Not very seasonal or festive!
Dec. 26th, 2025 09:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI watched this before Christmas day...
Countdown - 1.9 10-33
As we opened with a stabbed Blythe crawling back to his car to switch the alarm on and put out a call for help – the title of the episode - I should have realised this would be a ridiculous episode even by this show’s standards. One of Meacham’s migraines was interrupted by a phone call, and he was the last of the taskforce to arrive at a hospital and get very little information until Oliveras happened to see an old friend, who was a doctor there. Informed that Blythe would be in surgery for another hour, they split up, with Meacham, Oliveras and Finau going to the scene of the crime, making Meacham and Finau’s former colleagues look like idiots as Oliveras swiped the intel that the Belarussian Consul-General was going to hand over. (Careless of Volchek! Let’s just go with Blythe interrupted him, though he could also have stabbed Blythe again for surety. But then, he’s clearly better at blowing things up than wielding a knife.)
This led them to the Russian forger, who was still in his office, assuming there wouldn’t be reprisals for handing Volchek off to the Belarussian goons. Meacham had a dizzy spell at the wrong moment, good job that Finau the giant was next to him and not Oliveras, but they brought the forger in and made a deal that gave them the new alias for Volchek of Carl Novak (the Czech John Smith, apparently.)
At some point, Blythe got out of surgery, with the knife having missed everything important (eyeroll.) He wanted to get out of the hospital. Hypocritically, Meacham told him to listen to the medical staff, but it took protégé Shepherd yelling at him to get Blythe to agree to listen to the nurse for a while. This inspired Bell to compliment Shepherd…for her data handling skills, while she clearly wanted to be out in the field, and good grief their dynamic is badly written.
Oliveras bumped into her old friend again, asked for advice about ‘a friend/colleague’ with a brain tumour, and guess what? Doc Old Friend happened to be a neuro-oncologist who was looking into emerging treatments for brain tumours when he wasn’t conveniently wandering around other hospital corridors. He expressed his happiness at seeing Oliveras again. Dude, you haven’t seen that the friend/colleague she’s worried about is played by Jensen Ackles. But he is.
The dynamic in the office without Blythe could have been interesting, with various people, but mainly Meacham and Oliveras ordering others about. Meacham honed in on one of the many Carl Novaks in LA who seemed interesting, and the taskforce burst into the offices of Kestrel Productions (because kestrels are native to Belarus, which is…so stupid). They found nothing but an empty office.
Also, Molly had been calling and Evan had been pressing the red button (well, she had made it clear she didn’t want her sister around or to bother her.) Also 2, Finau asked his wife to take the kids out of school and go to Palm Springs (would that be far enough away if there was a nuclear explosion?) She said yes, but didn’t fully appreciate his tone of voice, because when it came to it, the teacher and her cute kids were very persuasive, as they were going to a poetry and arts thing that day.
Oliveras asked Meacham, who she’d caught taking out his frustrations on a bin in a toilet (for theirs is a relationship that spends a lot of time in toilet facilities) if he’d even got a second opinion on his brain tumour. Which is a reasonable question. But he focused on her talking about her male doctor friend with admiration, and out of jealousy put aside the card with his number on it.
Blythe, feeling he’d listened to medical advice long enough, had turned up in the office to give direction. Meacham realised that Volchek had acquired the production company because if you got filming permits, you could park anywhere in LA. (This feels very meta on the part of the writers.) Shepherd got them the location of the company’s permits, and off they all went.
And guess what? Finau’s cute kids were doing their thing in The Vine, aka that very spot. Volchek had a talk with his right-hand man, who had very little dialogue, but seemed to be on the same vengeful, destructive and nihilistic page, armed the bombs and went to find a lookout spot. The taskforce found the lorries, left the bombs inside them to Shepherd and Bell, and went looking for Volchek, who’d been there two minutes ago.
Until Finau realised his family were right there, raised the alarm, causing a panicked rush, and letting Volchek know they were there. (Eyeroll the twentieth.) The trained bomb squad arrived.
Guess who spotted Volchek, though? Yes, Meacham, of course. The episode ended with a stare-off between them. SO MUCH RIDICULOUSNESS AND CONTRIVED COINCIDENCES.
