The Copenhagen Test’s ending was about Alexander figuring out who the actual mastermind of the mind-hacking program called Cassandra RU-258 was. After a military extraction mission in Belarus, Alexander started experiencing panic attacks, for which he required anxiety medication. He had taken a job as an analyst at the Orphanage, which had been created by St. George to watch over the U.S. Intelligence Community, and he wanted to get a field job. Hence, to make it look like he was up to the task, he began taking medication that had no paper trail thanks to his ex-fiancée, Rachel. Those pills didn’t really reduce his anxiety, but they did give him migraines, because the pills had nanites in them, which had turned Alexander into a human radio station who was broadcasting everything that he was perceiving to an unknown receiver. In order to get to the source, St. George, Peter, and Marlowe put together a team featuring Parker, Ellie, Michelle, and many other operatives who’d help Alexander create a narrative that’d force the hacker to show their hand. After a series of hits and misses, Parker and her team were able to zero in on an individual named Schiff, and Alexander was able to corner him as well. However, Schiff was several steps ahead of him, and he demanded Alexander help him settle an old and personal score with St. George, failing which Schiff would kill Alexander’s parents. Alexander had no choice, which made the Orphanage assume that he had been flipped by Schiff. By the time Parker realized the truth, Alexander had been stabbed by Michelle (on Parker’s orders), and he had learned that Rachel had purposefully given him the pills that were melting his brain. With only a few hours left to live and armed with only an adrenaline injection that’d give him some extra energy, Alexander led Schiff to a fake St. George. Schiff was arrested, but since he had sent out the kill order on Alexander’s parents, he had to reach Victor’s (a family friend and former intelligence operative) restaurant on time to save them. Did Alexander succeed, or did he die trying? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Alexander Saved His Parents
After giving Schiff up to the Orphanage, Alexander began making his way to Victor’s restaurant to save him and his parents. But the final stage of the nanites’ symbiosis kicked into high gear, thereby causing him to lose control of his car and crash it. When he stumbled out of the car, he dropped the adrenaline injection. If it wasn’t for Cobb, who had mysteriously tracked him down, Alexander would have been a goner. After Cobb administered the injection, Alexander resumed his journey to the restaurant along with Cobb. By then, Schiff’s men had already entered Victor’s establishment and were on the verge of raining hell on Victor and Alexander’s parents when Michelle arrived to assist Victor. Wasn’t Michelle the one who stabbed Alexander, though? Yeah, well, it was all part of the ruse to convince Schiff, who was seeing everything that Alexander was doing, that he had betrayed the Orphanage and was being targeted for it. Once they were sure that Alexander was still one of the “good guys,” Parker sent Michelle to rescue Alexander’s parents and Victor from a sticky situation. The restaurant wasn’t just any ordinary restaurant, though; it was essentially a fortress filled with guns and bulletproof rooms with holes placed strategically in the walls that allowed Michelle and Victor to target and kill Schiff’s men. And just when they were on their last legs, Alexander showed up and aided the duo in killing anyone who was still standing.
Alexander hugged his parents after that, and it was played off as a pretty sweet moment, but I found it to be quite tragic, because Alexander’s parents had escaped from China during the late ‘80s to avoid getting caught up in the tumultuous phase that the country was going through. When someone relocates like that, they usually do so to avoid further conflict. They do so to pave a peaceful future for the next generation. They do so to live out their twilight years as comfortably as possible. So, although we saw Alexander’s parents thanking him for coming to their rescue, joking about his relationship with Michelle, and essentially expressing their happiness after seeing the kind of man Alexander had become, deep down, I think they were sad. I mean, think about it: would you celebrate the fact that your child, who must’ve had a rough childhood as an immigrant, was embroiled in a war that’s difficult for mere mortals to understand, and that too for a country that you hoped would give you solace? No, you wouldn’t. Also, it wasn’t just about Alexander’s parents seeing their son kill people; they themselves had to go into hiding as a result of all that conflict because the Orphanage had to make sure Schiff’s people weren’t still coming after them. That must be traumatic as hell. For those who don’t have ancestors who were asylum seekers or aren’t asylum seekers themselves, this apparently “bittersweet” exchange might be hard to understand. But as someone who has some idea of this “out of the frying pan into the fire” situation, I deeply sympathize with Alexander’s parents.
