Post by Yuri Petrovitch on Jan 22, 2014 10:02:50 GMT -5
In today's episode, everyone's REALLY STUPID!
SYNOPSIS
We open with this week's baddie, Jared Krill (who probably became an insane terrorist because the whole "being the head of a koi food conglomerate" didn't work out) poisoning an airplane whilst in flight with something called Quintoxin-12, which is clearly FIVE TIMES AS TOXIC as regular old "toxin." Fortunately, Q-12 is not dangerous on its own, but with the second part added, death is immediate and dramatically convenient. He ransoms the plain for 20 million dollars and jumps out of the plain (or rather, stock footage from a completely different plane-jump happens) and he lands . . .
. . .right where Scandal and Danielle are having a hiking trip, a phenomenally stupid idea that results in a cascade of stupid decisions. Scandal is not impressed with Danielle's workout regimen of reading a book (on the "Mephisto fallacy of sociopathic behavior," which I'm pretty sure is BS, partly because no one would call a psychological theorem something that obvious and also, Danielle keeps pronouncing "Mephisto" wrong) and Danielle gets the idea to challenge him to a two-day wilderness trek through rough terrain, which is the kind of reckless stupid decision that usually gets someone mauled by bears or they lose an arm getting wedged between two mountains.
Things start out bad--Scandal drives his Cobra into the park, and immediately cracks the radiator because OBVIOUSLY nothing's better over rough terrain than a sports car. Their phones have no service and they almost decide to split up and I am seriously wondering if this isn't some kinda Cabin In The Woods ritual wherein people are forced to do stupid stuff in order to appease some eldritch god or something. Danielle distinguishes herself by killing and cooking two grouses (how she was able to start a fire is not explored, as they were specifically not bringing anything useful.
And that brings us back to where we came in. Krill lands on them and we have the spine of the episode--Danielle and Scandal plan to drag Krill to one of the ranger stations, Krill's accomplices (which, filtered through his Kiwi accent sound like "crack Gorilla warriors") are chasing Dani and Scandal, and the FBI (led by someone who is trying very desperately to be Tommy Lee Jones) is doing exactly jack, apart from giving Dallas a hard time for being old and past it (when, ironically enough, he figures this whole thing out in about a minute) and Scandal gets his leg broken falling down a hill so Krill and annoy him into exhaustion and kick the crap out of him on his way to escaping and that's most of the second act.
Thankfully Krill's plot immunity wears off a few minutes to the end and Danielle and Scandal are able to beat the crack gorilla warriors by punching them and throwing rocks at them, which is amazing when you consider that Scandal was on point of death only scant seconds ago. Dallas lobs the bottle of the other half of the poison gas (Dutotoxin, which means, this is like, seven times as toxic or something?) at Krill who conveniently dies, possibly wondering if maybe he should have maybe given this a little more thought, but can't now, because he's all dead and stuff.
ANALYSIS
So uhm, I'm not sure I like the overall subtext of this episode, which is, as near as I can tell "guys act like they know stuff and don't, women can do stuff but when it counts double in the clutch, and only old dudes with bottles of poison gas can REALLY save you when stuff jumps off." Because every woman who appears at all competent either gets undone, marginalized or taken hostage pretty swiftly. I know that expecting a genre show from the early 90's that is stuck in the 80's the way the isle of Manhattan is stuck into the bedrock is the stuff of madness, but honestly, this episode abuses its privilege more than most.
That aside it's a pretty bland affair and no one's really in character--Scandal's too dumb to live, Danielle is . . .well, at least she's not beginning every line of dialogue with awkward anecdotes about her mom dying--except for Dallas, even though he doesn't do much apart from show up and shove the plot in whatever direction it needs to go to complete itself, but doesn't really get to do much (apart from the beginning, where he shows off Cobra's new pool table, which you may remember we already saw in "Hostage Hearts," because continuity is for other, lesser TV series) beyond that.
Krill is a pretty lame villain, whiny, bitchy, and generally lame and not at all credible, possibly because he didn't break into Cobra HQ, as all good Cobra villains must. Also, his accent makes him sound like Murray from Flight of the Conchords, which is not exactly sinister or "criminal mastermind-ish" Though I like that his second in command had a headband that went with both her "black ops" gear and her "pretending to be a whiny hostage" outfit
It's rare you find people that well prepared.
I also like that ALL the good guys and bad guys on Cobra use the same tracking device--a big black box with a blinking red light.
Also, guess what was playing in the background when Scandal and Danielle were arguing in the gym? You guessed it . . .
Oh sweet memories.
Anyways, it's pretty much a middle of the pack episode--not really bad enough to be offensive like "Hostage Hearts" but not so weird and surreal like "I'd Die For You" Thankfully, this won't be a problem next week . . .
DAD WISDOM/THE QUOTABLE COBRA
"A textbook won't help you chase after killer."
"No, but with a sharp mind, maybe you wouldn't have to run"
"You Frisbees always were a witty bunch."
"I got a homicidal maniac running through the forest with $25 million of Uncle Sam's money he was saving for his retirement fund."
"The best ones always zag when they should zig."
(Sorry, this was a thin week.)
NEXT WEEK
Cobra tries to do a Silence of the Lambs riff, only instead of a cannibal, they have a serial arsonist who has a flamethrower, because Cobra is at times a hilarious, wonderful show full of glorious insanity. Join us in seven for a pyro with his own theme song, Richard Lynch trying to be Hannibal Lector, and Optimus Primal, in an episode they HAD to call "Playing With Fire." There's be a hot time in the old town tonight--er, next week.