dwmarch

One thing that took me out of the story a bit was the mention by various characters of how "OMG, the Cartel has helicopters now!" Umm, I'm pretty sure people have been using helicopters to smuggle drugs around for the entire history of helicopters. I think what they meant to say was along the lines of the Cartel not being known for fielding MH-6 Little Bird Special Operations helicopters that have twin M134 Miniguns. But it would not surprise me at all to find out any Cartel anywhere had modified a civilian helicopter into an attack version by bolting guns onto the side of it. It's not exactly a new idea either. Another thing I didn't love was Joe's temper tantrum. I get why she had it but it makes me wonder how she ever got this far in her career if she has a tendency to go off like that when something shitty happens. Because it was also made very clear in this episode that shitty stuff happens all the time, everywhere in the world. Also, Joe's daughter still has that same boyfriend who has been dubbed "champion of heavy petting" or something. Um, did we forget that plot last season where your daughter found herself unexpectedly pregnant and then suddenly not pregnant due to a car accident? Did we just decide that never happened? He didn't knock her up by petting her! It's a common enough thread in military/spy thrillers to almost be its own genre. The Cartel teams up with terrorists (usually but not always of the Islamic variety), there is some brutal attack on US citizens and/or officials and the US responds in anger by sending in Special Forces. But things go wrong and the politicians lose their nerve, leading to soldiers/sailors getting killed unnecessarily in the attempted (and usually unsuccessful) ass-covering. Color me surprised if this season doesn't play out exactly like this. Aside from the infiltration plot, this season is playing out a lot like Clear and Present Danger so far.

It has become hilarious to me how karate is the source of and solution to all of life's problems in this show. We got another couple of glimpses at the weird karate aspects of law enforcement in this universe. For example, if someone is being unruly on an airplane and you use karate to knock them out, the police at your destination will give you an escort to wherever you are going. But in Barcelona, unauthorized karate on city streets is responded to immediately by the police. Agreed, there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for who that guy was. It's a very sitcom setup for comical misunderstanding leading to unnecessary conflict.

This feels like Clear and Present Danger with all the inter-agency bickering. In fact, there's a similar scene in the book where a Navy officer figures out what is going on because the CIA isn't being particularly discreet. I also feel like some of this drama may be to lull actual cartels into a false sense of security. I remember reading an article from someone in the intelligence community that said post 9/11 all agencies were mandated to share intel. This led to situations where a local police force would get a heads up from the NSA saying "we can't tell you how we know but we think you should stop this particular vehicle and check what is in the cargo area." For the purposes of the show I guess we are intended to suppose that these agencies have all crawled back into their own silos but in real life I'd be surprised if the DEA's data was a month out of date. The other parallel being "we don't do this because we love it, we do this because it needs to be done." I don't get her open hostility towards Kyle either. He's a very important part of her team but Joe has to keep being reminded that they are on the same team. I guess it will be more meaningful at the end when they all go in for a group hug or something.

Kaitlyn (Nicole Kidman's character) told her to do it. Joe was complaining that Josie is missing the required skills and Kaitlyn told her "treat her like you're flipping an agent. Catch her in a lie and then pull the floor out from under her." It's possible that she is actually a mole but they are trying to set it up so that it won't matter either way. I knew I recognized one of the gravelly voices of the QRF team. Max Martini is back on the scene! He was in a CBS show called The Unit which was about Tier 1 operators and their annoying wives. I also like Genesis Rodriguez who was in the Kevin Smith horror film Tusk. Joe, you might not think much of her but she has seen some stuff, I tell you what.

I would have to rewatch both seasons to confirm but I also have a feeling that everything the entire US team has done to try to help has had the exact opposite effect. Having said that, I may be suffering from confirmation bias knowing that this show shares DNA with Homeland. Carrie's CIA in Homeland were experts in Making Things Worse and Carrie was the absolute vanguard of this.

If you're not caught up on the most recent episodes, this does get addressed:

Oz tells Eve about the hideout in 1x05 at about 38:09. "We gotta lay low. Vic's already at Crown Point, he's got us a nice spot by the zoo." Eve responds "Crown Point?" and Oz explains to her that Sal and Sofia have no pull there. Squid would have stopped her (well, it would have been funny to watch him try) but he's out of commission by the time she shows up. But I think most people in Crown Point are either doing their best to mind their own business or they do recognize her and keep well away. I also liked the detail of Vic hearing Sofia breaking the door down but since he's distracted by Frances trying to dance with him he only glances back. Between this and his earlier instance of sleeping while on guard duty, I'd say Vic really needs to work on being more paranoid. I loved this too. The Penguin is not a laugh-out-loud funny show but this was hilarious. "Ya got more room than ya think!"

It was heartbreaking when Oz told Vic "it gets easier". This is your life now, kid. You will solve problems with violence and as time goes on you won't feel so bad about it. Sophia is great with the quiet menace. The scene where she confronted Oz's gal was pure tension. I also loved the little moment of Sal cooking as a means of mourning and remembering. Sophia handing him the golf club was great too. These new Gotham mafia types may murder at the drop of a hat but they certainly know how to manage staff.

Count me in among those who loved this episode! It had an old school Star Trek vibe with the jumping around in time while desperately trying to solve a problem. Great emotional punch to the ending. Lots of payoffs for things that were set up right from the beginning. Some fantastic humor too.

And also an impressive collection of really short leather skirts that she somehow always looks cute in, one such example in this episode.

I'm also curious as to why she allowed herself to be consumed by the flames. A little stop-drop-and-roll would have gone a long way here. Just because someone lights you on fire doesn't mean you have to stand there and take it.

So, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal? Scanlan punching Grog in the nuts to motivate him to kill baby dragons was hilarious. I had to rewind that a couple of times.

I'm confused too. I can see the show going for the novelty of having an actor play the victim in one season and the killer in the next but other than that, Glenn doesn't make much sense to me. I think they might be trying to throw us off with the "he's going to get me killed" statement. Maybe Sazz meant Glenn wasn't a careful stuntman (we have ample evidence of this already) and that meant more risk for Sazz somehow. But Glenn actively helped the trio when they met him so for him to be the killer doesn't make any sense.

Per Hugh Dillon (series co-creator who also plays Ian), Iris accidentally OD'd: https://screenrant.com/mayor-of-kingstown-season-3-iris-death-overdose-accident-confirmed/ They weren't working together, remember Milo tried to kill Mike at his mother's funeral. But they were working towards a common goal and they both have an attachment to Iris. I think Milo just recognizes that he can't kill Mike and Mike is probably more useful to him as an ally than as an enemy. But then he had to go and talk shit about Mike's mom and that was it for him. The rookie prison guard was Bunny's agent all along and was only pretending to be Mr. Integrity. Yes, he intentionally lied about the identity of the prison attackers to make it look like it was the Russians. This was believable because Bunny's crew never had access to that kind of hardware (grenades and high-powered sniper rifles) but we the audience knew Bunny had a better arsenal than was generally known. Kareem had the rookie guard all figured out by the end which is why he told him Bunny wasn't his friend. Now that Kareem is gone we may see more of this in a future season although they could just as easily say the rookie moved on because his cover was blown or because Bunny lost too many soldiers in the bridge battle. I'd say six of one, half a dozen of the other. I've seen this come up on a different Taylor Sheridan show as well (Lioness). You plan for things to go smoothly but the enemy gets a vote too and sometimes they do the unexpected. See also Callahan escaping assassination in the previous episode because he had a feeling Mike was stringing him along.

She definitely laughs. You can only see it for about a second but it's right after Bev says "I'm done with Hollywooooood".