Limitless - 'Side Effects May Include...'

SAC Nasreen 'Naz' Pouran aka Boss Naz

Brian and Rebecca start looking into her father's case, with Rebecca providing an alibi for Brian to pursue this on Bureau NZT time while she is tapped to join a Red Team exercise, planning a hypothetical cyber attack on the US economy. Boss Naz (I can't unthink that now, and neither can you; you're welcome) pitches it as a career move, while Brian encourages Rebecca to take out her frustration against the system by lording it over the ruins of the military-industrial complex like a barbarian queen.

While Rebecca kicks arse in the Red Team, their investigation leads to a rehab clinic and then to a pharmaceutical company where a limited NZT trial was being run. Unfortunately, Brian's immunity shot begins to wear off and the side effects of the pill begin to bite. Sands withholds the booster and demands that Brian first frame Rebecca for stealing the NZT file, as her presence in his life is a distraction.

Comedown's a kicker.

As Brian degenerates, Pill Brian and Non-Pill Brian debate strategies, ultimately coming down to two possibilities: Betray Rebecca, or die an unbelievably slow and agonising death. While both are squarely against the latter option, Non-Pill Brian ultimately chooses it as the lesser of two evils. For Brian, this is as defining a moment as taking the NZT in the first place, demonstrating that underneath the happy go lucky slacker exterior and NZT-enhanced smarts is a genuine hero; not just a guy who will help a complete stranger out just because he can, but one who will go to the wire for a friend.

With Brian failing fast, Rebecca blows off a meeting with the Director and goes to see the doctor who administered her father's NZT trial. He admits that he ran the trial, but never knew the source of NZT. He cut her father off when he thought he was spreading his trial dose around the city, but then all of his patients disappeared, except for Harris Snr, who died, and the NZT just dried up.

"Good, bad; I'm the one with the pills."

Brian is saved when Senator Morra himself finds him and administers the injection. He assures Brian that he doesn't need to frame Rebecca: The whole thing was a test of character, to determine if Brian was a mere employee or something more; a potential partner. He explains that he wants to change the world, but that it must be a slow process, and takes leaders like him and partners like Brian. Of course, this would be more sincere and affecting if Sands wasn't blowing up the doctor at about the same time.

Finally, Naz confronts Rebecca over her broken appointment. She realises that Rebecca saw the file, and tells her that she wanted Rebecca's career to move forward so that she could get her the clearance to be allowed to see the NZT file. This puts a bit of a bind on Rebecca's loyalties, although she still insists that Brian did not give her the information.

'Side Effects May Include...' is a big episode, as you might expect given the return of Bradley Cooper as Edward Morra. It's not just Morra, however, nor the five extra pills that he gives Brian; it's the character moments for both Brian and Rebecca, and the escalation of the conspiracy, as either Morra is happy to kill to keep his secrets or Sands is playing his own lethal game.