Will they run out of time?
Thanks to the tracker placed on Victor the team now knows where Verina is being held and are one step closer to saving her, which is good news because back in D.C. they aren’t having any luck with getting Captain Halsey control of his ship back. The bad news, because there is always bad news, is that the junkyard where they have Verina is a fortress of security. The options to get inside are few and each worse than the last. Patricia and Dalton head towards Hoffman with Patricia asking if everything’s going according to his plan to which he quips he never planned on getting caught.
I don’t believe that for a second. I said it last week and I stood by it during this scene, men like Hoffman don’t get caught. He survived an assassination attempt and went 9 years under the radar only to be found in an apartment by the man working with the woman who betrayed him? Nope, sorry wasn’t buying it. Hoffman is exactly where he wants to be doing exactly what he wants to be doing. Which is why he’s the one who gives the team the idea to initiate online contact with Verina and have her knock out the junkyards power and back up generators.
As the team is getting ready to go in, Noah contacts Captain Halsey again. The Wyoming is 10 miles from Chinese waters but he asks the Captain to wait until the last possible second before scuttling because the ground team is minutes away from getting control of the ship back.
Go-Time
Verina kills the power and the team takes out the perimeter guards. In a comedic moment Dalton takes a shot that Jaz has lined up and when she calls him on it we get a throwback to the pilot episode with Dalton’s “whoops”. Just another example of that balancing act I mentioned earlier.
With the perimeter open the team moves in to begin the assault in what is, in my opinion, the best action sequence of the season with the best music choice – “Might As Well Get Juiced” by The Rolling Stones. There’s a tense moment where you think that Victor has taken out Verina (there may have been some colourful language coming out of my mouth at that point, but I watched the episode alone, so you’ll never be able to prove it) but when Dalton breaks down the door you discover Victor surrendering and Verina safe. The shots were Victor destroying the computers, a moments relief until you realize that those computers were the only way to save the Wyoming who is inching ever closer to enemy territory.
A little retribution
The only way unless you are a 16-year old genius hacker that is. Verina gets put on the phone with Noah and after a lot of computer coding jargon that I’ll admit I didn’t understand in the slightest, they are able to save the Wyoming and her crew. Captain Halsey turns his ship around and the Chinese are left disappointed. The look on Victor’s face when he recognized Jaz and realized he’d been played was priceless, but not quite as priceless as McG getting one punch in to heal his wounded pride.
“Cheers mate!”
It’s not over…
We took out the bad guys, we saved the girl, and we saved the Wyoming! You’d think this would be a time for celebration, until you look at the time and realize THERE ARE STILL 11 MINUTES LEFT OF THE EPISODE. So much for my happy ending.
Remember how I said that I didn’t believe that Hoffman was caught by accident? Remember how I said that he was exactly where he wanted to be? He proved me right when he tried to blow up Patricia and Preach with an impact bomb in his cell phone. The numbers he had Dalton punch in earlier in the episode weren’t an unlock code, there were an arming code.
My take is that Hoffman has wanted revenge for a long time and when the opportunity arose for him to take a job in Dalton’s backyard he took it knowing full well it would draw Patricia out and to him. Every move he made, every word he spoke was to get to that moment where he would have the chance for payback. Thankfully he didn’t quite get it. Patricia survived the blast thanks to Preach throwing himself on her to take majority of the impact, leaving him in a coma and his ultimate fate unknown. (Just another reason we need NBC to renew The Brave)
End game
That’s still not the end of this rollercoaster ride. You know that there is no way that Dalton is going to let this go unanswered, especially after his conversation with Preach earlier. So in response to the attempted murder of his friends Dalton goes off comms and ditches his phone. He goes dark; in more ways than one. Knowing Hoffman would go after Verina’s laptop because of its value, Dalton heads to her apartment to wait for him. What follows is the best scene of the season with both Mike Vogel and James Tupper giving performances worthy of awards.
Two quiet professionals facing off, each knowing full well that only one of them will be walking out of there alive. The dialogue draws parallels between the two men and allows Hoffman to bring up Dalton’s painful family history but it all comes to head with THE quote. You know which one I’m talking about, creator Dean Georgaris has mentioned it a few times and Mike Vogel considers it a personal favourite, much like Dalton.
“People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”
Violence on their behalf. Hoffman calls it a spin on what it really is; murder. Dalton promises not to say anything if Hoffman doesn’t. Then he fires.
Preach
The episode closes on easily the most emotional note of the season, I know I was in tears. The team is gathered around Preach’s hospital bed everyone is dressed in black and it’s a very somber atmosphere. So quiet all you hear is the beeping of hospital machines. Too quiet. Then each team member takes a turn in sharing Preach-like words of wisdom as a single tear rolls down Preach’s face.
This episode brings the whole season full circle in many ways from the “whoops” with Dalton and Jaz, to Noah and Hannah leaving the DIA together, but the biggest parallel between “Close to Home: Part 2” and the beginning of the season, in my opinion, comes from a conversation between Amir and Dalton in Moscow Rules. The pair is discussing the beach bombing and Amir admits how difficult it is for him to sit and do nothing about it. Dalton responds by making the comment that the dream is to go rogue and track down the people responsible while the reality is to follow orders. Going rogue is exactly what I would say Dalton did after Hoffman tried to kill Patricia and Preach.
Hoffman was a dangerous man, there is no argument to be made against that. He killed who knows how many people and would have killed who knows how many more. He nearly killed two people that Dalton cares deeply about. Bringing him in would have destroyed not only Patricia’s career but her life. Dalton said it earlier to Preach, like a rabid dog men like Hoffman need to be put down. In his own mind Adam Dalton did what he had to do. The only thing that could be done.
Violence on their behalf or murder? That’s a question I’ll leave to you.
Article written by Brynn Willard, a guest writer for So Many Shows
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