Kaleidoscope recap guide: All 8 episodes explained

Kaleidoscope recap: Green: 7 Years Before the Heist

The “Green” episode opens up with one of our main protagonists, Ray (Esposito). We learn in the title card that it takes place seven years before the heist. In his voiceover, Ray goes by a different name — Leo. We’ll get an explanation for that by the end of the episode. Ray’s been in prison for 17 years and wants to get out, and with the help of a fellow inmate named Stan (Kendall), he actually does.

We learn a bit about Stan in prison, for example how he’s involved in some type of drug trade in and out of prison. His girlfriend, Judy (Elbay), makes these at-home laced lollipops which she brings when she visits him in prison, but it’s the SIM cards he really wants. He sells these to the inmates and seems to be pretty successful in doing so. Stan’s one of the cooks at the prison and spends a lot of time in the kitchen. Early on in the episode, we can already see some of the trouble he faces behind bars after he’s targeted by a white supremacy gang called the Peckerwoods.

Ray and Stan share a prison cell and seem to be pretty good friends as they confide in each other on personal things. For Ray’s part, he’s going through health issues that come to a head when he has an episode laying on the top bunk of a bunk bed and falls to the floor. When he visits the medic center, a Dr. Wagner tells him he could have Parkinson’s disease.

When Ray asks Stan to help him get a few items, Stan realizes he’s trying to escape prison, something he’s a little hesitant to help with. Stan only has six months left behind bars, while we don’t know how long Ray has. By the looks of it, there’s no end date for him in sight and he wants to get out now.

Stan’s operation is in jeopardy and he gets a visit from Judy and a drug dealer named Bob (Courtney), the latter of whom wants to sell drugs to Stan to sell in prison. But Stan doesn’t want to get into that; he just wants to sell the SIM cards. He feels threatened by Bob who’s a jerk and seems to maybe have a thing for Judy, which is the catalyst for Stan to want to escape prison, too.

Stan tells Ray he’s in, and their plan is quickly in motion. Here’s what goes down. In preparation for the big break-out day, Stan purposefully damages Dr. Wagner’s car while cutting the grass outside, and Ray offers to fix it at the prison’s body shop for free, leading to Ray having possession of the car keys. Ray also then fakes a coughing fit while walking with a guard, and while seemingly about to pass out, he uses some putty to imprint the guard’s key. Now that they have a way out, they just need to distract all the workers.

Stan uses magic mushrooms he’s got in the kitchen to dose the inmates in their morning oatmeal. Once they’re all high and causing a scene, that serves as a distraction. Ray’s at the medical getting an IV, and Stan cuts his hand on purpose so he can go visit the nurse, too. When word gets out that the inmates are on something, all the guards and the nurse go and see what’s going on. They even call Dr. Wagner to come.

Now, it’s showtime. Ray picks the locks on his and Stan’s handcuffs and uses keyboard cleaner to unlock the medic door, as they rush down the hallway. But there’s one big problem. The key Ray made isn’t really working, and they’re running out of time. Stan decides to serve as a distraction to one of the guards coming down the hallway, giving Ray just enough time to get out. He gets into the trunk of Dr. Wagner’s car and hides in the backseat cushions so no one can find him.

Ray’s free and out into the world now, and his first stop is at a woman named Ava’s (Vega) house in New York City. A lot of the show takes place in New York or the surrounding areas. Ava doesn’t seem too surprised to see him out of prison but is concerned when he tells her about his bad health. He wants to see his daughter Hannah (Gabrielle), but Ava thinks that’s a really bad idea. He’ll have to just leave again after seeing her, so what’s the point? He’s a fugitive; he can’t just live a normal life. But Ray is adamant that he wants to explain to Hannah why he did what he did. We can assume he means what he did that led to him being imprisoned.

It doesn’t take long for authorities to start looking for Ray, and we meet a police officer named Nazan Abassi (Niousha Noor) who’s determined to find him. We learn that she’s Ava’s a lawyer and Ray is her client.

Ray confronts Hannah outside an office building on Wall Street and asks her to talk, and she gets super emotional. As they sit outside, he seems regretful about their relationship but explains he didn’t want her to end up like him. She’s understandably upset at him for leaving her, and even says she tried to visit him in prison but was turned away. She abruptly gets up and leaves, walking back into the building and talking to a man who seems to be fond of her. This man, as we learn goes by Roger Salas (Sewell), but that’s not his real name. He’s a bad guy from Ray’s past, though Hannah doesn’t know it yet.

Kaleidoscope Green episode ending explained

The “Green” episode ends with Ray starting over. We see cops gather at a site where Dr. Wagner’s car is up in flames, and there’s a burnt, dead body that they identify as Ray. He fakes his own death, explaining to Ava that he has a friend who helped him in switching dental records, and Ava assists him in starting a new life. She gives him the name Leo Pap, which will be his identity moving forward, and we then see Hannah reading a letter he wrote her.

Ray explains in the letter that he’d been lying to Hannah her whole life, warning her that others around her, namely Roger Salas, are not who they claim to be. He’s on a mission now to make things right, and we’ll see what exactly that means in later episodes.