A-Team Episode 3×09

“Showdown!”

• Location: “Points West” – presumably still in California
• Tank: No, though there are some improvised weapons
• Disguises: Authentic Cowboy “Rufus Cantrell”
• Scam: No (aside from the usual busting out Murdock)
• Flight: No
• Fixation: Indian Stereotype
• Flips: 0
• Fee: NA. This one’s interesting–they are helping someone, but that’s secondary to their main purpose of clearing their name. There’s no fee involved and the “client” is really just along for the ride, benefiting as a bonus.
• Quote: “You fools, you didn’t bring your Murdock!” – real Murdock
• Who is that?? William Lucking, Colonel Lynch. Hint: after being gone for more than a season, he’s back as a Special Guest Colonel! He does about as well as you’d expect.

It’s another return of our Big Three 80’s Villains as a drug lord attempts comandeer a rodeo show to use as a smuggling operation. This time, the bad guy plan is to use a fake A-Team to do his dirty work–it’s rather clever and has had the expected effect: our victims are too afraid to fight back because, as anyone knows, no one can stand up to the A-Team.

Special Feature: How to tell if your A-Team is fake

• Fake Hannibal: Works for bad guys and smokes cheap cigars
• Fake B.A.: Only has one gold chain and doesn’t even try with the mohawk. Still, he’s got the throw down perfectly.
• Fake Face: Clearly no Dirk Benedict. Probably throws a harder punch than our Face, though, if we’re being honest.
• Fake Murdock: Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film
• Fake The Van: Pfffft, not even close.
• Fake Guns: Not the signature Mini-14s. Not even first season M-16s.

It’s a good thing there’s so much turn-around in the nursing staff at the VA hospital, because if it were the same one every time, I think she’d start to get wise… In fine form, Face busts out Murdock, who’s not at all happy about his omission from the team in the newspaper article. This leads to a great running gag through the rest of the ep revolving around his need to be recognized as a legitimate member of the team.

Next up: I like pointing out the classical-form Face scam of scare’em, save’em, rush’em, because scamming really hasn’t changed much in 30+ years. And interesting enough, the nuclear accident Face uses is a similar scenario to an event that actually occurred only a couple years later. It’s a fascinating read that just gets unbelievably worse and worse as it goes. (This paragraph brought to you by our 80’s TV Educational Mandate.)

Next up: the Free Mason conspiracy! As evidence, I present the above screenshot and the fact that the bad guy’s name is Mason! I have other evidence too, of course, but it wouldn’t be a conspiracy if I just told you all of it.

Next up: uh…

Next up: our guest star is a very talented gunslinger in her own right, but I was well prepared to be disappointed because I knew not to expect her to be using that skill again when we needed it most–that is, when the bad guys show up. Sure enough, after the opening sequence, we don’t see her use her guns again. A shame, but it helps to understand it’s not because this is the 80’s and a woman isn’t capable of fighting bad guys–indeed, it’s because she’s so capable if fighting bad guys that she’d actually hit them–and this being The A-Team, obviously we can’t have bad guys being hit by bullets.

Finally, I’ll posit once more that Decker is still the superior foil for our heroes. Decker would have gone ahead and captured one or two at at ime, then used them to let Hannibal come to him. Anyway, the ending was beautifully played–with only 2 minutes left (including the credits!) I had noticed that, while the team had gotten away, The Van had not. Suddenly, there they are, driving it off–I admit, I had a “wait, rewind that!” moment, and sure enough, we do see the A-Team (all four of them, for the record) run by in the background, up the ramp, and into the truck to steal back The Van.