Convergence

A series of home invasions becomes increasingly violent. Charlie's most famous work, The Eppes Convergence, is scrutinized by an old adversary, Marshall Penfield.

Plot
Charlie, Larry, and Don are throwing frisbees at CalSci when Don gets a call. He’s called to a case. A home has been robbed and the father of the family was killed when he tried to stop them from hurting his son.

Don and Megan catch Charlie up on the case. He thinks he can help. He wants all of the crime stats from the county for the last six months. Megan thinks it’s too much information, but Charlie needs it to be as accurate as possible. He catches up with Larry and Amita. She mentions a guest lecturer is speaking that week on a topic that Charlie is well-versed in. The lecturer is Marshall Penfield and Charlie is not happy that he’s there. They were rivals at Princeton and he has found a flaw in Charlie’s biggest breakthrough, the Eppes Convergence.

Megan talks to the widow from the most recent robbery. She points to a lamp that was stolen as the most valuable thing to them. At CalSci Charlie is ranting about Penfield. He is informed of findings for Don’s case. Megan and David follow up about the lamp with an auctioneer. He got it from a man named Roley. Charlie is caught up in his work. The core team check in on him. He has the dates of the robberies marked out on maps. He urges them to look at more than just home robberies that fit in the general MO on the other days that he has singled out. He gives his best guest on when the next home robbery will happen.

Three car jackings happened on the other days Charlie marked. Colby is skeptical because they are high end robbers, but Megan lists the cars stolen as high end vehicles: a Mercedes, a Range Rover, and a Porsche. None have been found and they assume that the cars are long gone. A gun was shot during the Porsche jacking. David and Colby are sent to track down the bullet and Megan is sent to track down the fence, Roley.

Charlie waits for more data when David and Colby and come and ask him for help finding the bullet. Penfield shows up and puts his two cents in. He goads Charlie with Amita in front of the FBI boys.

Megan finds out that the robbers stole other items during the jackings. She also found out that they weren’t necessarily followed because victim #1 called AAA on her phone after locking her keys in her car, #2 got lost and put coordinates into her GPS, and #3 ran out of gas and called roadside assistance. They’re somehow cracking into the cell phones and getting information, but also are getting information about personal possessions.

David and Colby use Charlie’s equation to find the missing bullet. Megan finds Roley and they are setting up a sting.

Charlie comes home and finds Alan getting all of his city planning notes out from storage. He is starting a consulting business with a family friend since he didn’t really want to retire. Charlie is still upset from his earlier dealings with Penfield. He thinks he hasn’t done anything of merit in mathematics in five years and is reconsidering what his focus is.

Megan is waiting for Roley. They bring down Roley and his muscle. In the storage locker Megan finds the lamp. She interrogates him at the FBI. He admits to getting the items from the robberies from two guys, but had no part in the murders. They found him in a bar based on his reputation. He describes them as ‘one is better dressed than my lawyer and one is a total geek’. He gives their names: ‘Mr. Brown’ and ‘ Mr. Grey’. They now believe this to be a five-man crew - two to case, three to rob. Charlie still has to go through the information from his data-mining.

David and Colby continue to search for the bullet in the zone that Charlie gave them with his equation. They keep trying different variables to figure out where it is. Penfield is giving his lecture on the Eppes Convergence, pointing out one flaw that crushes the entire theory. David finally finds the bullet. Amita approaches Charlie after the lecture. He’s not having a good time of things between trouble with the case and his life’s work is being torn apart. He ends up having a brainwave about the case. All cell phones have GPS installed on them. So the robbers have found a way to hack the victims' GPS in their phone.

Alan is looking for his cell phone. Charlie and Larry have taken it apart in the garage so they can analyze the GPS chip in it. Another robbery has taken place when Charlie said there would be one. The home owners have been killed.

At the FBI they are looking at the bullet from the last carjacking and are trying to match it to any other crime. They find a match. Charlie still has troubles with his data mining. It keeps spitting out that the victims all had cell phones and rare items – both facts they already knew. Larry suggests asking Amita for help, but she’s off with Penfield. They walk in as Charlie goes on a rant about him. Penfield’s main field is set theory which is directly related to the case. There are currents below everything in the case that link everything, they just have to dive deeper to find them.

All of the families had insurance, but since they were rare items the insurance companies would have riders (back-up insurance plans) for them. Don gets Colby to look into companies that provide insurance riders. They find two men by comparing underwriters, people that know their way around cell phones, and criminal records: Herbert Quilty and Thomas Maynard. Colby takes a crack at Maynard while Megan and David go with Quilty to try to find the three robbers. They identify Walter Gordon as one of the robbers, he also was the shooter from the carjacking. He is wanted by the LAPD for a murder.

They find out where the robbers are going to hit next and setup another sting, resulting in arresting the three murderers. Charlie and Penfield go head-to-head again. He has found a solution to the problem Penfield found in his equation, much to Penfield’s chagrin. Charlie names it ‘The Penfield Variation’.

Amita and Larry show up at the Eppes’ house. Charlie is supposed to go to a seminar with them, but he’s thought of a new mathematical project to take on and goes to the garage to work. They see Alan working on a jigsaw puzzle and stay to work on that instead of going to the seminar.

Main

 * Rob Morrow as Don Eppes
 * David Krumholtz as Charlie Eppes
 * Judd Hirsch as Alan Eppes
 * Alimi Ballard as David Sinclair
 * Navi Rawat as Amita Ramanujan
 * Diane Farr as Megan Reeves
 * Peter MacNicol as Larry Fleinhardt

Recurring

 * Dylan Bruno as Colby Granger
 * Colin Hanks as Marshall Penfield

Guest

 * Cameron Dye as Roley
 * Wayne Pére as Herbert Quilty
 * James Lancaster as Store Owner
 * Rebecca Boyd as Claire Bloom
 * David J. Wright as Skinhead #1
 * Blake Berris as Guy #1

Title
This is a scientific term describing a meeting point or assimilation of seemingly diverse forms or forces. As well as the Eppes example, there is here a sense of the alignment of universal forces - that life knows what it is doing, bringing Charlie and Marshall back together.

Trivia
When Charlie is speaking to Larry Fleinhart (roughly eight minutes into the episode) about his relationship with Marshall Penfield, he walks by a chalkboard with a number of equations written on it. Several of these can be clearly seen 8 minutes and 21 seconds into the episode. The lowermost equation, unlike the others, appears to have been included as a joke, as it reads: 1+1=2. Everything else on the chalkboard involves notational formalism related to more complicated mathematics, and this simple arithmetic equation is clearly unrelated.

Colin Hanks and Diane Farr previously starred in the tv show "Roswell." Diane Farr played the mother of Colin Hanks's character's friend.

Goofs
Charlie mispronounces "Fourier" as "furrier." Any mathematician of Charlie's status would know it's pronounced (more approximately) as "Fouri-ay."

Agent Sinclair says there are only two variables for the bullet, muzzle velocity and angle of gun. In fact there are many more variables, wind velocity, air density, temperature, and mass of projectile to name a few.

When Charlie talks about GPS, he says the satellites are in geosynchronous orbit. GPS satellites are in orbit approximately 12,600 miles above Earth. Geosynchronous orbit is approximately 22,250 miles.

Crazy Credits
[This appears on the beginning of the episode] 7 Home Invasions, 2 Murders, $3.6 Million-Stolen, 2 Antique Lamps