Recap of Episode 5 of ‘Zero Day’: The Bright Side of Billionaires

The billionaire has achieved success! It wasn’t as difficult as anticipated, was it? After several weeks of hitting dead ends, following wrong leads, being misled on purpose, and putting Left-Wing Ben Shapiro through a tough time, George Mullen and his Zero Day Commission have finally solved the case and captured the main players involved in the attack: Leon, the programmer accused of enhancing the NSA’s malware to enable the attack… and his employer, Monica Kidder, the billionaire who is passionate about athleisure and has been trying to infiltrate the Commission from the start. It appears that corrupt billionaires enjoy having the power to cover up their own criminal activities. Definitely something to take note of!

Everything comes together quite convincingly, especially for a series that has shown little interest in realistically depicting the intricacies of espionage and forensic work required for such tasks. (Think of shows like The Americans, Better Call Saul, the toilet paper message scene from Manhunter, or any scene from Sneakers.) This breakthrough is credited to Roger, whose sharp observation skills led him to uncovering the attackers’ AM radio frequency — thanks to his billionaire ally, Bob Lyndon, who has now disappeared — and intercepting their communications. With the support of a team of cryptographers brought together by Valerie, George deciphers the code, impersonates Lyndon, and delivers Leon right into the hands of law enforcement.

The operation involving Kidder encounters more obstacles. Firstly, she has a group of private security guards who refuse to comply with the law and allow the search warrant obtained by George’s Commission without proper authorization to be executed at her residence. Just when it seems like she might strike an immunity deal with George and Valerie, a third party — not affiliated with the Commission or Kidder’s security team — instigates a deadly shootout. Kidder is taken into custody, evidence is discovered, but there are casualties and Carl ends up in the hospital. It’s important to mention that Kidder livestreamed most of these events.

Not that it matters much when George announces his findings to the world. His tenure as head of the Commission was supposed to end earlier that day, with the ambitious Speaker Dreyer, his eyes on President Mitchell and his potential candidacy in the next big election, taking over. Now he’s cracked the case and busted a massive corruption scandal wide open, making him more or less untouchable. What’s more, there have been no further “Who Killed Bambi?” episodes, which is good news. 

Mostly good news, anyway: The Proteus weapon that’s supposedly triggering these episodes has not been recovered from Kidder, so it’s still out there…if it even exists. And though he assumes he has the conspiracy licked, he hasn’t been able to track down the other voices on that long-range AM radio frequency — all of whom immediately stop talking to Kidder when they realize she’s going down. 

But we lucky audience members know something George doesn’t: His own daughter, Alex, is part of the conspiracy. So is Speaker Dreyer, which makes their weird alliance — in the diligently de-politicized world of Zero Day, no one ever has an R or a D listed next to their name on TV, but she really does seem like a generic progressive and he like a generic conservative — make a bit more sense now. 

Revelations abound, in fact. Alex believes that her brother Nick committed suicide, contra George’s view that he simply OD’d. George fathered a whole-ass child we haven’t met yet named Lily with Valerie, and they’ve kept this a secret from the kid her whole life, though Kidder threatens to expose it unless she’s given immunity. (The shootout renders that point moot.) 

George’s biggest problems by the end are twofold. First, Kidder kills herself — excuse me, “kills herself” — in her jail cell, Jeffrey Epstein–style, before she can be questioned. Second, there are Alex’s frantic please to Dreyer to “call it off, call it off!” Call what off? 

One note to end on: When George and his wife Sheila chat after the day’s events (earlier she’d been called to testify against him and defended him instead, and he’s grateful), they discuss Kidder.

“It’s amazing how powerful these tech types have become,” Sheila says.

“Yeah, well, I’d have imagined she’d bee too smart to take this kind of gamble,” George replies.

The idea here is that even the richest, most powerful people can bring about their own downfall when they fly too close to the sun. Fingers crossed.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.