The Unit“Dancing Lessons”
Original Air Date: October 26, 2008
Brittany Wells – TwoCents Reviewer
brittanyw@twocentscorp.com
Hey, we got Robert Patrick out of uniform for once! I’m pleased. Apparently he’s in California…along with everyone else. Yes, this isn’t much of a hiding spot anymore. He tells everybody that the wives have been drafted to do some snooping around on a guy named Guilum who might be connected to the terrorists from the season premiere. Bob correctly deduces that this has been a long time coming (didn’t Kim say something about them being there on purpose a few episodes ago? Way to delay payoff, writers). Jonas gets pissed, especially because Molly has no hesitation in signing up. He storms out…and look it’s an Allstate commercial. Ironic.
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[photo: Monty Brinton/CBS]
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The Unit
ReplyDelete“Dancing Lessons”
Original Air Date: October 26, 2008
Brittany Wells – TwoCents Reviewer
brittanyw@twocentscorp.com
Hey, we got Robert Patrick out of uniform for once! I’m pleased. Apparently he’s in California…along with everyone else. Yes, this isn’t much of a hiding spot anymore. He tells everybody that the wives have been drafted to do some snooping around on a guy named Guilum who might be connected to the terrorists from the season premiere. Bob correctly deduces that this has been a long time coming (didn’t Kim say something about them being there on purpose a few episodes ago? Way to delay payoff, writers). Jonas gets pissed, especially because Molly has no hesitation in signing up. He storms out…and look it’s an Allstate commercial. Ironic.
Back on the base, Dr. Rocha is somehow still alive, despite being hospitalized at the end of 4.2, which would have been about three weeks ago. Geez. If I remember right, George Mason on 24 had radiation exposure and he looked really bad by the end of a day, so I wonder how much plutonium this guy was standing near if he’s still here three weeks later. Ryan is poking him with a stick again, this time about what his boss guys were planning on doing with their plutonium and where they’re attacking. Sounds like questions we should have asked a long time ago. Rocha doesn’t want to give up anything unless his family is safe, which means Alpha Team has to go rescue them from the Mexican resort where they’re on vacation. Vacation meaning they think they’re on vacation, but are really being watched by a bunch of terrorist thugs.
Said extraction involves everybody getting a little downtime in. Bridget annoyingly glues herself to Mack in the best impression of an airhead I’ve ever seen, Charles conveniently happens to have the room across the hall, and Bob is stuck playing hotel recreation director. (Bob and Mack are starting to look oddly alike. It’s the hair.) Smoothly, Charles points out to Bridget and Mack where all the goons hang out on the patio. I am unsurprised given that Michael Irby made it all look easy on Line of Fire. Man, I really liked that show. Unsurprisingly, the show then gives us a needless shot of Bridget in a bathing suit, beating us over the head with her yet again. I’d like to beat her upside the head. Anyway, the team makes contact with Mrs. Rocha and manages to convince her that yes, terrorists will actually kill you.
As a result of this, Ryan is able to tell Rocha something only he and his wife know, which convinces the good doctor that his family is being rescued. He tells Ryan that the terrorists plan to use a filtration system to poison the water supply. Oh, snap.
Back in sunny California, Jonas and Molly intentionally unintentionally back their car into our terror suspect’s Jaguar. Check it out, it’s John de Lancie from Star Trek: The Next Generation! Wow, he’s not aging well. But the damage to the car gives Jonas a perfect “in” to turn up at the guy’s office, bribe him with booze, and eventually finagle a dinner invitation at his home. Bingo. Kim convinces Isaac to let her rifle through his office, too. So far, so good.
Mrs. Rocha follows the team’s instructions and meets with Bob in a massage room, where Bob explains that her husband was working with some very bad people. He tells her to get her family ready to leave the next morning. This raises the suspicions of the hired goons, who come and interrogate him about what he told her. Bob speaks Spanish, though, so he can tell when they let on that they’re not going to believe anything he says, and beats the daylights out of them instead. Maybe leaving now would be a better idea. They go to pick up the family, but the daughter has gone out with some random kids…which is the easy way of saying she’s about to be kidnapped. The team gets there just in time to see her being hauled off in a truck, despite their shooting it like a dozen times. (Does anyone ever hit anything they shoot at on TV? I thought these guys were expert marksmen.)
Molly and Jonas use their dinner invitation to snoop around Guilum’s house. Nothing obvious happens but Molly finds some scotch in the medicine cabinet, and somehow convinces Sarah that she’s an alcoholic in denial. Way to go, Molly! Create your own “in” out of the blue. Kim and her boss are completely wasted, and the guy is hitting on Kim. Wisely, she bails on the situation pronto.
The team tracks the kidnappers to a barn in the middle of nowhere. The moment they say “we need the van,” I know exactly what’s going to happen. Season 1 of 24 did it first: the van crashes into the building and takes out the kidnappers. The daughter, however, is handcuffed at the bottom of a well with water pouring in. They can’t get the water turned off so they go to Season 2 of 24: they’re gonna need a hacksaw. Bridget saw a building that might have one. (Why does this woman seem to have all the answers every episode? Furthermore, why is she a recurring cast member and yet she’s been in every episode?) But before they can save her, the girl dies.
Ryan breaks the news to Rocha, who is severely pissed off. But Ryan convinces him to get back at the terrorists who killed his kid and spill the beans. This allows the Army to intercept the filtration device and stop the terrorists. Then we go back to the barn…wait, she’s not dead after all! That seems pretty random to me, especially since she really did look dead. So Ryan goes back, tells Rocha he was kidding, Rocha gives him the name of the guy he works for (although of course he’s never seen the guy in person)…and then conveniently dies. C’mon, you all saw that coming.
Meanwhile, though their searches didn’t turn anything up in Cali, Molly goes against orders and keeps up her cover, going to an AA meeting with her new best friend Susan. Something tells me Jonas is going to be really ticked.
Again, a pretty predictable episode. Not bad, not great, but there was definitely some things I could have done without and some which didn’t make sense. Next week concerns me more: why does Mack have a gun to his head? More importantly, why is he still trying to come on to his wife when he won’t even sit on the same side of the room with her and he knows she’s cheated on him and is lying to his face? Maybe he took a couple blows to the head last week. Anyone else feel things aren’t quite matching up? Is next week finally going to bring everything to a head? I hope so – I’m anxious to see what happens when Mack finally calls out Ryan, and what Molly’s gotten herself into.