A-Team Episode 1×11

“One More Time”

• Location: Borneo
• Tank: No
• Disguises: Trash Monster Old Lady
• Scam: No
• Flight: Yes
• Fixation: No
• Flips: No
• Fee: NA
• Quote: “That’s a terrible thing to do to something babies drink” – Face, on spiking the milk
• Who is that?? Nothin’ again
• Bonus Stat – Captured: Yes

Right off, this episode has quite a different feel than most. Note all the No’s and Zeroes up there in the ol’ stats block–there’s a simple reason for that: the team finally gets captured by the MPs.

Murdock was a little off this ep, and I felt several times like he was simply explaining the plot to me (which, if you’ve ever watched an episode of the A-Team, you may have noticed is usually not necessary). Still, the concept for this episode is solid (more on that later…). This ep opens right up with a car chase as the team attempts to evade the MPs. We’ve seen this plenty of times. In this variant, Hannibal is on a motorcycle and still in his crazy B-movie costume (not as the monster, but as the old lady being attacked by it). Despite their efforts, though, all three members are quickly captured, leaving Murdock and Amy to figure out what’s going on and attempt to free them.

A deal is cut for the team to run a black-ops rescue mission into Borneo. After a short Milk commercial, they load onto a DC-3 (tail number N26MA, if you’re curious) and off they go, B.A. pleasantly sleeping through the para-drop, thanks to his milk having a little something extra. Hannibal’s plan gets interpreted in several different ways, all of which pretty much translate to “charge through the front door.” Again, this episode being different than most, a lot of the plans go wrong. The main assault lands them in the kitchen–and then in a cell. Face ends up being selected for execution first instead of Hannibal; Face comes up with the bright idea to blow lit cigarette into a pool of gasoline (a move we saw just last episode), but it just fizzles out.

Which brings us to my most memorable moment from this ep. As a kid who didn’t know any better, Face’s near execution was a genuinely scary moment. Here’s a character who routinely bluffs and blusters his way through most situations, and even when things go unexpectedly, he can usually adapt and wriggle out through a little more creative story-telling. Something about the team each facing their executions separately really made for a sense of hopelessness. Even after Amy turns the tide with a well-placed (and well-timed) shot from a flare gun, Face is still lost in the fray, in danger of being left behind. The team eventually escapes with their objective, half of them hanging off the legs of a helicopter while a triumphant version of the main theme gives us a hard-fought victory.

So yeah, this episode–it felt a bit more modern and a bit less tongue-in-cheek. We’ll be seeing more of this style in the future as the plot of this episode: getting caught and then running black ops missions for the government–is the premise of the entire fifth season. But we have several dozen more blog entries before that happens…