This Red Eye episode 4 recap contains spoilers... Jess Li narrowly escapes from Sir George Chapman's house with her life and we learn a little more about the World Pacific Medicine boss.
Elsewhere, the slippery John Tennant is finally forced to disclose the truth about 'Operation Blindside' and it looks increasingly like Matthew Nolan DID smuggle something out of China...
At Sir George’s house, the World Pacific Medicine boss pulls a gun on Jess, while outside an assassin prepares his rifle. But is he trying to kill Sir George or Jess?
Meanwhile on Flight 357, Hana heads down to the plane’s hold where Agent Zhao says there’s no sign of Dr Ward. “Are you sure there’s nobody down here,” she says. “I thought I heard someone.” Zhao says there isn’t, although we know there is and we’re pretty sure he knows that as well.
Upstairs, Matthew adjusts the settings on Steven’s phone so it recognises his face and changes the dressing on the wound he received back in Beijing. He’s just about to call Sir George when Hana interrupts him, saying they need to search the entire plane for Dr Ward again.
However, when we hear the stewardess is having some difficulty with the drinks elevator (“it’s stuck between floors”) then we think we might know what might be jamming it.
Matthew goes downstairs to investigate and is soon joined by Hana and Zhao. When they eventually manage to force the dumbwaiter open they find Amber Ward’s body stuck inside. “If MI5’s theory is correct, then they now have what they’re looking for,” says Hana. “They’re convinced that Shen gave one of you something to smuggle out of China.” One thing’s for sure, it’s quite clear Amber Ward wasn’t the killer, as Zhao claimed.
Did the assassin spare Jess on purpose?
Meanwhile Jess asks Sir George why someone was getting rid of files from his company’s HQ, but he seems just as surprised about that as she was. George then receives a call from Matthew, who asks why he didn’t help him at Heathrow. “You always said that if there was any trouble, you’d deal with it,” says Matthew. Interesting.
“Do you still have what she gave you?” George asks, yet Matthew denies being given anything by Shen. When Hana and Zhao find him, he tells them the truth about the call, but it’s clear Hana now suspects he’s a spy and Agent Zhao is convinced he has what they were looking for.
Back in Richmond, the assassin opens fire, yet Sir George and Jess both survive. It seems Sir George knows more about the world of international espionage than he’s been letting on and he manages to guide them through the house to safety. We reckon the sniper could have taken Sir George out on a couple of occasions, before he does though. There’s something very strange going on, but what? Did the assassin intentionally spare Jess?
Either way, before he dies, Sir George manages to pass Jess a phone. “Tell Matthew he must have it,” he tells her, as the police’s sirens get closer. “Now run!” However, when John Tennant sees Chapman’s doorbell footage, he wonders if Jess is a Chinese asset who was sent to kill the World Pacific Medicine boss.
What is Matthew carrying?
When Matthew examines Kate’s body, he finds her finger was broken as with his other colleagues and that she was stabbed with a star-shaped weapon. Yet before long news of all the deaths has spread around the plane and the passengers are deeply concerned. Hana tells everyone she’s doing a cabin search in the hope of finding the killer, however we know he or she is probably below decks in the hold.
In London, when Delaney asks her CIA boyfriend to run checks on Jess, she soon discovers the truth about the young journalist. Delaney is particularly interested to hear she’s Hana’s sister and the pair have had several phone conversations since Flight 357 took off.
Yet that’s not all, because Delaney’s assistant has uncovered a Top Secret file entitled ‘Operation Blindside’, which suggests World Pacific Medicine has been used as a cover for MI6 covert activities. Delaney didn’t know about it, but it’s clear John Tennant did.
When Delaney confronts Tennant, he explains that it’s a delivery service, meaning the doctors on Flight 357 were “unwitting couriers,” who had no idea they were committing spy craft on foreign soil. It seems Chris Peel was a hip pocket asset for Sir George who was supposed to bring something home, yet when Shen Zhao got spooked and bailed, they assumed she improvised and gave it to Nolan.
“Shen Zhao was a Chinese operative, why would she betray her country?” asks Delaney, who’s told that her previous patriotism is what made MI6 so desperate to hear what she had to say.
When she speaks to Mike, Delaney asks him who “has the balls to gun down an MI6 officer in his own home.” He suggests she look East, but Delaney isn’t buying it. “This feels like a last-ditch attempt to fix an op that’s gone wrong,” she says. But who’s op and can we really trust Mike?
On the flight, Matthew uses Steven’s phone to try and call Sir George. Instead he reaches a very scared Jess, who tells him the Head of World Pacific Medicine is dead. Jess then tells her sister what happened and that Sir George said Nolan must have something on him, which he denies again. Yet whether he knows it or not, it's looking increasingly like Matthew has got something the Chinese want - otherwise why is all this happening to him?
Back in London, Delaney’s team discovers the van used by the assassin and finds Chris Peel’s body inside. Poor bloke.
