Television: The Brave: 1.03 The Greater Good (recap/pic spam/review) [spoilers]
Blurb: The team is tasked with planting a bug on an extremely paranoid arms dealer who supplies weapons to terrorists, aided by an undercover Mexican agent and a mole in the terrorist organization - the leader's mistress.
*
Another enjoyable episode!
We see Agent Hugo Vargez from Mexican Intelligence sending a secret message from a numbers station outside Caborca, Mexico.
In Washington, Patricia Campbell's attending a briefing at the Pentagon and is told that Ranier Boothe, the world's most elusive arms dealers is coming to Mexico for two days.
He's not just evil (looking like an orc from Lord of the Rings). He's mega evil - supplying explosives used in the Berlin bombing or the London Tube attack, has sold to ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas and has a lot of high-powered people in his pocket. The man then states the obvious: "which is why we've never been able to get close to him. Until now."
The group are told that there are two options - capture him, or kill him. He asks the group what they're prefer to do. Patricia doesn't want to do either as she thinks that both do not achieve long-term gains. Her preference is to plant a bug on him.
The team land in Mexico and meet Hugo Vargez who's friendly and welcoming, but Dalton is wary and basically says he has to wear a black hood (Homeland style).
"Just till we get to know each other a little better."
Then Amir and Jaz have an exchange.
- You ever been to this part of the world before? Mexico?
- No.
I'm wondering if the show-runners want us to ship Amir and Jaz or are they kind of like a buddy/brother-sister combo?
Vargez has to point out, "This isn't Mexico, my friend. It's Sonora. A narco state. Put a foot out of place here, you die."
Vargez is questioned.
When Vargez mentions Martin Urzua of the Sonora cartel, Hannah is triggered big time.
We learn that Vargez's intel is all good but all of the source comes from Sofia, Boothe's mistress. He's clearly got a crush on her.
As they discuss options, Amir and Jaz have crossed arms.
Tough :)
The team then have a planning session.
They are going to replace his cell phone, an "Avento Diamond", a phone with voice communication encryption that costs USD 100,000, American.
Back in Washington, Noah offends Hannah by suggesting that given that she has a past with Urzua, perhaps she shouldn't be part of the mission. She's offended by the implication that she can't do her job.
Noah: No, that wasn't what I was doing, I wasn't saying -
Hannah: That's exactly what you were doing.
And yeah, it kinda was exactly what he was doing. #patronising
Back in Sonora, the team are planning for Amir to do the phone swap-out while Dalton sets a distraction. As usual, Jaz is perched on something. In this instance, a table.
I also notice that the a few of the team have injuries. Preach's eyebrow. McG's hand and Jaz's fingers.
Back in Washington, Noah's being caring … but patronising at once as he tells Patricia that he doesn't think Hannah should be on the job.
Patricia: Are you worried about her objectivity, or her personally?
Noah: Both. Look, this is nothing against her, at all.
Patricia: Noah. Hannah's experience as a field officer is why I brought her here. All of it. The good and the bad. It gives her a perspective that you and I don't have. And whatever part Urzua played in her past, we're going to help her work through it. #quitbeingpatronising
After Noah leaves, Patricia looks down at Hannah's file … It's rough.
In Sonora the team are running through the plan. Jaz will tell Dalton when to set off an explosion and Amir will do the swap. Note that Jaz is perching again :)
At least Dalton sets the charge himself instead of making one of his flunkies do it.
"And in the ensuing chaos, we will have bugged the most elusive arms dealer in the world."
Jaz: Don't worry about it. Either you'll be successful, or you'll be dead.
McG: Think she's warming up to you.
That night, Dalton's stuck in the truck with Vargez. I'm sure he'd much rather be with Jaz because Vargez is a bit of a whinger.
Preach is the man on the street
Amir's alone in the bar, sucking a drink through a straw. He looks kind of adorkable.
Jaz is keeping watch from above, looking very lovely and seductive.
McG's down in the bar near the door.
Plans go to hell though when Boothe destroys his phone making it impossible for Amir to swap it out.
To be honest, I'm not sure how they would have done it anyway given that Sofia was standing on Boothe's left!
Anyway, Campbell tells Dalton that they're going to have to use Sofia for more information so that they can figure out how to plant a bug on Boothe. DIA has one of those transparent whiteboards that they always have on television/in the movies that looks so impractical …
Dalton tells Varges they need to speak with Sofia. Vargez has a whinge and a dummy spit but then reluctantly tells them that Sofia visits a salon when she's in town.
In town, the team run surveillance outside the salon. Dalton and Amir are stuck in the truck with the whinging Varges. McG's out on the street as is Preach and Jaz is decked out in a fetching ensemble of leopard print, plum lipstick, teased hair and hoop ear rings… I can't help wondering if Preach did her make-up although it would have been funnier if Dalton did it. Maybe I should write a fic where the team is giving Jaz make-up tips and she gets annoyed with all of them.
Sofia freaks out a bit when she sees Jaz but Jaz gets her calm and asks her to think about where else they can plant a bug.
Sofia says Boothe is paranoid and throws everything away. Meanwhile Jaz is smoothing hand cream into Sofia's hands. That would have been funny to film.
Boothe arrives unexpectedly and Vargez starts panicking and whinging again. Dalton tells him to be quiet and chill - and sends Amir out to help.
