A-Team Episode 1×08
“The Out of Towners”
- Location: New York, New York
- Tank: No
- Disguises: Blind Fix-it Man
- Scam: A Garbage Truck (with garbage–that part’s important), Taxi Cab
- Flight: Yes–and by choice! Well, mostly by choice.
- Fixation: No
- Flips: 2
- Fee: $3.68
- Quote: “Anyone can spend their afternoons playing golf but don’t you think this is more fun?” – Hannibal, on why they do it
- Who is that?? Yaphet Kotto, East Side Charlie. Hint: In space, no one can hear you scream
$166,200. That’s what the bad guys have extorted from our clients, and we want it back. A pretty straightforward episode about our heroes breaking up a protection racket.
But of course, we’re not watching the A-Team for the plot, we pretty much always know the plot–when it comes to this show, it’s not the What, it’s the How. Like how this time, Hannibal sets himself up as blind, naive, foreign (somewhat Scandinavian?) businessman. And even better, how he dissolves out of character and quickly shows the bad guys who they’re messing with. He actually did the same routine last episode, strolling into the bad guy lair in character, slowly revealing himself and then demonstrating his complete dominance of the entire situation.
There aren’t really any twists in this episode, but it’s got the style we’ve come to expect. Style like the name of the facade business: Triple-A TV Repair (those are also Amy’s initials). Style like Face quickly pulling the bad guy’s girl out of harm’s way a moment before the garbage truck blasts through the wall with its delivery. They missed a beat with the overly-cliche bad-guy-stomping-on-kid’s-shoe-shine-kit routine, but made up for it with the poor taxi guy who soon ends up in a war zone reminiscent of something from a gangster movie.
This time I’ll end with the beginning–the episode opens with several nice panning shots of the New York skyline, including a shot of the Twin Towers. It was a reminder that the show really is from another era.