Nikita -- Burning Down The House

Original Airing: April 19, 2013

The writers proved in this episode why the show is one of the best written shows on TV these days. It’s because they write a story and don’t cave into shippers demands. In this episode one of the couples shippers ship bit the dust in a permanent way. Meanwhile Amanda found a way to show Nikita just who she is and just what she meant when she said she was born in fire.

Nikita got Amanda in a chokehold but Amanda managed to drug her and when she woke up she found herself strapped in Amanda’s little mind altering chair. Amanda told Nikita the only way Nikita could truly know what made her the way she is was is by experiencing herself so she made Nikita live her life inside her head. Nikita found herself living the life of Teen Amanda.

As Teen Amanda, Nikita discovered Amanda lived with her military father. She also discovered Amanda had a twin sister named Helen who was locked in the basement and being tortured and experimented on by her father. He wanted to prevent soldiers from suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but the government wouldn’t sanction his experiments, so he decided to conduct them on Helen, the daughter he felt was less promising than Amanda.

Nikita as Teen Amanda promised to rescue Helena. Helena, however, begged Amanda to kill her so she could be free of the pain and experiments. When Amanda’s father caught Teen Amanda with her sister, he offered to make her his lab assistant in his experiments and Nikita scorned Amanda for choosing to let her sister be tortured by picking her daddy over her. But very soon Nikita discovered just how wrong that judgment really was.

When Nikita as Teen Amanda helped Helen to escape their father caught them. Helen took a knife and slashed her father’s throat, then she stabbed Nikita in the stomach. Helen blamed Teen Amanda for not rescuing her sooner. Then she revealed she was going to take Amanda’s place as she set the house on fire with Nikita and her father in it. At which point Nikita realized that Amanda wasn’t really Amanda, she was really Helen. She also fears Helmanda put something into her mind while she was out.

Meanwhile back at Division, Rah-Rah Rachel was making Birkhoff divvy up Divisions assets. When Sean made Alex realize even with the trackers disabled Birkhoff’s Shadownet will still be able to track them down, she tells Rah-Rah who sends Chris to force Birkhoff to shut it down. When Birkhoff makes it clear shutting it down won’t stop them from being tracked down since Shadownet is all in his head, Chris plans to kill Birkhoff. Luckily Birkhoff gets the drop on him and knocks him out. Chris lies what really happened and Rah-Rah sends a hit squad to kill Birkhoff.

Sean tries to get through to Alex and make her see Amanda did something to her, but when she discovers he’s not with her cause, she has him locked up with Michael.

Rah-Rah is even more pissed at Birkhoff when he not only puts Shadownet back into operation but stop her from getting her paws on Divisions funds. Unfortunately, Birkhoff runs into Owen who takes him prisoner to force Birkhoff to hack into the elevator controls so he can escape Division with the blackbox. Only Birkhoff hacks into the controls for the holding cell Michael and Sean are being held in and they’re able to escape.

Michael starts putting things together and realizes Owen kidnapped Nikita and handed her over to Amanda. He gets the drop on Owen, but can’t kill him because he’s the only one who knows where Amanda has Nikita. So it’s decided that Birkhoff and Sean will stay behind while Michael and Owen leave to go deal with Amanda. Unfortunately, during a gunfight, Owen escapes Michael and heads to Amanda with the black box. Michael, however, is hot on his trail. Michael manages to rescue Nikita, but Owen and Amanda are able to escape. They had back to Division.

Meanwhile back at the siege on Division things turn deadly when Birkhoff and Sean are captured. Rah-Rah wants to kill Birkhoff and Alex jumps her. Then Lying Chris jumps Birkhoff. Sonya gets a gun and saves Birkhoff from Chris, while Rah-Rah meets her maker. This all blows Alex’s mind as she has visions of all the people she wasn’t able to save thanks to Helmanda. Unfortunately for Alex, the worst is yet to come.

Sean got hurt in the melee. At first he says it’s just a cracked rib, then she discovered he’s been shot and the bullet is still inside him. He says he’s bleeding internally and bleeding out. He makes Alex promise to get help before he dies. The question is will she as she vanishes by the time Michael and Nikita make it back to Division.

Division is now pretty much empty of agents who’ve taken it on the run. As Amanda looks down at Sean she repeats what Helmanda said to her, sometimes some people can’t be saved. Because of what she experienced as Teen Amanda, will Nikita ultimately decide that Alex can’t be saved, either? Will she decide to kill Alex the way Teen Amanda should have done to Helmanda before Helmanda killed her? Can Alex be helped? What with Sean dying, has it totally unhinged her because she feels she’s to blame for it happening?

I’ve heard talk online that Division will burn to the ground. Rah-Rah intended to set it one fire with all the people who weren’t with her, but she’s dead. However, Alex heard what she said. So will Alex set it on fire, herself, just like Helmanda did to her own home? Or was some damage done to the electrical wires during the shooting which the camera focused on. Will Ryan be safely evacuated before that happens or will he be yet another casualty? How many more will die before the closing credits roll on this season’s finale?