Recap: 'Zero Hour' - 07/06/2013

Like all good mythology-based TV shows, by the time you get this far into the season it's almost impossible to jump in without having seen the previous episodes. So as we take a look at episode eight I'll just assume that you're more-or-less up to speed with what has already taken place.

We begin with a Nazi era flashback. Two men in lab coats manage to get away from some pursuing Nazis and they end up at a clandestine meeting at  the Strasbourg Cathedral. They are Shepards and we know that because one of them managed to drop their Shepard-branded cross pendant during the pursuit. Given how often Shepards lose these things, they must be attached to some sort of breakaway gold chain. Well, it turns out that the meeting participants aren't all Shepards. They're a group of Rosicrucians and they have decided that now that the Nazis have arrived, the "thing" buried in the tunnels underneath their church must be moved. As they begin raising the box, we notice that this is some of the same footage we saw in a earlier episode, so presumably the "thing" is the true cross of Jesus. We see Steiner warning that the troops are on their way to the cathedral and he checks in with the sub that will carry the object away. I'm assuming this is the same sub in which he's later found dead. So where did he hide the relic after in between Strasbourg and his icy grave?

We're now in modern-day Strasbourg and Hank and Leila/Anna are making their way through the airport on their way to the cathedral. She still seems to have some hope they'll get back together, but Hank remains angry about her universe of lies. Besides, who wants to discover that the hot woman who married you only did it because God told her to? Back in the U.S. the FBI thinks at first that they've tracked her down, after they discover that one of her aliases booked a flight to Dublin. Then they discover that various aliases have booked flights to destinations around the world. Back at Shepard Central, they're also trying to track down her whereabouts. They put out a hit on Hank and Leila and enlist the help of what appears to be a guy that's a cross between a male model and a felon who's been locked in solitary for a year.

Hank calls Rachel and Arron to let them know he's with Leila and okay. In a great illustration of his lack of street smarts, he not only tells them he's in Strasbourg, he has the conversation in the taxi that is taking them to the cathedral. As he talks, we see the cab driver watching Hank through the rear view mirror. The same mirror that has a string of rosary beads hanging from them. Yeah, this pretty much is the not-so-subtle tip-off that this guy can't be trusted.

Back in NYC, the FBI raid the offices of the magazine and send the staff home. Well, everyone except Rachel and Arron (cue suspenseful music). Then we're off to Portsmouth, England where White Vincent is briefing Ms. Head Pirate (Amy Irving) on what he discovered from the ships log he recovered from the sunken trawler. He's narrowed down the location of the relic and tells her that the Shepards are no longer a threat since they are chasing clocks and hints.

Hey, it's the Strasbourg Cathedral and as Hank and Leila/Anna walk inside they're still squabbling about whether she can be trusted. But their private reenactment of "War of the Roses" is postponed when they get to the front of the cathedral and realize it includes a wall-sized clock. Granted, they would have already known this if one of them had used Google sometime during their trip, but we'll let that one slide for now. But they'd better get moving, because the Shepard hitman is meeting with their taxi driver, who tells the hitman he knows where Hank and Leila/Anna are. He asked the hitman to pay up, but instead he's killed and the hitman simply uses the taxi's GPS to track them down. Either the hitman is on a budget or he just doesn't want any witnesses. I suppose the lesson in this scene is that technology puts lots of people out of work, including snitches.

In the magazine's offices, Rachel and Arron are questioned and asks Rachel to help her track down Laila/Anna. Rachel says she won't say anything because she's convinced there is a Shepard mole in the FBI. Rachel asks her who else knew about the previous day's raid and they both turn at the same time to look at her FBI boss.

Back at the Cathedral Hank and Laila/Anna begin to uncover clues related to the search for the relic. They discover a Rosicrucian plaque with a mysterious clue written in Latin along with symbols that connect to some of the clocks they had previously uncovered. Just then Leila/Anna spots the Shepard hitman and they flee the cathedral with him in pursuit. At the same time White Vincent is on a ship in search of the relic and begins to read the sub log that has just been made readable by scientists. As he reads, something about the handwriting of the sub's captain looks familiar and he recreates several of the words from the sub log. He realizes that his writing and the sub captain's are the same and we see a flashback of Steiner on the sub, greeting the Captain. Of course, the captain is the spitting image of White Vincent.