Parker Refused a Promotion Offer
After Alexander’s parents were taken away to a safe house by the Orphanage, Alexander collapsed, because the effects of the adrenaline injection had worn off. As soon as he regained consciousness, the writers tried to wrap things up in a haphazard manner. So, allow me to divide the concluding moments into three broad sections: Parker, Schiff, and Alexander. Parker represented a much-needed sense of empathy and foresight that had been lost during or soon after the inception of the Orphanage. Sure, St. George, Peter, Marlowe, Ellie, and even an analyst as experienced as Frances had the chops to do a surface-level reading of any given situation and act accordingly. But I suppose they knew that they had lost their edge, which was why they had ignored Parker’s warnings about brain-hacking, which she had flagged while being half-interested in her job. But simply being able to anticipate wouldn’t have allowed her to break down Alexander’s incredibly subtle tells about which side he was playing for; she had to see him as a human being instead of just an asset who was a means to an end. As if that’s not an overwhelming task, she also took on the responsibility of taking care of Michelle, even though she was the most expendable element of this whole operation. We know next to nothing about Michelle’s past. The bits and pieces of her history we did get painted a ruthless image of her. Whatever she was doing in the present day was, for the most part, scripted and deceptive. Yet, Parker managed to sift through all Michelle’s smoke and mirrors exercises and gave her a blank slate. As a result of all that, St. George thought that she was the perfect candidate to be the Assistant Director of Operations.
One of the many reasons why Parker rejected that offer was because she lacked the experience. Successfully pulling off one mission with a reasonable amount of finesse wasn’t any guarantee that she’d be able to repeat that in a consistent fashion. St. George, Peter, Marlow, and Frances had been in the business for years, and even they managed to make mistakes. So, it was sensible for Parker to stay in the post she had and then look for a promotion later on. Also, when it comes to St. George, everything is a Copenhagen Test, by which I mean that St. George wasn’t actually offering that position to Parker. She wanted to see if Parker was in this game for power, greed, and money, and if the ego of catching Schiff had gone to her head or not. When Parker proved that it hadn’t, St. George was comfortable keeping the post open for her. Hopefully, with her ear to the ground, Parker will be able to track down the actual brain-hacker once Schiff reveals their identity. As for Parker’s one-sided “office romance” with Alexander, yeah, it seems like she’s in love with her, but since Alexander isn’t allowed to see her—for Parker’s protection—he can only admire her or the idea of her. Also, Parker is aware of the fact that Alexander is in love with Michelle, and Parker’s conscience wouldn’t allow her to jeopardize an asset’s mental well-being for her own personal gain. Will that hamper her decision-making capabilities, or will she manage to create a middle ground by forming a throuple with Alexander and Michelle? Given her nature, I think she’ll go for the former, but I’m hoping that it’s the latter because it’s something that I haven’t seen in this genre before.
Schiff Joined Hands with St. George
Despite being the primary antagonist of The Copenhagen Test, Schiff seemed like a tragic figure. He was betrayed for the first time by St. George in the 1980s, after he helped reveal the identities of every KGB agent in West Berlin, and it was a downhill slide for him ever since. The man had “died” so many times that he had become something like Frankenstein’s monster, with St. George being his Frankenstein, who had glued together the broken parts of his body and soul with his unbridled anger and need for revenge. Even though luck never favored him, he kept rising through the ranks until he became an independent contractor who was well-connected enough to manipulate the CIA, the NSA, and pretty much the entire Intelligence Community without ever showing his face to anybody. I suppose he thought that it was worth the risk to come out in the open, lure Alexander into his secret lair, and then force the Orphanage agent to take him to St. George’s doorstep. And, well, he was right, because his gamble did pay off, and he did end up in a room with St. George. That’s where it was revealed that Schiff was neither the inventor of Cassandra RU-258, nor did he target Alexander because of some personal vendetta. His thirst for vengeance motivated him to supposedly exploit his own nephew, Cobb, and Cobb’s friendship with Victor, who I’ll come back to in a bit, and discover the hack that had been performed on Alexander. Then he essentially latched on to Alexander until he took him to St. George. He even exposed the mercenaries that had been helping him all this while. But is that it? Is that all Schiff wanted? Did you see what the head honcho of the Orphanage looked like? Well, no.
