The Unit“Best Laid Plans”
Original Air Date: March 29, 2009
Brittany Wells – Associate Staff Writer
brittanyw@thetwocentscorp.com
It’s strange to think there may only be four more episodes of The Unit ever. While this hot and cold fourth season has left me ambivalent about the series’ survival, I have to say it does still have an amazing cast. Heaven knows I’d miss seeing Robert Patrick every week. After last week, though, I’m looking for this episode to pick up my spirits.
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[photo: CBS]
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The Unit
ReplyDelete“Best Laid Plans”
Original Air Date: March 29, 2009
Brittany Wells – Associate Staff Writer
brittanyw@thetwocentscorp.com
It’s strange to think there may only be four more episodes of The Unit ever. While this hot and cold fourth season has left me ambivalent about the series’ survival, I have to say it does still have an amazing cast. Heaven knows I’d miss seeing Robert Patrick every week. After last week, though, I’m looking for this episode to pick up my spirits.
Firstly, something so awesome happens that I want to take a special time out to say it: KAYLA MEDAWAR GETS SERIOUS SCREEN TIME. Apparently, Kayla – the longtime recurring staffer played to perfection by Kavita Patil – is running the TOC. Kayla has been in most of the episodes in the entire series, and I really adore her. I have always said that if the series wanted a female character to attract more female viewers, they should have expanded her role. Now, at least for this episode, they’re finally doing it. Kudos to the writers of this episode for recognizing a strong supporting character and letting her loose.
Kayla is in charge as Jonas, Mack and Bob are working on bringing down Leon Drake, the not-FBI agent we last met way back at midseason. Jonas and Mack are undercover as Drake and some of his goons steal a truck, while Bob pretends to first be a shooter and then a not-FBI agent of his own to follow the case. Bob, by the way, is the worst not-FBI agent ever. You’d think, knowing that he’s inevitably going to be found out – although Kayla does some great cover-up work with the help of Sgt. Sarah Irvine and some random nameless TOC staffer guy – he would have a prepared exit plan. His exit plan involves clocking some ICE agent and running…which will inevitably be a big attention grabber. Smooth.
Drake is understandably a wee bit of a paranoid nutjob, and with Bob shooting at them, he accuses Jonas and Mack of being traitors. Which, of course, they are, but they turn his paranoia against him, making him shoot one of his own men and order another to shoot a third guy. A lot of the action here revolves around some passports our boys are supposed to provide to the bad guys (more on that later). After a bit of a shootout with a SWAT team in the middle of nowhere, Drake escapes with the passports and presumably for good. Or is it?
Bridget, Sam and Ryan are in France. That’s right, people, Tom Ryan is out of the office! I like this episode already. Seems like they’re working with the French to take down a terrorist-funding oil guy from Algeria who’s sleeping with the French minister’s wife. At least that was the plan until Bridget intercepts the French guy’s cell phone call, where he gets orders to frame them all for murder. Now it’s up to the team to finish the mission while escaping the French. (As Tom so bluntly says: “And don’t get caught.” No, really, Tom? Is it not obvious?) They have to crack his security and it can’t look like an assassination or the French will know they did it. How does one do that? Well, you look up Bridget’s ex-boyfriend and get some fun chemicals to do it with. (There’s even an unintentionally laugh out loud moment when Bridget’s ex-boyfriend, happy to see her, is not so happy to see Tom – and his unimpressed face – behind her.)
The job goes off without a hitch, thanks to Tom being a sneaky little devil and Bridget doing what Bridget does (look pretty and nonthreatening), but that’s not the point. The point is I actually felt sympathy for Bridget this episode, and I really don’t even like her. Why? Because I’ve now found someone else I dislike more: Sam. I always thought there was something a little weird about the guy, and now I’m proven right. He spends the whole episode aggressively flirting with Bridget, who tells him she won’t mix business and pleasure. We then cut back to his apartment to find he’s got pictures of her pasted on the closet like a stalker. WTF, show? Is there no psych screening for this guy? How fast did he go downhill, considering he only met her three episodes ago? And most importantly – then why the heck is he on this show? Is he here just to be kicked or killed off by the end of the season? (I wouldn’t mind.) If so, why bother listing him as recurring and making all this fanfare over him? (I swear I can remember him being reported as a new series regular somewhere.) It all seems kind of out of the blue.
Speaking of out of the blue, we’re treated to another huge chunk of episode where Joss and the girls get all buddy-buddy together. Shoot me now. Anyway, it livens a little when a security officer – played by Gina Torres of Standoff – tells Molly they need to know what’s really up with her. (FINALLY.) Apparently, she says, the Russians are involved in the conspiracy and Ms. Morgan has Russian ties.
Hold on a second…when did the Russians come into this? Did I miss that? I don’t remember any mention of the Russians. Or did we just pick a country out of thin air because we need to start tying up loose ends? Way to go, guys.
Anyway, back to the point. Molly is suspicious, and Joss goes to her security interview and comes back crying because if she marries Charles – who isn’t even in this episode by the way – he’ll get kicked out of the Unit. She wants the help of the girls with…something. I really think there’s something up with this woman. Given the TV Guide spoilers I’ve read about one of our own being too close to the conspiracy, I’m tempted to say she’s in on it and Charles is about to get a rude awakening. Or maybe it’s psycho Sam. Or who knows, it could even be both. (Hey, if it gets them both to leave I’m all for it.)
At the end of the episode, Ryan explains that the passports Drake got away with were bugged. They’ll see how big his organization is by where they have ended up. The world map on the TOC screens fills up with like four million red dots worldwide. Ryan’s response to this is to look at the couple of team members next to him and nonchalantly say “Go get’ em.” Jonas just says he loves his job. Apparently, neither of them can do math. Either way, I know we’re not going to get all the bad guys in the next four episodes. It’s just not possible.
I don’t know how to feel about this episode. On one hand, I enjoyed watching it just for entertainment value, and at least we made some progress on the main plot. But on the other, it introduced some really left-field elements that make no sense, and blew open the conspiracy to a point where it would seem impossible for the good guys to really win…which is kind of a downer note for the season (and maybe series?) to end on. Since we get pre-empted next week and the week after seems to be a self-contained episode focusing on the Sam/Bridget debacle, I’m hoping the final three deliver a big bang. The show, and all the actors who really do their best with less than the best, deserve that at least.