Kaleidoscope recap guide: All 8 episodes explained

Kaleidoscope recap: Orange: 3 Weeks Before the Heist

We’re sent ahead into the future again with the episode “Orange,” which takes place three weeks before the big heist. In this one, we learn more about Nazan, who’s an FBI agent, and Ava. The two have a past and it catches up to them.

As the episode opens, we learn Nazan is a recovering addict and she talks about how being clean now affects her job in a positive way while sitting in an NA meeting. She was taken away from her child while she was using drugs but now is able to see him again and hopes she can work towards joint custody eventually. Over at the station, Nazan learns that they found a fingerprint match in the Diamond Way case and it belongs to Ava. This piques her interest in the case and she’s unable to let it go.

As we catch up with the heist group, we follow Ava as she goes to sell the jewelry they stole on Diamond Way, and Bob proves he’s still extremely annoying. Bob invites himself to go with Ava and is frustrated when she can only get $400,000 for the jewels. But she takes it and keeps moving.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group prepares for the heist, with Leo and RJ discussing ways to find a duplicate armor car to get through security, while Stan asks Judy to go with him to get a fake safe they can practice on. Ava takes a tour of the building they’re targeting while pretending to be a woman named Mallory with a blonde wig. She rents office space and gets to meet Roger Salas.

Thanks to RJ, the group is able to get a digital blueprint of the building after he tracked the plumbing system, while Ava confides in her loved one Teresa, who lives with her, and asks if they should move out of New York City.

After Nazan hears the news about Ava’s fingerprints, she remembers interviewing her before and takes old out tapes to listen to. She believes Ava lied to the police years prior and actually knew where Ray was when he escaped prison. The FBI brings Ava in and Nazan watches from the other room as she’s questioned. When they tell Ava they found a fingerprint match at the scene, Ava has a convenient explanation. She says she reported two of her guns missing weeks before so she’s not surprised they were used for criminal activity. Of course, this is a lie, but a pretty solid one.

But just because Ava has one good lie doesn’t mean she’s off the hook. Ava confides in Leo and tells him Nazan is back, and they both seem pretty worried. Ava eventually decides she’s dropping out of the heist because it’s too dangerous with Nazan watching her.

Nazan is told by higher-ups to stay away from Ava, and we finally learn what happened between the two years ago. When Nazan was using drugs, Ava made a formal complaint against her which was part of the reason she was suspended. At the time, Ava claimed Nazan seemed to be under the influence, and apparently, her failure to listen to Ava led to one of Ava’s client’s death. This case is personal for Nazan, which is why she’s not allowed to work it. But of course, that doesn’t stop her.

Nazan starts following Ava and snaps photos outside of her apartment when she sees Bob show up. Over at the station, Nazan flirts with another FBI agent, Samuel, and she explains to him what she thinks Ava is up to. She tells him that Bob is a known safe cracker and shows him his injured hand in the photos. She knows that Bob is married to a woman named Judy, whose dad is a chem professor. They checked into a place in New York 10 days before the Diamond Way incident and still haven’t checked out. Nazan concludes that they’re here for something bigger, and perhaps their jewelry heist was just to help them out while they prepare for what’s next.

Of course, Nazan’s theory is pretty spot-on, and she continues to follow Ava and Bob. She watches while Bob meets Judy and Stan at a bar and as they argue out in the street. Bob gifts Judy the butterfly bracelet he stole from Diamond Way, which is sure to come back to bite them now that Nazan is there snapping photos. She also now has Stan on her radar, and she explains to Samuel what the connection is there.

After looking Stan up, Nazan discovers Stan was Ray’s cellmate in prison, which can’t just be a coincidence. While Nazan believes Ray is really dead, she thinks he might’ve had a partner who’s still involved.

We then get a chase scene when Nazan learns about some kind of event going on in Bushwick that Ava will be attending. (Fun fact: the party’s said to be on Bogart and Johnson streets, which is a block away from Netflix’s real-life New York City studio). Desperate to find evidence against Ava, Nazan goes but it turns out to be a setup. She shows up at the warehouse party which is some type of art exhibit, where people are openly doing drugs. As she follows a woman who looks like Ava from the back, she runs through the party and out into the street where she pulls out her gun and points it at the woman. The woman turns around and is not Ava after all, and cops swarm her. They find a bag of drugs in Nazan’s pocket, which someone planted.

This, of course, is all a trick set up by Ava to get Nazan off her case. It’s pretty ruthless, but it’s what Ava feels she has to do. That said, Ava doesn’t get off that easily.

Kaleidoscope Orange episode ending explained

We see police cars arrive at Ava’s and they take away Teresa, who we later find out was Ava’s nanny growing up. When Ava gets home and discovers Teresa gone, she gets a phone call and meets up with Nazan.

Nazan gives Ava a choice — either flip and become an informant for the FBI or she’ll have Teresa deported back to her country by ICE. It’s another ruthless move, this time on Nazan’s part. So what does Ava choose?

As the episode comes to a close, we see Nazan at another NA meeting while Teresa returns home and embraces Ava. This means Ava chose Teresa over her heist crew, which is understandable. This also means she now has to become a mole for the FBI.

As for Nazan’s part, she seems on cloud nine as she makes out with Samuel at work, and the final scene shows Ava going to see Leo and telling him she wants back in. He smiles and nods, happy to have her back. Of course, he has no idea the implications, as now Ava will be reporting on what they’re doing to the FBI.

But will Ava play both sides? We’ll find that out in a future episode.