“Scars of Bagram” begins with a high-energy chase sequence, something out of the Bourne franchise, and keeps its energy for almost the entire episode.

Be warned: Spoilers ahead.

We open with Sam Fisher gunning an SUV down an airstrip. Close behind him and Zinnia is the Eastern European woman and her gang of militiamen. The Europeans are firing at the protagonists, and Zinnia is returning fire. Once a plane arrives to take Sam and Zinnia back to their home base, the two must make a run for it– out of the car and into the plane– dodging bullets from their enemies’ machine guns. They survive, barely, and escape to their base in Denmark.

After the credits roll, we are back with Diana Shetland. We follow a montage of her day, waking up, exercising, and going to a COP 31 event, where seats and podiums are reserved for both her and her brother. However, her brother does not make an appearance. After her day of activities is over, she gets into her car and makes it clear that she is distraught that her brother missed out on the public appearances. Back in Denmark, Zinnia recovers in a hospital bed, researching the bearded man who killed Lukas. The bearded man was named Reza Gunther Karimi, and he was titled as a German Mercenary. The women in Denmark, who were giving Sam and Zinnia orders throughout the past three episodes, tell Sam to keep an eye on Zinnia. Zinnia had been romantically involved with Lukas, which is against Splinter Cell’s policies.

We are then given a flashback, which hints at why Douglas Shetland and Sam Fisher had a falling out. We see their shared time in Afghanistan, where they are interrogating a suspected terrorist. When Sam tells Douglas that the prisoner should be released, Douglas ends up killing the prisoner. Sam and Douglas get into a heated argument, displaying their conflicting foundational beliefs on what it means to fight for your country. Sam believes that they should keep as many people out of harm’s way as possible, including the suspected terrorists they’re interrogating, while Douglas thinks that safety for some comes at the cost of the death of others.

After some technical, though far-fetched, decoding, Thunder can figure out how Lukas’s tooth and watch connect to display information on the Shetland’s company. However, there is still one thing missing: an access key. The team must figure out what Lukas would make as his access key. While on a run and during a high-stress anxiety episode, Zinnia figures out the key is the wave file of Lukas’s favorite song. The decoded files reveal that Diana Shetland’s company is headed toward bankruptcy and is full of debts to other institutions. Sam Fisher points out a specific file, titled “Green Gables,” which just so happened to be different from the rest. The file is locked and can only be accessed using Diana Shetland’s phone. The team makes a plan to intercept the telephone at Diana’s next public appearance in Hamburg, Germany.

Before the end of the episode, we see the Eastern European woman boarding a ship, pretending to be a crewmember. This episode’s tag is a flashback to a young Diana Shetland in Bethesda, Maryland, 1997. She opens a package on her porch, it reads “From Sam”, and it’s the book Anne of Green Gables. 

While this episode was full of exciting action to epic proportions, there were a few issues. Everything in this show seems a little too convenient. Diana named the file after the book she received from Sam. Access to the secret file can only be achieved by the one song Lukas and Zinnia talked about together. While it all makes sense, the convenience of the mysteries makes everything appear somewhat easy to figure out. Despite that, the action and excitement of the episode make up for a lot of these conveniences, and Sam’s growing mentor relationship with Zinnia keeps us engaged.

Rating: 8/10