WHYYYYYYY?
Jan. 10th, 2026 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessCountdown - 1.10 The Muzzle Pile
What a weird episode this was – were 10 episodes initially commissioned, and then they were given more? I suppose you could group it in three parts: the ending, the aftermath, the new case. We rejoined Meacham and Volchek’s stare-off, broken by Volchek pressing the button. Shepherd pulled the tablet off the bomb or something and ordered Bell to do the same, it seemed to work. A frustrated Volchek tried to press the button again, heh, as Meacham took chase, with Olivieras joining him and overtaking him by the time Volchek entered some building. A surviving guard switched the alarm on, the flashing lights and sound triggered one of Meacham’s migraines as he entered, while Volchek slowed down our plucky Olivieras by throwing something down a staircase at her.
Finau ended up having his own stare-off with Andrey, only difference being that Finau was in front of his family, trying to get them out of danger. He pulled them behind him – he’s big enough to cover an adult female and two adolescent girls. Andrey twitched, got shot dead, (good shooting!) and Finau turned to see that their mother had covered their daughters’ eyes (good parenting!) So he led them away – we didn’t see him checking Andrey (though he looked dead) or calling it in, but must presume that he did.
Meacham staggered up towards Olivieras, who urged him to go get Volchek, who was up on the roof, having a looksee. He saw Shepherd handing the tablet of doom to Blyth and started shooting...at the truck in the hope of setting it and therefore the nuclear materiel off. Bell was ordered to shoot back, but didn’t have a great line of sight.
Meacham had to control himself, because he was closer (and, I remembered, a crack shot.) I note that it was only after Olivieras came up, saw the situation and calmly told him to do it that he was able to pull off a sickly impressive kil shot. (Meacham so wants her to boss him for the rest of his life.)
Yay! They could get the trucks away, then celebrate as a team – hugs and sentimental speeches – and disband. Which meant Blyth going home to a wife and son we’d never heard mentioned before. (Well, perhaps we did, but I never took it in.) As the missus handed him a wine glass to celebrate, I realised she had no idea about him having just being shot, and that the doctors and nurses who patched him up would be disgusted at all the activity, stress and now drinking he’d been involved in after they’d patched him up.
Bell and Shepherd were having dinner, the conversation was mostly professional, with Shepherd disclosing she was headed for Washington. And then Molly and a rowdy party turned up because the restaurant had a bar, suggested Evan had been blabbing to her about Agent Bell (the writers’ need to show Evan’s crush overrode the vibe that the sisters were ships passing in the night, barely communicating, that I’d been getting.) Bell seemed not quite to get it, then Evan asked him to keep an eye out on her trouble-magnet sister…and I could see where that was going.
Finau went back to work, to find that his desk had been taken. He got upset, and seemed to be upset still even after he learned it was because he’d had a ‘meritorious promotion’ and his family were there to celebrate (instead of being in, I dunno, therapy.)
Olivieras was taking Meacham to hospital to get the second opinion from her friend, despite Mark's reluctance about having to spend the rest of his remaining days in a hospital. The doc said he was an excellent candidate and there was hope for tumour regression. Olivieras came over to Meacham’s house the day before treatment was meant to start to give Meacham a funny, encouraging present. She offered to come with the next day, although she was slated to start a new job at Texas. He turned her down. She offered to stay the night. He turned this down too saying he’d reached a point where he wanted to do relationships right, suggesting that he did have a will to live, under it all, and held out his hand for her to take.
Which, fine. But she and the rest of the taskforce turned up at the hospital waiting room to encourage him, with her having told them something was wrong with his brain. (I hoped someone would drive him home after the treatment, which seemed like some sort of operation – they were being vague about the experimental treatment, because it was from the convenient for plot branch of medical science.)
And then Bell met up with the odious DA and wondered out loud whether he’d been the source for the Belarussian black hats knowing they were coming that time that the taskforce had relied on the SWAT. And then he confirmed that he knew he was, because he’d had a look at the DA’s finances, and arrested him. Hurrah!
And then there was still loads of the episode remaining, but we jumped 10 months ahead to a whiny secret service officer talking to a less whiny colleague who was about to go out in the field. This inspired our guy, who was essentially doing drudge work of assessing all potential threats, to open a new e-mail that was the recording of a call, which ended with sounds of violence. This led him to the cabin the call had come from, where he found the caller dead by axe to the head. The cabin seemed empty, he called it in and started looking around – she’d been talking about crazy pictures and a photograph of this universe's President, and he found burned pieces of one, and the other in a secret drawer.
Cue loyal Heather informing Blyth he had an important call from on high. Cue him bringing the old band back together (all with, improbably, the same hairstyles) including Meacham, who’d been healed enough to be cleared for duty by a doctor, except…as Meacham quickly realised, Olivieras. She was too deep in an important DEA case. Instead they had Fitz, the secret service agent who’d broken the case, who suggested that POTUS and the governor of California, who’d announced he was running for President in this 'verse, were targets.
Bell was about to tell Shepherd something about her sister (uh-oh) when Meacham suggested they all (except for tech whiz Shepherd, who is now the only female on the taskforce, Heather aside) go to the scene of the crime so that he didn’t have to mope about Olivieras’s absence. Fitz annoyed Blyth and Meacham in their car. Meacham showed up Fitz by finding a way to open a secret trapdoor, which led to a corridor filled with serious rifles and a paper cutout, showing a few bullet holes in or near the eye.
So the countdown that hasn’t been that big of a deal is reset? With a plot about a fictional POTUS which just reminds us of the current one all over the news in the real world this show is meant to be an escape from!?
