Writers: Ben Newman & Simon Burke
Director: Stephen Woolfenden
Previously on “Strike Back”:
Because “Strike Back” is primarily filmed in South Africa, I never expected the series to put Sgt. Michael Stonebridge (Philip Winchester) and Sgt. Damien Scott (Sullivan Stapleton) inside a Russian prison.
In almost any other action show, this would be a cliche. But on “Strike Back,” it’s a nice change of pace that escalates the personal crisis for Stonebridge and makes Section 20 wonder if their deceased leader, Rachel Dalton (Rhona Mitra) was right all along.
The dual cliffhangers were also very effective, as Scott and Stonebridge face some lethal situations. Scott is pretty screwed, but Stonebridge has the worst of it… for now.
As always, there are full spoilers ahead for the latest episode of “Strike Back.” If you missed last Friday’s episode then you should probably skip this review or else Locke won’t get out of the car this time.
The opening of the episode was a particularly fun sequence as Scott and Stonebridge go undercover as drug buyers before leading the trigger-happy Russian cops on a car chase to make sure they get sent to a maximum security prison. This was all planned to get them close to an imprisoned hacker named Erik Anderson (Andreas Utterhall), a young man who is being forced to hack into the stolen NATO hard drive from the previous episode.
Scott and Stonebridge quickly intimidate their new cellmate, Pushkin (Peter Guinness). However, Pushkin turns out to be their most valuable ally inside the prison. Despite trying to shank the duo when they first antagonize him, Pushkin eventually wins them over and they decide to take him with them when they inevitably escape. Pushkin’s secret cross-dressing fetish also gives them the perfect distraction to cause a riot.
Meanwhile, some serious doubt was cast on the loyalties of Leo Kamali (Zubin Varla). Kamali flinches when his “bodyguard” executes a banker on his behalf, but he doesn’t hesitate to kill the bodyguard a few minutes later as he enters their car. Both the CIA and Section 20 are puzzled and alarmed by Kamali’s actions, but he argues that Al-Zuhari is out to kill him. And it’s hard to dispute that when a car bomb nearly kills Lt. Colonel Philip Locke (Robson Green) and Kamali.
However, there are hints that Kamali may have planted the car bomb himself. Kamali’s behavior in the Section 20 command center and the way he was framed certainly made Kamali look like he was a traitor. Even though Locke had warmed to Kamali, he concedes that Dalton may have been right about him.
The audience has been expecting Kamali to turn traitor for weeks, because that’s how these stories usually go. But Zubin Varla has been so compelling as Kamali, I don’t want to see him turn on Section 20. He’s been very entertaining as their reluctant ally. However, Kamali apparently sells out Scott and Stonebridge to protect his cover and get Arkady Ulyanov (Marcel Iures) to trust him.
That doesn’t mean that Kamali is really working for the terrorists, but it suggests that he has no loyalty to Scott and Stonebridge despite the fact that they saved his daughter from Leatherby. Kamali’s paranoia may be very real, and that means that he can’t be trusted.
The meaty part of the episode deals with Stonebridge’s physical and mental deterioration. Section 20 learns that Stonebridge was exposed to a neurotoxin that will kill him within one or two days; which is a huge ticking clock. If this was the penultimate episode of the season I could buy that Stonebridge’s life really could come to an end in the next episode. While that’s unlikely, it still builds up Stonebridge’s character as he attempts to deal with it.
We also learn what the deal is between Scott and the mystery woman he had Sergeant Julia Richmond (Michelle Lukes) track down. It turns out that Scott fathered a child with the woman and he ran out on them. Scott acknowledges that it wasn’t his finest moment, but he seems to be hoping for a reconciliation with them and a secure future using the diamonds that he and Stonebridge stole from Leatherby. That dream is probably as unlikely as Stonebridge dropping dead, but it’s telling that Scott wants a family to share his wealth with.
Major Nina Pirogova (Tereza Srobva) was the most interesting of the new characters introduced in this episode. At first glance, Nina seems ruthless enough to murder her colleague for his share of Ulyanov’s bounty on Scott and Stonebridge. Although to be far, Nina’s colleague pulled a gun on her first. But I loved the twist that she was Locke’s “inside man” and that she was ballsy enough to tell the warden that she shot her colleague while she demanded Scott and Stonebridge be turned over to her.
In other circumstances, Scott and Nina would probably have ended up in bed together, but there’s no time for that in this episode. This is the rare “Strike Back” episode without a sex scene! While they get Pushkin to safety, Scott and Nina are trapped inside the prison and surrounded by guards. It’s a bad situation for Scott, but it’s probably worse for Nina. She’s a traitor and she’s played by a guest star. That’s a lethal combination on this show.
Meanwhile, Stonebridge heroically tries to save Eric the hacker, only to end up getting knocked out and transported to some kind of illegal weapons testing facility that may be tied into the plans of Al-Zuhari. And given Stonebridge’s current physical condition, the odds are pretty stacked against him.
Good thing he’s one of the lead characters! If any of the supporting characters were in that jam they probably wouldn’t make it out of next week’s episode alive.
It would be cool to see “Strike Back” offer more change-of-pace episodes like this. This was one of the strongest episodes of the season in part because it gave us a new setting and explored some of the inner depths of Scott, Stonebridge and even Kamali. The cliffhangers were so good that I want to watch the next episode right now.