Hank calls Rachel again and Beck intercepts the call. Hank asks her for the clocks and she refuses, telling him that she can't trust him. Laila/Anna gets on the phone and tells Beck that she can't trust the FBI either and promises to tell her everything she knows about why her husband's airplane was targeted by White Vincent. Apparently she must have been convincing, because Beck travels to Strausbourg with Rachel, Arron and Paige. She brings the clocks, but insists on getting her answers before she turns them over to Hank. Becks takes Laila/Anna into a separate room and after a bit of random threatening, she starts to hear what she wanted to know. Laila/Anna tells Becks that her husband received a grant from the Pirates front 41 Trust just before he died. She explains to Beck that the Pirates believe that God has given man the scientific knowledge to bring about the widespread death that will burn all sinners and bring forth the End of Days. She tells Beck that she was supposed to get close to her husband and convince him to help the Shepards. She says she doesn't know why Vincent brought down the plane that killed him.

Beck leaves the room and as she does, she hands an envelope to Hank containing pictures of all the clocks. The group struggle to make sense of the clues left on the cathedral clock and as you might expect, they're able to figure at least some of it out. They realize they need to get back into the cathedral and decide to use old tunnels under the church to get in. That night they do just that, with Beck keeping watch out front, since none of the Shepards would recognize her. They enter the catacombs and apparently the Shepards were expecting them, since a man is staked out nearby. He calls the Shepard super killer and as the group leaves Paige on watch outside, things do not look promising for her role continuing past this week.

It's another flashback to the German sub and we see the carefully plans of the Shepards begin to go horribly wrong. The German sub commander disagrees with the plan to hide the relic in a mud bank where it won't be discovered. He argues the pieces of the cross should be displayed for the world to see, no matter what the danger. Steiner pulls a gun on him and reminds the Captain that hiding the relic had always been the plan. He says that if they don't follow instructions, the twelve will be unable to find it and the relic will be lost to history. Steiner shoots the Captain and consoles him as he dies. The commander's dying words are "I wonder if two men can be brothers in heaven if one has killed the other?"

Hank and the others are now inside the cathedral and they search for a way to reset the clock. Hank is convinced that if he sets the cathedral's clock according to times he found on the smaller clocks, he'll be on the right track. As they reset each gear in the clock, the figure of another Apostle moves out of the clock and it looks like they've figured it out. But are they too late? Beck tries to call Paige and we hear her phone ringing somewhere in the tunnel. We also see the Shepard super killer making his way through the catacombs, which can't be a good sign for the fate of Paige. When they've finished with the gears, the clock chimes and then a door opens on the front, revealing the figure of Mathias, the 13th Apostle. Hank takes a ball that is placed within the statue. But before they can gloat too much, they hear a voice say, "If you don't mind, I'll take it." It's Paige and it turns out that she was the FBI leak all along. She tells them to get down on their knees and pray for forgiveness as she kills them and Hank refuses. Just then a shot rings out and it's Beck, shooting Paige in the back. She's accompanied by two local police officers and it appears that everything will be okay. But just then the Shepard assassin shows up and kills the two local officers before being shot in the leg by Beck. They flee the scene, locking the door behind them before the wounded assassin can follow. While the group flees back through the tunnels the assassin returns to the front of the cathedral and kills the wounded Paige in order to silence her.

The next day the group is packing up to leave and Leila/Anna discovers the ball they recovered from the statue the night before holds a glass ball with something inside. As she examines it, Becks shows up and tells them that Vincent has been spotted in a research vessel off the coast of England. Leila/Anna tells them he's probably headed to the Pharaohs, a small group of islands between Iceland and Ireland. She hands the glass ball to Hank and he see that the location is what is written inside the ball.

But how did Vincent know where to go without the clue they now possess? Becks says the FBI has some surveillance footage that might answer that question. While she looks at the footage, Hank sends Rachel and Arron back to NYC. They then turn to Becks, who looks stunned and nearly in tears. She shows them footage from of the boat, taken from the docks before it departed. They see White Vincent, but Beck also identifies another man standing next to him. It's Theo, the husband she believed was dead.