Watch Me

James hijacks a flying contraption, or chopper, killing the pilot in the process, but he brings the body along to use his hands as security verification. He tries to use the vehicle to escape the island, but it has trackers that don’t allow it to leave, so he heads toward the strange cluster of buildings instead.

The body of the pilot falls out of the flying vehicle, and James loses the security verification. The craft crash-lands, and he recovers from the rough landing only to be met with a horrific scene. He recognizes Rosa, who is pleading with soldiers not to take away a young girl, who he assumes is Clara. Clara screams, and it reminds James of what he endured as a child during the revolution. He feels compelled to act.

Rosa spits in Sebastian’s face, and a soldier hits Rosa in the face with a gun. While she doesn’t regret doing it, she does regret what will now happen to Clara. As her face bleeds, Rosa thinks about how she would kill Sebastian if she got the chance. She thought that by giving her loyalty and service to the Reestablishment, she would be rewarded, but instead, she is losing her sister, the only person who gives her purpose. She feels she has failed Clara and wants to die, knowing that she is powerless to change what is happening. Suddenly, James appears in a flying contraption. He steers it through the crowd and intervenes in the situation.

James leans out of the helicopter-style contraption and opens fire on the soldiers. He kills most of them, including the ones holding Rosa. He invites Rosa to board, and she does so without hesitation. James asks Rosa how to get to the asylum where Clara will be held. Rosa explains that there is no way to rescue Clara, and any attempt to do so will just result in both her and Clara’s deaths.

Rosa is confused by James and doesn’t understand why he wants to help Clara. She has grown up in a world in which everyone fends for themselves and remembers how when her mother died, nobody would help her find food (though one neighbor did give her a gun). James tells Rosa to get out of the chopper, and it becomes clear that he wanted to save Clara, not her. Rather than be offended by this, Rosa is touched by James’s concern for her sister, but she doesn’t get out. Instead, she tells James that she can help him get off the island.

Rosa explains that she can help James get home and fix the chopper if he lets her. James reluctantly agrees, but with the stipulation that he will turn Rosa in the moment they land in the New Republic. They shake hands on a truce, and Rosa feels a strange attraction to James. She thinks about how loyal he is to his family and wonders what it must be like to have someone like that. As Rosa tries to get the chopper to work, it starts to spiral out of control and descends off a cliff toward the ocean.

Rosa manages to get the chopper under control by rerouting the power supply and hacking it to make it believe it’s a military chopper. James is in awe at first but quickly becomes suspicious again. He asks her if she’s some sort of top agent and demands that Rosa explain herself.

Rosa thinks about the fact that James hasn’t killed her yet and guesses that he must be guided by his conscience. She explains that she used to build vehicles, which is why she knows so much about them. She tries to win James’s trust, but he returns to Rosa’s capabilities as a killer. Rosa turns this accusation back on him, pointing out that James has killed plenty of people as well.

James then accuses Rosa of abandoning her sister, a thought that echoes through her mind. When he asks when Rosa last ate a full meal, she doesn’t answer, instead sinking into memories of watching Clara starve. When James asks Rosa if the Reestablishment is starving her, she answers “no,” lying to him. Hunger has been a way for Rosa to “remain hollow” and avoid feeling anything about her directive to kill others.

Now, she realizes that the only way to succeed in this mission is to get James to trust her. If she succeeds, Klaus has promised to free her and her sister.