Eric Garcia’s “Kaleidoscope” is a story of vengeance in which, contrary to what the protagonist, Ray Vernon, believed, there is no right or wrong. Roger Salas, Ray’s arch-nemesis, was probably the only one who had accepted this fact, which is why he never tried to deceive himself by camouflaging his intentions behind a veil of nobility. So, let’s try to ascertain what Roger’s thought process was while all that was brewing inside Ray’s mind and who had the bonds that were taken from the SLS vault.
Roger Salas had climbed up the food chain, and he had the who’s who of the New York Society as his customers. He had been trying for a very long time to bring them on board, and eventually, his efforts paid off when the Triplets, i.e., Stefan Thiele, Suzanne Grosvenor, and Cho-Young Woo, decided to put their unsecured bearer bonds, worth 7 billion dollars, in the SLS vault. Roger had already stepped up the security, and he himself checked the live CCTV when he was not present on the premises. What Roger didn’t realize was that he had a mole inside his organization who was feeding all the information to Ray Vernon, a.k.a. Leo Pap. Hannah was Ray’s daughter, and she had complete knowledge about what had happened between Ray and Roger in the past. She was keeping track of Roger’s movements and feeding information to Ray about the intricate security setup that was installed in SLS to protect the vaults. Roger knew that his life would be ruined if anything happened to those bonds. He was well aware of the fact that the Triplets might appear to be very sophisticated and civilized, but in reality, they were worse than hardened criminals and were capable of getting a person killed in cold blood.
Hannah won the trust of Roger Salas and, when the time came, dealt him a mighty blow that had the potential of destroying everything that he had created for himself. We don’t exactly know how Roger built his empire, but one thing that can be said for sure is that he would have gone to extreme lengths in order to do so. Roger was the kind of man who treasured his victories, maybe because he knew the fickle nature of things in this world. He knew that if there were good times, then there would be bad ones, too, when things didn’t work out in your favor. That day came, which Roger dreaded, and Ray Vernon broke into his vault and stole the Triplets’ bonds. Ray didn’t only want to damage his career and destroy his empire; he also wanted to decimate his personal life. Ray kept a jewel inside his personal vault that they both had stolen from the Christmas charity auction. Ray knew that the jewel could be traced back to Roger’s dubious past and would bring his real identity to light. Roger, after realizing that his vault was under attack, rushed to the SLS building, but the damage had already been done.
Ray and his crew had already emptied the vaults. Roger stalled Nazan and Samuel, the FBI agents, for quite some time, but when they came with a warrant, he took them inside the facility. Roger, at that point in time, knew that a robbery had been committed, and he had already prepared a story to justify that. But what he didn’t expect was that Ray would have left something that would incriminate him and expose the fact that he was actually Graham Davies, who was hiding behind a false identity. Roger lied to the FBI agents that he had shifted the bonds to another secured location because he didn’t want the information about the heist to reach the Triplets. What he didn’t know was that he and Ray had both been deceived completely by Hannah Kim.
Hannah wanted her father to leave his past behind and make a fresh start. She knew that if he stole the bonds, the Triplets wouldn’t let him live. Ray was undermining the power and authority the Triplets had, and that was probably the biggest flaw in his entire plan. Hannah had something else in mind, and she wanted to kill two birds with one stone. She had informed Stefan Thiele that his bonds were going to be stolen. She brought the Triplets to her side by showing them how they could play the situation in their favor. She had told them that she would secretly give them back their bonds, and the situation would also qualify them for claiming damages through insurance. Nazan and Samuel discovered who Roger Salas really was, and he was sent to prison to serve a 20-year sentence.
When the dust settled, Ray went to meet Salas in prison, and it was there that we realized something that changed our perspective about the antagonist of the series, “Kaleidoscope.” Roger Salas was probably the only person who accepted who he was and didn’t live a life of pretentiousness. He told Ray Vernon straight to his face that he didn’t know if he could have saved his wife or not and that he had acted with no malice. Roger never wanted to destroy Ray’s life and had he wanted that, he wouldn’t have gone inside the club where the Christmas charity event was happening.
In the episode of “Kaleidoscope” titled “Pink,” we saw that it was probably Roger’s son who went and shot Ray, though it couldn’t be ascertained if he succumbed to his injuries or survived them. We believe that Roger’s son acted of his own accord and wasn’t given any sort of instruction from his father. Our rationale behind the speculation is that Roger seemed as if he had made peace with whatever had transpired in his life. He knew that he couldn’t do anything in that situation, which is why he stopped giving it much thought. Alternatively, it could be presumed that because he had asked Bob Goodwin to find and kill Ray, he could have asked his son to do the same once he found out that Ray was alive. Getting a grasp of the kind of sensibilities Roger had, we are more inclined to believe that he must have asked Bob to kill Ray in the heat of the moment but would have realized later that there was no point in taking revenge and somebody had to opt out and put an end to the vicious cycle. Season 2 of “Kaleidoscope” (if there is one) will most likely shed more light on whether Roger had any role in Ray’s murder and whether he ever discovers that Hannah had returned the bonds to the Triplets.