What a weird episode this was – were 10 episodes initially commissioned, and then they were given more? I suppose you could group it in three parts: the ending, the aftermath, the new case. We rejoined Meacham and Volchek’s stare-off, broken by Volchek pressing the button. Shepherd pulled the tablet off the bomb or something and ordered Bell to do the same, it seemed to work. A frustrated Volchek tried to press the button again, heh, as Meacham took chase, with Olivieras joining him and overtaking him by the time Volchek entered some building. A surviving guard switched the alarm on, the flashing lights and sound triggered one of Meacham’s migraines as he entered, while Volchek slowed down our plucky Olivieras by throwing something down a staircase at her.
Finau ended up having his own stare-off with Andrey, only difference being that Finau was in front of his family, trying to get them out of danger. He pulled them behind him – he’s big enough to cover an adult female and two adolescent girls. Andrey twitched, got shot dead, (good shooting!) and Finau turned to see that their mother had covered their daughters’ eyes (good parenting!) So he led them away – we didn’t see him checking Andrey (though he looked dead) or calling it in, but must presume that he did.
Meacham staggered up towards Olivieras, who urged him to go get Volchek, who was up on the roof, having a looksee. He saw Shepherd handing the tablet of doom to Blyth and started shooting...at the truck in the hope of setting it and therefore the nuclear materiel off. Bell was ordered to shoot back, but didn’t have a great line of sight.
Meacham had to control himself, because he was closer (and, I remembered, a crack shot.) I note that it was only after Olivieras came up, saw the situation and calmly told him to do it that he was able to pull off a sickly impressive kil shot. (Meacham so wants her to boss him for the rest of his life.)
Yay! They could get the trucks away, then celebrate as a team – hugs and sentimental speeches – and disband. Which meant Blyth going home to a wife and son we’d never heard mentioned before. (Well, perhaps we did, but I never took it in.) As the missus handed him a wine glass to celebrate, I realised she had no idea about him having just being shot, and that the doctors and nurses who patched him up would be disgusted at all the activity, stress and now drinking he’d been involved in after they’d patched him up.
Bell and Shepherd were having dinner, the conversation was mostly professional, with Shepherd disclosing she was headed for Washington. And then Molly and a rowdy party turned up because the restaurant had a bar, suggested Evan had been blabbing to her about Agent Bell (the writers’ need to show Evan’s crush overrode the vibe that the sisters were ships passing in the night, barely communicating, that I’d been getting.) Bell seemed not quite to get it, then Evan asked him to keep an eye out on her trouble-magnet sister…and I could see where that was going.
Finau went back to work, to find that his desk had been taken. He got upset, and seemed to be upset still even after he learned it was because he’d had a ‘meritorious promotion’ and his family were there to celebrate (instead of being in, I dunno, therapy.)
Olivieras was taking Meacham to hospital to get the second opinion from her friend, despite Mark's reluctance about having to spend the rest of his remaining days in a hospital. The doc said he was an excellent candidate and there was hope for tumour regression. Olivieras came over to Meacham’s house the day before treatment was meant to start to give Meacham a funny, encouraging present. She offered to come with the next day, although she was slated to start a new job at Texas. He turned her down. She offered to stay the night. He turned this down too saying he’d reached a point where he wanted to do relationships right, suggesting that he did have a will to live, under it all, and held out his hand for her to take.
Which, fine. But she and the rest of the taskforce turned up at the hospital waiting room to encourage him, with her having told them something was wrong with his brain. (I hoped someone would drive him home after the treatment, which seemed like some sort of operation – they were being vague about the experimental treatment, because it was from the convenient for plot branch of medical science.)
And then Bell met up with the odious DA and wondered out loud whether he’d been the source for the Belarussian black hats knowing they were coming that time that the taskforce had relied on the SWAT. And then he confirmed that he knew he was, because he’d had a look at the DA’s finances, and arrested him. Hurrah!
And then there was still loads of the episode remaining, but we jumped 10 months ahead to a whiny secret service officer talking to a less whiny colleague who was about to go out in the field. This inspired our guy, who was essentially doing drudge work of assessing all potential threats, to open a new e-mail that was the recording of a call, which ended with sounds of violence. This led him to the cabin the call had come from, where he found the caller dead by axe to the head. The cabin seemed empty, he called it in and started looking around – she’d been talking about crazy pictures and a photograph of this universe's President, and he found burned pieces of one, and the other in a secret drawer.
Cue loyal Heather informing Blyth he had an important call from on high. Cue him bringing the old band back together (all with, improbably, the same hairstyles) including Meacham, who’d been healed enough to be cleared for duty by a doctor, except…as Meacham quickly realised, Olivieras. She was too deep in an important DEA case. Instead they had Fitz, the secret service agent who’d broken the case, who suggested that POTUS and the governor of California, who’d announced he was running for President in this 'verse, were targets.
Bell was about to tell Shepherd something about her sister (uh-oh) when Meacham suggested they all (except for tech whiz Shepherd, who is now the only female on the taskforce, Heather aside) go to the scene of the crime so that he didn’t have to mope about Olivieras’s absence. Fitz annoyed Blyth and Meacham in their car. Meacham showed up Fitz by finding a way to open a secret trapdoor, which led to a corridor filled with serious rifles and a paper cutout, showing a few bullet holes in or near the eye.
So the countdown that hasn’t been that big of a deal is reset? With a plot about a fictional POTUS which just reminds us of the current one all over the news in the real world this show is meant to be an escape from!?
