When big money is involved, justice can be up for sale.
After handling a case stopping a deadly predator, the FBI: International team headed to Spain to investigate a murder at a mansion.
This had them tangling with suspects ranging from a protest group to a millionaire, with the added problem of the cops being almost no help.
Agents Forrester and Kellett were both put in some tricky situations, finding themselves in danger.
Meanwhile, Smitty had to show her own grit in helping the team navigate the politics of the case.
With a dark ending, this made Money Is Meaningless a tricky case for the Fly Team to solve.
A protest turns deadly on FBI: International
At an estate in Mallorca, Spain, a pack of protestors called ETR (as in Eat The Rich) stormed the gates, cutting through the alarm system, and were soon racing around the grounds. They tore up the fountain, smashed apart the expensive artwork, spray-painted the walls and hung up a flag claiming the place was “liberated.”
A small army of cops arrived as Chief Inspector Gutierrez (Krizia Bajos) ordered them to surrender, with the leader of the protestors, Quinns (Matt Whitchurch), mocking her. However, some of his group then revealed the body of a woman upstairs. The cops picked that time to race up to arrest the pack.
Forrester was letting a neighbor’s kid play with Tank when he got a call to the office as Vo was leaving for a week of tactical training.
The victim on the scene was Emelia Sofer, daughter-in-law of Ronen Sofer, a wealthy but criminal diamond merchant. His years of suspected crimes had caught up to him as his assets were frozen and he was banned from the EU.
With 28 ETR members in custody, there were a lot of suspects, even if the group wasn’t known as being violent. The Fly Team arrived as Gutierrez blamed the group for the death. The inspector had personally liked Emelia. It turned out Mallorca had benefited from the Sofers’ wealth and suffered from the sanctions against him, so the whole island had stake in the case.
Quinns and his colleagues all claimed to be innocent of the murder and just wanted to make a fuss and strike at a corrupt billionaire. Lizzy (Chiara Lari) said she’d seen Arturo (Federico Trujillo) enter the back room with a golf club but couldn’t say if he’d killed her.
The timing indicated Emelia was possibly dead before ETR showed up and none of the protestors had blood that would match the attack.
Emelia’s husband, Levy Sofer (Ido Samuel), arrived on the scene and was overcome to hear his wife was dead. He said the family had been “persecuted” and threatened a lot, but Emelia had nothing to do with the business.
Emelia’s parents shared that she’d been a humble woman who met Levy and fell for him before she knew how rich he was. She’d used her part of the wealth for various charities but wanted to move back to America because of the Sofers’ legal problems. They insisted Levy would never hurt Emelia but weren’t sure of his father.
Kellett found it too much of a coincidence that ETR struck just before Emelia was murdered, with Forrester adding this was a crime of passion. Smitty showed them a video of Emelia meeting Brian Clarke (Michael Benjamin Hernandez) in a park.
Clarke was thrown to hear Emelia was dead, saying they just struck up a talk in a park on being from the same college. He admitted he had a crush on Emelia, but she was in love with Levy.
Emelia had wanted Clarke’s expertise as a banker to see if she could access her own money if she moved to America. She was worried about Ronen, who was coming to Spain to “handle” this problem, despite supposedly being banned from the EU.
Knowing how Ronen would pull strings in Spain to keep from talking, the team got creative by pulling Levy into interrogation and accusing him of telling Ronen about Emelia looking into the family business and killing her.
Levy claimed Emelia knew nothing of the business but refused to give up his father. Raines pointed out that a man who murdered his daughter-in-law would also give up his son.
The team is on a timetable
Suddenly, Gutierrez entered to say the golf club was found with Arturo’s fingerprints on it. They were letting Levy go and telling the agents they were no longer needed.
Smitty tried to talk Gutierrez into realizing just how convenient this appeared and insisted there was no direct proof Arturo used the club on Emelia. She openly accused Gutierrez of looking at the suspect who vilified cops rather than the one who spent millions of dollars on her home.
Gutierrez gave them 48 hours, but Forrester had already left to follow Levy. Smitty warned him that the local cops wouldn’t like someone going after Ronen and to be careful.
Arturo was told he was the prime suspect and claimed he just saw the golf club in the room and was using it to smash up things. He found Emelia’s body and tossed the club away before the cops found him with it. Raines noted this was either the truth or a terrible lie.
Quinns claimed there was no way Arturo could kill anyone and someone in the government was working with Sofer. He was honestly surprised to realize Kellett was trying to help and asked her why, with all the Sofers’ other properties and assets seized, that mansion was left untouched.
It turned out the actual owner of the mansion was Emelia, as Ronen had put the estate in her name to avoid it being seized. However, Emelia discovered she owned the one major part of the Sofer empire left and was ready to sell it off and leave them with nothing.
Forrester followed Levy up a road only to find himself blocked off by two cars. He showed his badge as he got out of the car, saying he just wanted to talk to Ronen.
A tricky account is discovered
Clarke admitted he helped Emelia figure out how Ronen tried to trick her into signing over the mansion, but Emelia wanted to donate it to charity. He had worried about his safety and wanted his name kept out of it.
Raines announced he couldn’t contact Forrester as Smitty talked to Vo, blaming herself for not doing her job. Vo told Smitty she was doing great and that Forrester could take care of himself.
At a nice mansion, Forrester met Levy and Ronen (Eyas Younis), pointing out that technically Ronen was breaking the law. He figured out Ronen had arranged for ETR to show up at the crime scene to be a convenient scapegoat.
Ronen took Forrester on a walk as he admitted putting the property in Emelia’s name. However, he claimed that Emelia was being scammed as the charity she thought she was donating to was a sham, and Clarke was tricking her out of 79 million Euros.
Forrester called Raines about Clarke, figuring the crime report had been altered to mess up the timeline so Clarke could have done it. At Clarke’s apartment, he was looking for the info just as Kellett got a text from Forrester telling her the truth.
Kellet pulled a gun on Clarke, who hit her with a file to attack her. They brawled for a bit before Kellet took him down.
Clarke claimed he was being set up, but Raines easily saw through his fake paper trail. Then they found Clarke’s clothes splattered with blood in a dumpster.
Clarke said that it didn’t matter what happened to the cash as “Money is meaningless to these people,” and he deserved it. He finally broke down sobbing as a confession to the murder.
Forrester and Smitty summarized that the cops were so convinced ETR was involved that they altered the reports and gave the real killer an alibi. Forrester thanked Smitty for going to bat for the team, as she said it was a team effort.
Quinns actually expected thanks for how his protest exposed the murder and even invited Kellett to join them on their next protest. She fired back that Quinns didn’t even believe in his cause and was just doing this for attention.
Forrester told the Sofers they were free to go, but their mansion was being seized. He told Levy it wasn’t too late to leave the family business behind and honor Emelia’s memory, but he ended up joining his father.
Back in Budapest, Forrester’s neighbor asked if Tank could tell if he was around someone who’d done bad things. Before Forrester could ask what that meant, the boy’s mother called him inside. She seemed to glance with worry at someone in the apartment before shutting the door to a concerned Forrester.
While the case itself had interesting turns, the ending hints at a bigger danger Forrester has to look into.
FBI: International Season 2 airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on CBS.