Boothe arrives, Sofia starts speaking to Jaz before she leaves. It's a bit annoying because they have Hannah translate for Jaz - but it's kind of obvious that Sofia's saying: "I want to give you something."
Sofia gives her money - with a mobile phone inside and says that there are pictures on the phone of the medallion that Boothe always wears.
Outside, Amir's walking by but Boothe the Orc is eyeballing him warily
Dalton: All right, Jaz. We'll pick you up around back. We'll regroup. We'll go from there.
Jaz: We don't need to regroup. We have pictures of the necklace. She gave me her cell phone. We're in business.
Look at the cuts on Jaz's hand and arm :(
They pull images off Sofia's phone
Jaz and Amir are running surveillance on Boothe where he's getting a bag of money from Urzua
Meanwhile, Hannah gets triggered again when she sees Urzua
Preach is preparing the bug
Dalton tries to suggest tactfully to Vargez that maybe he wants to sit this out because he's kind of crap at being objective. Also, clearly he's brought the team in to take out Boothe so that he can have Sofia for himself. Vargez insists on coming.
Unfortunately, their original plans to ambush Boothe go awry when his paranoia (he saw Amir wandering around outside the salon) causes him to turn around so they have to change their plans.
Dalton does a switcheroo of the medallion and Boothe doesn't seem to suspect a thing.
The good news is that bug works. The bad news is that while listening in, Noah and Hannah hear Boothe's security guy tell him that Sofia's betrayed him and Boothe give orders for Sofia to be killed.
Hannah freaks out and wants to do something.
Hannah: If we don't tell Dalton, Sofia is dead.
Noah: Yeah, and what if we do tell him? What are they gonna do? Look, the only reason we know she's in danger is because of that bug. If they save her, we risk giving the bug away. We have to wait for Patricia.
Hannah: Damn it, it doesn't matter what her answer is. Once they're airborne, we lose all radio contact
Noah: Hannah, you are out of line. And I would tell you that even if you were being objective, which you are not.
Noah's kind of flipped from the way he was acting in 1.01 Pilot when he was kind of "Screw the greater good - we can't leave Dr Wells behind…" So either his character is inconsistent or the writing is.
Hannah breaks the rules and contacts Dalton, telling him the Boothe thinks that Sofia was responsible for the robbery and is going to have her killed. I love that Jaz is Dalton's co-pilot in the small plane. All the kids are out the back and mum and dad are out front :)
Vargez of course has a dummy spit.
Dalton tries to reason with him but he gets very fiery.
"Easy, lover-boy!" Jaz snaps at him. I love how she defends her team mate.
Fortunately, Dalton of course has a Plan. He's like a better-looking version of Hannibal from the A-Team.
Meanwhile, back in DC, Hannah's getting a smack over the wrist from Patricia: "Hannah, you've suffered an unimaginable tragedy. But you can't let your emotions affect your decisions, because in this job, misjudgment is measured in lives. I know, because you were an operative, you think you understand a team like Dalton's you don't. The Omega teams aren't like any other special forces. They finesse. They manipulate. They bend the world to achieve their objective. Why? Because they know they're the final option. You activate them, they get it done or they die trying. That's why our responsibility is so great. They count on us to make the right call. They trust us with their lives, Hannah. You need to get that."
Dalton's team are activated and executing the plan.
A plan that involves exploiting Boothe's paranoia and giving him another target. Jaz plants the bag of money in Urzua's room and Amir shows up at Urzua's house just so that Boothe can get a good look at his face and recognise him.
Shifting suspicion from Sofia to Urzua … who is killed. We don't feel bad for him being framed because we know that he tortured Hannah.
A successful Amir returns from his mission.
Click to viewAt the end of the episode, Dalton politely bids Vargez good riddance.
I noticed that everyone's helping with the packing up except Dalton!
He's chatting/borderline flirting (yuck!!!) with Patricia Campbell. I really hope that the show does not go there. I do not think that that is a nice ship at all.
McG teases Amir.
McG: That was brave of you, man, making yourself a target like that on the motorcycle.
Amir: Thank you.
McG: We were actually taking bets on whether or not you were going to get smoked, though.
Jaz: The only one who thought you were gonna make it was Vargaz.
Preach: Yeah, seriously, Amir. We thought you were going to get smoked.
McG: He's messing with you.
And they take off … with Jaz as co-pilot out the front with Dalton again.
Another good episode with some great character development from the various members of the team. Dalton stands out as being cool, rational and sensible - problem-solving despite being under considerable pressure.
Amir is slowly finding his place in the team, even though all of them are still giving him a hard time. It's clear that they all work well together despite the fact that he's new.
The DC team remain the weakest link. The Patricia Campbell character still isn't grabbing me. Noah came across as patronising rather than caring in this episode and Hannah's tragic backstory didn't grab me as much as it really should have. Fortunately, Dalton's Omega Team more than makes up for the DC team with its camaraderie, it's natural and believable chemistry.
There weren't really any Jaz/Dalton shippy moments in here although I did like that when Boothe approached the salon, Dalton said: "Okay, Jaz, listen to me. Boothe is here. Maybe he's picking her up. Maybe we're blown. What do you wanna do?" i.e. he trusted her to make the decision and to make the call rather than purporting to make a decision for her. I like the idea that he's a team leader that has trust in his team and gives them appropriate autonomy. Jaz is very much considered an equal and I really like that.
I definitely was wanting to see more of the team and their stories.