'COBRA' Recap: Season 3 Episode 3

COBRA airs Thursdays at 9:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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To learn who is responsible for the bomb that caused a sinkhole and killed some 150 people at the site of a protest at Godley Commons, the government is interrogating both Ellie and Henry Wicks, the leader of Planet Resistance. Henry denies involvement. Ellie thinks Henry is behind it, since that’s what her fellow activist Nate told her – but Nate escaped from custody and so can’t be questioned. Ellie suggests that Polly might know where Nate is – but the government has lost track of Polly, too.

Polly has sought refuge at her father Dan’s house. They don’t have the closest relationship, but Dan does deflect questions from the police about Polly when they arrive at his house in search of her. Polly tells Dan that she wasn’t involved with the bomb, but he still suggests that the best thing to do would be to turn herself in. She gets upset and leaves, telling him that sometimes resistance needs to move beyond leafleting to action. She’s off to join protests at an international defense expo taking place in London. He apologizes as she leaves – he hasn’t been the best father.

The more hawkish members of Robert’s cabinet – Victoria and Joseph – are encouraging him to use the new civil disturbance bill to prevent any disorder at the expo. Robert is already planning to have his daughter face any consequences that any other disruptive activist would, to avoid seeming preferential. But he also believes that Ellie didn’t have anything to do with the bomb and is eager to see the responsibility pinned on Henry, whom he thinks was behind the explosion.

Anna worries that Ellie is too independent and headstrong to accept being portrayed as manipulated by Henry in order to receive a minimum punishment. She won’t betray her principles and denounce Planet Resistance as terrorists, as Robert wants her to do.

Anna is right. When Robert visits Ellie in jail and asks her to do so, she refuses. She lays into Robert, accusing him of only ever thinking about his career and legacy instead of his family. Robert leaves shaken, and vents over the phone to Anna, having separated from his wife, Rachel.

Francine notes this dynamic between Anna and Robert and calls Anna Robert’s wife. Anna insists that if anything was going to happen between her and him, it would have a long time ago.

Francine has lost her job as the shadow environment secretary, thanks to her relationship with the now toxic Henry. She blames him for the bomb, but reluctantly visits him in jail. He insists that he was set up, suggesting that Nate was a government plant who set the bomb to delegitimize Planet Resistance. Francine is inclined to believe him because of the suspicious way in which Nate met Polly: by stepping in front of her bike and causing an accident. But when Francine passes on this insinuation to Anna and Anna asks Robert’s intelligence chief Eleanor about it, Eleanor says that Nate is not a policeman.

Eleanor does, however, do some digging, and discovers that Nate’s identity is based on the birth certificate of a deceased infant. Eleanor meets an old colleague, Zelda, who has started a private security firm, and asks about Nate. Zelda says he’s not one of her operatives. But after Eleanor leaves, Zelda calls a man named Ray and says that they need to talk about Nate.

Ray has already contacted Nate, who’s in hiding, and told him he will be sent to safety in Switzerland. When Nate objected, Ray insisted. Nate is upset by how many deaths the bomb caused, but Ray tells him not to think about it. When Nate leaves his hiding place, Ray and another man appear and escort him to a car.

Eleanor’s main purpose in meeting with Zelda was to ask about Princess Zadira, the outspoken daughter of a Middle Eastern king who is a resident of the U.K. but was seemingly abducted back to her father’s country. Zelda’s company provides security for the Middle Eastern royal family, and British intelligence has footage showing three men who are employees of her company coercing a seemingly drugged Zadira into a car to the airport. Zelda denies foul play, averring that Zadira was simply drunk and went to the airport of her own will.

The kingdom has said that Zadira, who released a video saying she is a hostage, is suffering from a mental illness. Archie and Victoria argue that the U.K. should take them at their word, so as not to scuttle a big defense deal between the two countries. Robert and Anna insist on an investigation.

Victoria worries that Archie isn’t pushing back against Robert enough. She undermines Archie by crashing his meeting with Prince Samir – and arriving before Archie. Samir asks them to drop the investigation, and Archie asks him to demonstrate that Zadira is happy and safe by releasing photos or a video. Samir agrees. Archie warns Victoria not to go behind his back again.

Archie is also forced to calm the nerves of a contractor at the defense expo that Robert’s push for an investigation will not ruin the deal with Samir’s country. Protesters interrupt the conversation by bursting into the venue. Polly is one of them, and is knocked in the head by a policeman after spray painting a slogan.

While in custody, she complains that her head hurts, but there’s no one to hear her. She is eventually taken to the hospital, just as Rachel’s lawyers win a release under investigation for Ellie. Robert calls Ellie to rejoice in her supervised release from custody, but Ellie is furious at him and his government for Polly’s injury. She’s going to visit Polly.

The police won’t let her into Polly’s room. She instead meets Dan, who also arrives to see his daughter. Polly dies soon afterward.

Robert fears that he is ultimately responsible and has betrayed his principles. He calls Anna for reassurance, and asks her over. She tells him he doesn’t have blood on his hands; he’s a good man. Then why are the people I love angry with me? he asks.

I’m not angry with you, she responds. They stand close together for a long, intimate moment. She starts to leave, and Robert kisses her.