PILOT REVIEW: Quantico

QUANTICO

Starring: Priyanka Chopra, Josh Hopkins, Jake McLaughlin, Aunjanue Ellis, Yasmine Al Massri, Johanna Braddy, Tate Ellington, Graham Rogers

Created by Joshua Safran
Written by Joshua Safran, Directed by Marc Munden

THE SYNOPSIS
Quantico is part thriller and part soap opera. It centers on a very attractive and very fit group of young FBI recruits. We find out in a flash forward in the pilot that one of them is suspected of a terrorist attack in New York City nine months later and we also flashback to their lives before they came to Quantico Academy. At the center of the story is Alex Parrish (Priyanka Chopra), who is being questioned following the attack in the flash forward scene. The other recruits in the story are Ryan Booth (Jake McLaughlin), Miranda Shaw (Aunjanue Ellis), Nimah Amin (Yasmine Al Massri), Shelby Wyatt (Johanna Braddy), Simon Asher (Tate Ellington), and Caleb Haas (Graham Rogers). Rounding out the main cast is FBI Special Agent Liam O'Connor (Josh Hopkins).

THE REVIEW
There is a lot to consider here after a pilot that tried to do just about everything and it honestly worked on several levels. Despite the jumps between the beginning at the academy, flashbacks to the past, and the flash forward to New York City, it was pretty clear to follow and well-structured. The show tries to be a little bit of Grey's Anatomy with the hot young recruits already hooking up. It spends more of its time being a thriller in the Blacklist/Scandal realm with a lot of intense moments and it seems like a Shonda show with its very diverse and progressive casting in terms of roles for minorities and women. All of this worked in the pilot but I'm a little nervous about future episodes because I'm not sure if the show knows what it wants to be. I hope it goes more in the thriller direction and less in the soap opera direction. They made the stakes too high in the flash forward to be too much of a steamy romantic drama.

The cast is good but they were hard to distinguish in the pilot except for star Priyanka Chopra. She is already an international start but not well known here. However, she was very strong in her lead role and I can tell why people who know her were excited about her in this show. There was no one else who really stood out in a good or bad way. It's going to take a little bit of time to get to know these characters. It's definitely an ensemble show but it's also clear that Chopra is going to stand above the rest.

I thought this pilot set up the first season really well. I can see it being a twisty and exciting thriller through the first year as we try to figure out what happened. But shows like this have two traps that are hard to avoid. The first is to not let the ultimate result be a letdown. Sometimes the journey is so satisfying that the end result can be underwhelming. To an extent, I felt that way about How to Get Away with Murder last year. The other question is, even if it succeeds with a satisfying finale with this mystery, where does it go from there? What could season two of this show possibly look like? I guess that will be a bridge to cross if it gets there. For now, I will try to enjoy the ride for now and hope it comes to a satisfying conclusion with more to tell.