Writer: John Simpson
Director: Paul Wilmshurst
Previously on “Strike Back”:
Coming into the latest episode of “Strike Back,” it seemed pretty unlikely that Lt. Colonel Philip Locke (Robson Green) would be killed off so quickly after being introduced as Section 20’s new commander.
But there were a couple of moments where I actually had doubts that Locke was going to make it out alive, especially with Mairead McKenna (Catherine Walker) gunning for his blood. This episode also added some depth to Locke’s character, but it also left the third season without a compelling villain to follow. Al-Zuhari seems more like an abstract entity rather than the current embodiment of terrorism that has to be stopped at all costs. Without someone to serve as the human face of Al-Zuhari, it’s not a very compelling adversary for Section 20.
There are full spoilers ahead, so skip this review if you missed last night’s episode of “Strike Back” or else McKenna will hand you a shovel and tell you to start digging.
The best parts of this episode centered around Locke’s captivity at the hands of the Real IRA and Al-Zuhari; neither of whom seemed to get along with each other. Getting a prisoner to dig his own grave is one of the oldest dramatic tropes, but “Strike Back” does tend to kill off its commanding officers. Locke’s number could be sooner, rather than later.
Admittedly, the flashback to a much younger Locke was a little hokey, but it did establish his personal war with the IRA; which is never quite over for him. The IRA placed a bomb in Locke’s car that killed his son and severely maimed his wife. When Mairead wasn’t torturing Locke or shooting him, she was taunting him about the knowledge of who set and created the bomb that destroyed his family.
But it was much more interesting to hear Locke say that he genuinely liked Mairead’s brother, who was his inside spy at the IRA. That only seemed to make McKenna angrier, but she later used Locke’s admission against him and the look on his face suggested that he really did like her brother. And Locke wouldn’t have smeared his name with the truth unless McKenna died first.
The best swerve of the episode belonged to Leo Kamali (Zubin Varla), who remains my favorite new character of the season. Even so, I thought that Kamali was going to turn on Section 20 when he grabbed the gun from the embassy guard. We as an audience are conditioned to expect betrayals like that.
So when Kamali actually used the weapon to save Locke’s life, it made me like him even more. Kamali could still be playing the long con, but he’s much more entertaining as Section 20’s reluctant ally than he would be as a straight up villain. And it should not be overlooked that Section 20 has gradually accepted Kamali despite the fact that he killed Baxter in the season premiere. In fact, they’re all very cordial with Kamali after the embassy incident.
In the back of my mind, I still suspect Kamali because there is no one else on this show to fill the void as the villain. Leatherby and McKenna are dead, Even the alliance between the IRA and Al-Zuhari seems to be over. The ending of the episode does take an ominous note as Al-Zuhari managed to steal a sensitive NATO drive and take it back to Russia, where Arkady Ulyanov (Marcel Iures) will undoubtedly send more assassins after Sgt. Michael Stonebridge (Philip Winchester) and Sgt. Damien Scott (Sullivan Stapleton).
We haven’t really seen much of Arkady since the third episode, but his vendetta stems from his son’s death in the season premiere courtesy of Scott and Stonebridge. That duo still has great gallows humor when they’re playing off of each other, especially when Scott suggests that Arkady will want Stonebridge more because he fired the fatal shot into Arkady’s son.
Either way, this could be setting up Arkady as the Big Bad of the next two episodes or possibly even the next four. It’s not inconceivable that Arkady has deeper ties to Al-Zuhari than we believed, but “Strike Back’ doesn’t always mix well when adversaries from two different storylines work together. Bringing Hanson and Knox together last season just made Hanson’s story seem silly.
There was actually a nice callback to Hanson as Locke approached Stonebridge about whether he felt better once he had killed his wife’s murderer. And although Stonebridge said that he forgave Hanson, he added that it was better once Hanson was dead. It would be a little cheesy if Locke were to suddenly find the man responsible for his family’s destruction during the remaining four episodes of the season. It’s much more interesting to see that rage festering within Locke rather than exploding.
The mortar attack on the British embassy was one of the more unique action sequences in this episode, but I preferred the way that Scott and Stonebridge dealt with the Russian assassin, Skander (Ivan Kamaras) while using a rear view mirror. That was very clever, but Skander turned out to not be as formidable as he originally appeared to be.
Stonebridge’s physical symptoms seemed to disappear in this episode, with the suggestion that his problems may have been mental rather than physical. Either way, Stonebridge makes the shot that saves Locke from the Al-Zuhari terrorists and his Locke’s arm didn’t seem to throw him off his game.
The only things keeping Stonebridge off his game in this episode are the forward advances of Kim Martinez (Milauna Jackson); who is clearly into Stonebridge. Surprisingly, Stonebridge turns down Martinez, but not before Scott catches them together and he proves to be “the soul of discretion.” Or not.
We also get a brief reminder that Scott is looking for a woman from his past and getting appraisals on the diamonds that he and Stonebridge stole from Leatherby. For Scott, the diamonds may be his escape hatch, but he appears to be hoping that his former lover will be the destination. She’s now been touched upon in two separate episodes; which means that character should appear on “Strike Back” in the near future.
Oddly enough, Julia Richmond (Michelle Lukes) is becoming the Kenny of this series. Last week, Richmond took a near fatal shot at the airport and this week, the mortar attack seriously injured Richmond… but not enough that she couldn’t join their party with Kamali at the end. That seemed to undercut the earlier scenes in the episode in which Richmond appeared to on the verge of dying.
Despite some occasionally overwrought moments and the lack of any great villain still standing by episode’s end, the sixth episode was still very entertaining. But with four episodes left in the season, I’d like to see the intensity level go up even higher.
