A-Team Episode 3×10
“Sheriffs of Rivertown”
- Location: San Marcos, South America
- Tank: Rock Drill
- Disguises: Security Guard
- Scam: No
- Flight: Yes
- Fixation: Cop Show Voiceover
- Flips: 1
- Fee: Unknown, but doubtless some big corporation $$$
- Quote: “I love it when a plan comes together” – B.A. Now that he’s used the line that leaves Murdock as the only member of the team who hasn’t used the line yet.
- Who is that?? Robert Davi, Boyle. Hint: remember how I said the bad guy in The Island was a Bond Villain? Nevermind that–this guy is the real deal. (Also Goonies and Die Hard.) (Also, Elsa Raven is back)
It’s nice to see the Facemobile is back, and it’s even more fun seeing how Hannibal treats it, to Face’s horror. It’s a typical afternoon for the A-Team, and it’s time to deliver B.A.’s pre-flight knock-out dose. I would say the following scene was inspired by The Princess Bride, but once again, it was actually done here first since that movie came out three years after this ep. On the other hand, the book that movie is based on came out ten years earlier, so perhaps the writers were familiar with the bit. Predictably, B.A. loses the “which burger is the knock-out agent in” game. Personally, I suspect it was the milk.
So the bad guy is working with a local warlord, kidnapping engineers to build a guided missile to carry out a military coup. Our heroes are brought in under cover as the new local sheriffs to figure out why people keep disappearing. While conducting a fact-finding mission, it seems someone has beaten Face to the punch (so to speak), so he hides in a closet and then punches through the hanging shirts–promptly KO’ing a girl. The girl turns out to be the sister of one of the disappeared engineers.
As the Team gets closer to figuring things out, the bad guys get less subtle in their methods, eventually sealing them and the no-longer-needed engineers (the missile is done) in an abandoned well-appointed machine shop mine. The mine is so well-appointed, it even has guns–once they tank their way out, it’s a quick skip off to the bad guys where they and their missile are cleanly dispatched.
A few of the twists in this ep I saw coming–the moment the camera showed that shiny lighter, I knew the bad guy was cheating at cards. I could also tell the intruder Face was about to knock out was a woman, which is an obvious no-no in the 80’s. But the bad guy being wise to the bug was a good one. I watched him drive the Jeep up to the mouth of a cave, light a cigar (the 10th or so of the episode–cigars were very popular this episode), and then just drive off. Puzzled, and knowing something was up (because who drives all the way out to a cave just to light a cigar?), I still wasn’t able to put it together until it was clear he had out-conned our heroes. It was a good twist.
This was a fun ep, but I have to give it the lowest marks yet on fulfulling our 1980’s television Educational Mandate. Good guys smoking and playing with guns? Tsk, tsk, definitely not a good example being set here for the children.