A-Team Episode 2×14
“In Plane Sight”
- Location: Columbia/Venezuela border
- Tank: No
- Disguises: No (not for Hannibal, anyway)
- Scam: No (not for Face, anyway)
- Flight: Yes
- Fixation: No (not for Murdock, anyway)
- Flips: 0
- Fee: $0 (though a small compensation after is implied)
- Quote: “Glad to see ya–grab a gun!” – Hannibal. Even when he’s not saying it, it’s pretty much always implied.
- Bonus Quote: “Disgusting, being mistaken for ducks.” – B.A. Ah, how often I’ve faced that very thing myself.
- Who is that?? N81GB, itself. Hint: it’s fond of visiting the Hills for Holidays
This episode, we have a very special returning guest star, N81GB. You may remember N81GB from such episodes as last season’s Holiday in the Hills. So far, N81GB appears to be typecast, once again it finds itself crash landing in the first scene of the ep. Hopefully in the future we’ll get to see more out of it. Speaking of characters we hope to see more out of… That’s not going to be Amy. Other than a quick one-line reference to her this ep, she’s done with our show, at least in person. Though she never quite felt like a full fifth member of the team, she added a nice balance, and had some great moments. I like to think she maybe settled down with our friend Daniel Running Bear, whom she seemed to be getting along quite well with.
We got a lot of swapped roles this episode–Murdock and Face both wear disguises and run the scams while Hannibal does neither; B.A. has the psychological schtick while Murdock doesn’t; and Face insists on the team running the mission for free–that one’s usually pushed by soft-hearted (and hard to refuse) B.A. The client is another war veteran, but this time of World War II and Korea. Their son has been framed for drug smuggling (that’s right–two weeks in a row, our bad guys are drug lords!) and the team will not only be rescuing him, but clearing his name as well. There’s a genuinely sweet moment between Face and the mother of the family and we see Face’s soft side again as he takes pity on her and lets his guard down for just a moment.
As they get ready to depart for a flight to Columbia, Face asks for the ol’ 2×4 but our guest star has a better idea: hypnosis! And not just ordinary hypnosis: 80’s hypnosis! That means after 10 seconds of watching a gold pendant swing back and forth in the sun, your patient is ready to do anything, including fall asleep at the mention of a trigger word from that point forward. Now like most things A-Team, it’s not hard to figure out what’s going to happen–the fun is in waiting to see just how B.A. is accidentally put to sleep at an inopportune time.
I have to give special attention to Murdock’s schtick this episode, it’s really pretty great. After explaining to Mrs. Hicks in a calm voice that, “No ma’am, I’m insane,” he proceeds to “conform to societal norms” for the remainder of the episode. B.A. is pleased at first, though Murdock quickly sets to psychoanalyzing him–a task made all the easier by his recent apparent narcoleptic tendencies. But Hannibal seems genuinely disappointed that “Howlin’ Mad” no longer howls on take-off. Later, we’ll see some of the old crazy trying to get out as he does a funny hop behind the back of a bad guy while desperately trying to hold onto his normalcy.
I got a laugh out of the scene where they need to give Murdock a black eye. B.A. is first to volunteer, but Hannibal quickly puts face on the job instead. Face apparently misses the insult that he’s clearly got the weakest punch of the team. Later we’ll see our drug lords punched out pretty easily, so at least Face can take solace in the fact that he can punch better than drug lords. Of course from the way they fought, I could have probably taken’em, and I’m a blogger.
Wha?–awwww. 
Hey, now that’s what we like!
The final battle starts with a car chase–but this time it’s a car chase chasing a plane! At first, I was a little disappointed that the bad guy Jeep only struck a tree without flipping, but as if the writers knew what I was thinking, the second Jeep flew off an embankment, bounced off its roof, and landed dead on its wheels, engine compartment smoking.
Don’t worry, everyone emerged fine afterward.