight, a very powerful facial recognition software that could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

Summary

Four years ago, Eliot, Parker, and Hardison helped Libby and her daughter hide from her abusive ex. Hardison created a computer system to blur her image in any and all photos. But somehow, her ex found her, and she returns to the team asking for help. The team wants to find out how Libby’s ex found her despite Hardison’s program. They are taken to Arlo, Louisiana, where the town is filled with high-tech equipment like surveillance cameras. When Breanna flags Eliot’s photo for petty theft, he is quickly taken down by law enforcement. Eliot fights and meets Maria Shipp, a US Marshal. Maria cuffs and brings Eliot into custody, recognizing his fighting style is pretty unique and thinks he might be Special Ops.

Breanna finds out the security in the town is being run by a program called Searchlight, which can identify photos much better and predict a person's movements. Together the team takes down the creator of Searchlight, Joseph Cheng, by making his own at-home computer, Alay-Na, not be able to recognize him and in return for taking his own medicine he promises to help those that his A.I. has accidentally discovered including people that are in background photos.

Locations

• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• New Orleans, Louisiana
  • Leverage Offices
• Arlo, Louisiana
  • Common Grounds Coffee Shop and Cafe
  • Arlo Police Department
  • Joseph Cheng's House

Guest Cast

• Andrea Navedo as US Marshal Maria Shipp
• Lawrence Kao as Joseph Cheng

Episode Notes

• When speculating about how Libby's ex found her, Elliot suggests that it might have been an analog solve, with people just putting the word out. This is how Hardison's tech was defeated in The Tap-Out Job.
• Hardison is in Yemen, moving a satellite to provide internet for the people.
• Parker says she always has a taser.
• Breanna went after a new facial recognition software a few months ago. It's what put her on the FBI watchlist. She also crashed Twitter.
• Parker taught Breanna that fire solves all problems.
• Breanna has a long list of mistakes.

Trivia

• This episode doesn't have anyone make a call to action starting with "Let's go steal...", unlike almost every other episode.
• Eliot's alias for the initial test of the town's security system, Emmett Milbarge, is a reference to the character of the same name from the show Chuck.
• Shipp refers to one of Elliot's fighting moves as "distinctive", referencing Eliot's iconic line.
• Jonathan Frakes directed this ep, as well as 13 eps of the original series. He has also directed eps of The Librarians (another Devlin production) and Falling Skies, both of which starred Noah Wyle.
• Breanna's "3000 tons of maple syrup" could be a reference to the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist from 2011.
• "Arlo, Louisiana" is a fictional town, but "Arlo" is the brand name of a line of security cameras, some of which back up data to the cloud. That data can be pulled by the police with a warrant.
• The abusive cop's name is "Reese." This is a possible reference to John Reese, a former government operative and assassin turned good guy and protector of the "numbers," a character similar to Elliot's, played by Jim Caviezel in the television show "Person of Interest." The plot of "Person of Interest" is about a brilliant hacker who, after "breaking the internet" in the '70s, created an artificial intelligence, dubbed "The Machine," after the September 11th terrorist attacks. This "Machine" watches over every person on earth with facial recognition and human agents.

Episode Media