A-Team Episode 1×07
“The Rabbit Who Ate Las Vegas”
- Location: Bombay, India. Nah, just kiddin’–Las Vegas, Nevada
- Tank: Armored Limo. Ok they didn’t so much build it as steal it from the bad guys… but hey, my blog, my rules. It counts.
- Disguises: Bus Driver, Tony Vincent, Hotel Staff
- Scam: Normally reserved for Face, but I’m giving it to Hannibal’s Tony Vincent character who scammed them through all sorts of stuff.
- Flight: No
- Fixation: Invisible Dice
- Flips: 2
- Fee: A bag of money (Hannibal seemed excited so it must have been sufficient)
- Quote: “You okay?” “Yeah, I’m okay” – Henchmen, for whom there’s no possible way they’re okay after that wreck
- Who is that?? Tracy Scoggins, Ellie. Hint: She served aboard Babylon 5, but only from 2262 on.
So hey, we got three disguises and two flips–that catches us up after all those zeroes we got last episode! Let’s take the elephant in the room first: yes, one of Hannibal’s disguises is playing a hotel staff in black-face. I won’t bother addressing it any more than that, except to point out that the show is apparently self-aware enough for B.A. to reply to Hannibal’s “Black is beautiful” with “Not on you, it ain’t.”
That brings me to the flips, one of which gave us this episode’s Quote. Now this thing got wrecked real good–so much so that there’s no way we could have the requisite guys crawling out the windows because the entire cabin caved in. Which is why, instead, we got some voice lines over the scene to assure us that yes, the poor henchmen are ok. My wife and I laughed and laughed at the absurdity of these obviously dubbed-in lines.
The planning and tactics in this one stood out to me. The scene where Hannibal is explaining, one by one, all of Gianni’s supposedly secret escape routes was great, especially when Face puts a sniper bullet through the window right on cue. Hannibal just completely owned the situation (and that scene). I also got a kick out the team faking a run for a chopper on the roof, only to go to the garage instead and steal the armored car mentioned earlier in the episode. That was not completely original, but what really got me was Murdock’s doubling back for the chopper to escape with our mission objective. Beautifully executed and a cut above the usual “lure them to a spot and spray bullets at them” plan (not that there’s anything wrong with those plans–I mean I am writing a blog on The A-Team after all).
Lastly, I’ll highlight Hannibal’s portrayal of Tony Vincent, and Amy’s playing off it. I love a good mafia send-up, and George Peppard did a terrific job as Tony Vincent. It was wonderfully understated, and carried just the right amount of attitude to convey a powerful man, perhaps slightly past his prime, but still not to be trifled with. Amy did a fine job playing off his character, too. I don’t say much about her in this blog (not so far anyway) because there really doesn’t seem to be much to say about her, so it was fun seeing her play a more central role right alongside Hannibal to sell the scam.