A-Team Episode 2×16

“Say It With Bullets”

• Location: LA–but who cares? –Tank!
• Tank: A Tank! (An M24 Chaffee, I think?)
• Disguises: Artist
• Scam: No, though Tawnia does quite the number on a bad guy
• Flight: No
• Fixation: 50’s TV
• Flips: 1
• Fee: Unknown, but non-zero
• Quote: “We got a tank!” – Hannibal, when he gets a Tank!
• Who is that?? B.A.’s Red Shirt and Blue Overalls, themselves. Hint: You’ll need to go way back to the pilot ep! …or watch the intro credits roll.

This ep lives up to its title–we get a lot of bullets alright, some real, some imagined, and they come in a range of sizes, though the ones fired from a tank are the best ones! More on that later… Meanwhile, we have a pretty good plot twist this episode, too. The show subverts its own formula by first clearing the admittedly-suspect (she works for the Army) client in the usual way via one of Hannibal’s disguises, only to have her double-cross our heroes quite some time later by revealing she’s working with Decker.

As part of a plan no one but Hannibal is fond of, the team ends up back in uniform for the first time in a while as they infiltrate an Army base. More bullets fly as they escape the double-cross, using the now found-out client as cover. They hole up in the guest house on base, a lovely place that Decker is told not to shoot up, so naturally I give it about six minutes. The team rigs the house to fight an automated battle for them as they run out the back, and the house is riddled with bullets less than four minutes later.

Our heroes then come across the coolest thing they’ve come across possibly ever–a genuine, actual tank, complete with treads and a giant gun. The ensuing rampage has our heroes make an easy escape off the base, leaving a wake of flipped and exploded Jeeps behind them.

Oh and the bad guys are captured there’s a Hawaii Five-0 musical cue as Murdock says “book’em, Danno” and the show ends but whatever–did you see that tank rampage? They totally had a tank!!

This was a fun episode, with several, great twists and turns, and a doozie of an ending! Now ok, we all love B.A.’s van, and it’s a fine vehicle, but I have to point out there was no reason they couldn’t have kept the tank. I mean how handy would that have been? Sure, we’d lose out on all those future montages, but think of the possibilities: need to infiltrate another Army base–who’s gonna question a tank? Bad guys chasing you in Jeeps? Turn around and run over the Jeeps (don’t worry, everyone will emerge fine). Hillbillies with guns–Tank! Corrupt cops–Tank!!!