Countdown - 1.9 10-33
As we opened with a stabbed Blythe crawling back to his car to switch the alarm on and put out a call for help – the title of the episode - I should have realised this would be a ridiculous episode even by this show’s standards. One of Meacham’s migraines was interrupted by a phone call, and he was the last of the taskforce to arrive at a hospital and get very little information until Oliveras happened to see an old friend, who was a doctor there. Informed that Blythe would be in surgery for another hour, they split up, with Meacham, Oliveras and Finau going to the scene of the crime, making Meacham and Finau’s former colleagues look like idiots as Oliveras swiped the intel that the Belarussian Consul-General was going to hand over. (Careless of Volchek! Let’s just go with Blythe interrupted him, though he could also have stabbed Blythe again for surety. But then, he’s clearly better at blowing things up than wielding a knife.)
This led them to the Russian forger, who was still in his office, assuming there wouldn’t be reprisals for handing Volchek off to the Belarussian goons. Meacham had a dizzy spell at the wrong moment, good job that Finau the giant was next to him and not Oliveras, but they brought the forger in and made a deal that gave them the new alias for Volchek of Carl Novak (the Czech John Smith, apparently.)
At some point, Blythe got out of surgery, with the knife having missed everything important (eyeroll.) He wanted to get out of the hospital. Hypocritically, Meacham told him to listen to the medical staff, but it took protégé Shepherd yelling at him to get Blythe to agree to listen to the nurse for a while. This inspired Bell to compliment Shepherd…for her data handling skills, while she clearly wanted to be out in the field, and good grief their dynamic is badly written.
Oliveras bumped into her old friend again, asked for advice about ‘a friend/colleague’ with a brain tumour, and guess what? Doc Old Friend happened to be a neuro-oncologist who was looking into emerging treatments for brain tumours when he wasn’t conveniently wandering around other hospital corridors. He expressed his happiness at seeing Oliveras again. Dude, you haven’t seen that the friend/colleague she’s worried about is played by Jensen Ackles. But he is.
The dynamic in the office without Blythe could have been interesting, with various people, but mainly Meacham and Oliveras ordering others about. Meacham honed in on one of the many Carl Novaks in LA who seemed interesting, and the taskforce burst into the offices of Kestrel Productions (because kestrels are native to Belarus, which is…so stupid). They found nothing but an empty office.
Also, Molly had been calling and Evan had been pressing the red button (well, she had made it clear she didn’t want her sister around or to bother her.) Also 2, Finau asked his wife to take the kids out of school and go to Palm Springs (would that be far enough away if there was a nuclear explosion?) She said yes, but didn’t fully appreciate his tone of voice, because when it came to it, the teacher and her cute kids were very persuasive, as they were going to a poetry and arts thing that day.
Oliveras asked Meacham, who she’d caught taking out his frustrations on a bin in a toilet (for theirs is a relationship that spends a lot of time in toilet facilities) if he’d even got a second opinion on his brain tumour. Which is a reasonable question. But he focused on her talking about her male doctor friend with admiration, and out of jealousy put aside the card with his number on it.
Blythe, feeling he’d listened to medical advice long enough, had turned up in the office to give direction. Meacham realised that Volchek had acquired the production company because if you got filming permits, you could park anywhere in LA. (This feels very meta on the part of the writers.) Shepherd got them the location of the company’s permits, and off they all went.
And guess what? Finau’s cute kids were doing their thing in The Vine, aka that very spot. Volchek had a talk with his right-hand man, who had very little dialogue, but seemed to be on the same vengeful, destructive and nihilistic page, armed the bombs and went to find a lookout spot. The taskforce found the lorries, left the bombs inside them to Shepherd and Bell, and went looking for Volchek, who’d been there two minutes ago.
Until Finau realised his family were right there, raised the alarm, causing a panicked rush, and letting Volchek know they were there. (Eyeroll the twentieth.) The trained bomb squad arrived.
Guess who spotted Volchek, though? Yes, Meacham, of course. The episode ended with a stare-off between them. SO MUCH RIDICULOUSNESS AND CONTRIVED COINCIDENCES.
