Three Moments of Goodness from Nikita “Doublecross” 

Nikita bounded back from its hellatus with a doozy of an episode. Nikita had someone given and someone taken and Alex teamed up with Sean to find her mom. Nikita had an amazingly touching moment with Birkhoff and helped Michael come to his senses on an important issue regarding his son. All in all, “Doublecross” was a great episode and really made us realize how much we miss seeing new episodes every week. Let’s revisit our favorite moments.

Nikita Finds Out Ryan is Alive And Gets Him Back

When Amanda reaches out through back channels, Nikita knows something’s up. Hearing Ryan’s voice on the phone wasn’t something she would’ve imagined in her wildest fantasy though. We love the way Maggie Q can tear up on a dime. If she’s selling something, we’re buying it and in this case we totally believed the relief and joy she felt after discovering her friend was alive.

During the actual trade, we were holding our breath. We weren’t sure they’d pull it off, but we were happy to see Nikita beam when Ryan reached her and they hugged tightly. Even more, we loved that Michael was a little bit jealous about it. We know it’s only a matter of time before Nikita and Michael reunite, but it’s nice (for us) to see Michael to be reminded of what he’s missing.

Birkhoff Calls Carla’s Bluff

The team sets a plan in motion and heads off to trade Percy for Ryan and Carla stays behind with Birkhoff. When she can’t warn Percy about a last minute change in plans, Birkhoff calls her out. Turns out Nikita suspected her treachery when Percy started taking out Division agents and now Percy’s people will be right where she wants them. Carla calls Birkhoff’s bluff – she says he doesn’t have it in him to shoot her. But Birkhoff can’t let her go without jeopardizing the mission or the lives of the people he loves. After they trade fire, Carla’s down and Birkhoff is disconnected from the op. He says the gun went off. We say he pulled the trigger.

Birkhoff’s immediately apologetic and rushes to staunch the bleeding. When Carla dies – but not until Nikita’s had a chance to talk to her – he’s horrified. Nikita grieves the loss but freely forgives him. There’s a lovely moment between them where she puts her head on his shoulder as they’re both near tears. BOO to the directing that they shot it against sunlight and cut away so quickly. We get the thematic intent, but still – Birkhoff was getting a cuddle! And it was so nice.

Nikita Sends Sean to Protect Alex

This was our favorite part of the episode and there wasn’t enough of it. Alex is on a mission to bring her mother home and Sean turns up at her hotel, raring to go as her faux bodyguard. We loved that they were sort of goofy light together – no offense at all intended – but he reminded us of a labrador retriever the way he was so bouncy and “what’s next?” We were totally waiting for her to pat him on the head or tell him “down, boy.” It was nice to see him so excited to see her, especially since things got kind of serious fast. We also love that thanks to Sean, they were able to find out a very valuable piece of information about Cassandra. How many more surprises about her can we take?

But back to Sean and Alex. We want outtakes of Dillon Casey and Lyndsy Fonseca – they seemed to be having a ball after their earlier work together was so serious. It’s almost too good to be true that Sean so quickly fell into line with Nikita’s rebel alliance, but we get that he’d do anything to protect his mother. And when Nikita exposed Division we can see how he’d be persuaded to switch sides. And then there’s Alex, of course. We’re willing to believe he’d do almost anything to be closer to her, but we hope its not a set up for something down the line. Only time will tell. In the meantime, we’re so glad Nikita and her crew are back!

Nikita airs Fridays at 8/7c on the CW.