Given how Schiff was one of the few people who knew the identity of the individual who had used Cassandra RU-258 on Alexander and many other agents spread all over the world, he became an asset for the Orphanage. He had moved from one country to another, searching for an intelligence agency that would treat him like a gold mine instead of an expandable asset. Finally, he sort of had the upper hand because if he had worked his way into the network that was in the business of hacking the brains of intelligence agents once, he could do it again. Of course, there was a limit to how much attention he could mine out of this relationship with the Orphanage, because as soon as the origin of the brain-hacking was revealed, he’d be of no use to St. George anymore. That’d mean Schiff wanted something else. I’m not very sure about this hypothesis, but it seems like Schiff was eager to look St. George in the eye and tell her that she wasn’t a good human being. From everything from her name to the all-white ensemble that she wore, she had fashioned herself as a messiah that the country needed. She even told herself that, when it came to betraying Schiff in Berlin, if she got a do-over, she’d do things differently. She had convinced herself that she’d prioritize Schiff’s life over valuable intel, and Schiff had done everything that he had done so that he could tell St. George that she wouldn’t. No matter what the situation was, she’d see an asset as an asset, not a human being, thereby underscoring the need for someone like Parker to take the lead. To some, that might make Schiff come off as a weak villain, but to me, it made him a compelling character.
Victor Hacked Alexander’s Brain
As Alexander’s arc for this season was being wrapped up, and his story for a potential second season was being established, we saw a bunch of things. For starters, Frances had confirmed that there was no way to stop the broadcast permanently. The hack was still on; it’s just that the nanites weren’t killing Alexander anymore. Frances had invented a watch that could block the signal going out of Alexander’s brain, but that’s about it. Was that Alexander’s ticket out of this world? Nope. Peter advised Alexander to take his time before he arrived at a decision. During this period, he came across Michelle, who was on her way to live a new life. She told Alexander that once he was done with this spy life, he should come and find her. She didn’t say where she’d be or how she could be found because she knew that Alexander loved her enough to locate her. Well, little did Michelle know that her reunion with Alexander would happen very soon because she had become the subject of leverage that Victor could use against Alexander. Which brings us to Victor. While talking to a newly reinstated Cobb, who was currently working undercover for the Orphanage to investigate the CIA, Alexander learned that since Cobb owed his life to him because Alexander had saved him from getting shot by Schiff, when Alexander went on the run, Cobb began tailing Victor because he knew that Victor and Alexander knew each other. That’s when Cobb heard Victor telling Rachel, who was supposedly working for Victor, to get to the injured Alexander. That’s how it became apparent to Alexander that it wasn’t just Schiff who had access to his eyes and ears; Victor was in his head as well.
So, in The Copenhagen Test’s ending, Alexander confronted Victor about this, and, instead of beating around the bush, Victor admitted that he was the one who had originally hacked into Alexander’s brain. That’s the easy part, though. The hard part is figuring out why Victor did what he did. As mentioned in the finale itself, what Alexander is seeing is only a piece of a bigger puzzle, and what we, the viewers, are getting is just a hint of what that puzzle piece looks like. There’s talk about Victor requesting the titular test so that it triggered the sequence of events that led to Alexander consuming the pills laced with nanites.
Victor even showed the feed from the eyes of 5 other agents—Rao in Mumbai, Doherty in Plum Island, Cyr in Triana, Schwieters in Sahara, and Ferreira in Cusco—with one of them, Cyr, tracking Michelle, who was either on a mission herself, where she had wooed a single father who was probably an asset, or she was living a happily married life with a single father. Either way, Victor was keeping an eye on her because he saw her as a loose end with information about Cassandra RU-258. But snooping on operatives, who may or may not be betraying the agencies they’re working for, can’t be the only purpose of Victor’s super-covert organization. Why did he make Cassandra RU-258 in the first place? Does he have any vendetta against St. George? Does he have any global domination plans on his mind? Since only a second season can answer such questions, I won’t dwell too much on it. Instead, I’ll talk about how the show began with Alexander making a tough choice involving Michelle and it concluded with Alexander making another tough choice involving Michelle. If he doesn’t join hands with Victor, he doesn’t know what’ll happen to Michelle. If he joins hands with Victor, he’ll be betraying the Orphanage and maybe his country. Of course there is a third option, which will allow him to be loyal to his workplace and also safeguard Michelle from any harm, but that might require Alexander to sacrifice himself. Alexander wasn’t able to do that in his first Copenhagen test. Will he be able to do that the second time around? I don’t know, but I want to. What about you? Let me know in the comments section below.
