The adventures of Ben and Raife! Jack Carr superfans Chris and Mike break down episodes 2 and 3 of The Terminal List: Dark Wolf on Amazon Prime Video. SPOILER WARNING: We are the thriller deep-dive after show!
They discuss character development, the dynamics between key players, and the transition from military action to espionage. The hosts analyze the action sequences, moral dilemmas faced by characters, and the overall quality of the series, expressing their surprise and satisfaction with the direction it has taken. They also touch on the impact of streaming on viewer engagement and the importance of creating a community around the series.
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CHAPTERS
01:59 Exploring Episodes Two and Three
05:43 Character Development and Dynamics
12:01 The Role of CIA and Military Operations
17:43 High Stakes and Global Implications
23:14 Character Depth and Backstory
24:22 The Role of Trust and Loyalty
25:10 Empathy in Storytelling
27:06 Team Dynamics and Strategy
29:19 Critique and Praise of the Series
31:59 Weekly Releases vs. Binge-Watching
40:55 Connecting to the Source Material
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KEYWORDS:
Dark Wolf, The Terminalist, thriller podcast, character analysis, espionage, action sequences, Jack Carr, military fiction, TV show review, CIA
#NoLimitsPodcast #ThrillerPodcast #ThrillerPod #SpyThrillers
00:00:17
Hey, guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike.
00:00:21
And welcome back to this week's No Limits the Dark Wolf podcast.
00:00:27
How's it going today, Mike? Good man.
00:00:30
I'm excited for episode 2 of our Dark Wolf coverage.
00:00:34
And for folks who don't know we are the thriller after show.
00:00:38
We will be spoiling books and TV shows.
00:00:41
Today we're spoiling episode 2 of the Dark Wolf series in the
00:00:45
terminal list on Amazon Prime. But usually we're spoiling books
00:00:49
two and three. Episodes two and three we
00:00:52
usually spoil books. Today we're spoiling those
00:00:54
episodes. If you haven't heard our
00:00:56
coverage of episode 1, we had a great time talking about how was
00:01:00
for me, everything I wanted in ATV Show, bringing to life
00:01:03
characters like Ben Edwards, Ray Fastings, and MO Farooq.
00:01:07
Today we're doing episodes two and three, but before we do, we
00:01:10
have to give a special thank you to our patrons.
00:01:13
Our patrons in the Thriller Pod Book Club are the ones who keep
00:01:17
this podcast alive. So if you want to help support
00:01:19
the pod, you will be the reason we can make more podcast.
00:01:22
Just head to thrillerpod.com. Click the Patreon tab to join
00:01:25
the book club. Join the group chat and there's
00:01:28
always Thriller talk going on in the group chat day and night.
00:01:31
The Thriller talk never stops at thrillerpod.com.
00:01:36
Boom, baby. Yeah, like surprising we haven't
00:01:40
gotten much action about this the season.
00:01:43
I guess we need to we need to spicing it up a little bit and
00:01:46
get get everyone's opinion. But anyways, me and you, we're
00:01:50
here to talk episode 2 and three and boy Mike, I'm ready to talk
00:01:56
to episode 2 and three later. So coming off episode 1, I'd
00:01:59
said I gave the score B plus it may be an A minus depending on
00:02:04
the curve, you know? That's going up today, right?
00:02:08
Oh, 500% episodes two and three they're.
00:02:11
Hitting. Awesome.
00:02:14
And I think you know it. I think because it makes that
00:02:17
hard shift from being a military episode with elements of like,
00:02:26
you know, spycraft and stuff like that to to truly being like
00:02:31
a spy show. And we're getting to see more
00:02:34
and more of Ben Edwards in his element in his transition like
00:02:41
this. This guy who, you know, Rafe
00:02:45
even says, you know, you're going to have the ability to put
00:02:48
the brakes on. And he's like, at the end, he's
00:02:50
like, fuck the brakes, fuck the brakes.
00:02:52
He is he is ready and willing it, you know, even just to get a
00:02:58
little bit more of, of, of Rafe and have him play a bigger role
00:03:05
and to see this, you know, team that's that's evolving and you
00:03:08
know, finally, like I, I realized that Oh shit, like I
00:03:11
said on the last episode, that's MO Farooq and we get we get MO
00:03:14
more of MO and MO MO more of MO great actor, love him.
00:03:22
And then Landry, like getting, getting Landry in here and like,
00:03:27
you know, bringing him back, you know, like he was very minor.
00:03:29
Like like you had said in the last episode, they mentioned his
00:03:32
name. It kind of was like, wait, why
00:03:35
is his name so familiar? And now bringing him back in,
00:03:38
he's part of the team. It clicks and you know, we're
00:03:42
not going to spoil like anything about that.
00:03:45
We want you guys to. Well, first of all, we don't
00:03:48
know what's going to be revealed in the series about the
00:03:51
character. And and two, let's just say him
00:03:54
and MO season or book two true believer, very important
00:04:00
characters. And you know, if you haven't
00:04:04
read that book, I highly encourage you to go read it.
00:04:07
Come back and you know, we listen to our podcast about it.
00:04:10
We we covered it on the the was it the thriller podcast at the
00:04:14
time, or was it the mid tripod? I forget.
00:04:16
But anyways if you search I think it was no limits.
00:04:19
I think it's a Jackass. You will find our episodes.
00:04:22
Let's just plug ourselves because yeah, this this Feed the
00:04:25
Thriller podcast is season 3 of the No Limits Extravaganza.
00:04:30
Season 1 we covered all the Mitch rap books by Vince Flynn,
00:04:33
Kyle Mills, and now Don Bentley. Season 2, we did all the Brad
00:04:37
Thor books about Scott Harvath. So if you're into the books, you
00:04:39
love those series, check them out.
00:04:41
But I think what really made us start the Thriller pod was we
00:04:45
wanted to cover so much more. And really Jack Carr, I would
00:04:48
say, was that next series that we wanted to dedicate something
00:04:51
to. And on the Thriller pod, we've
00:04:53
done, boy, probably hundreds of books, 10s of different authors
00:04:57
probably. And it really was kicked off
00:05:00
because we wanted somewhere to dedicate to Jack Carr without
00:05:03
always comparing it to Mitch Rap or always comparing it to Scott
00:05:06
Harvath. So we really start started the
00:05:09
Thriller podcast as a season, the one you're watching right
00:05:11
now, subscribe, hit that button. But we started because we
00:05:15
thought Jack Carr deserved that level of coverage.
00:05:17
We did all the books, we did the TV show, we did extra episodes,
00:05:21
even interviewed him. And then that spurred us onto so
00:05:24
many other spy and military authors that we we got to cover.
00:05:28
So he really inspired a lot of what we're doing here on this
00:05:30
pod. And so to see not only his James
00:05:34
Reese character come alive, but give the due diligence and the
00:05:38
time to let Ben, Rafe, MO Landry, all these other
00:05:42
characters come into the fore. And I would say ultimately,
00:05:46
what's a sign of respect to a universe is if you can create
00:05:50
something beyond the books that is so in line in universe or in
00:05:57
spirit of what the original author intended.
00:06:00
And to me, this series is doing that, bar none.
00:06:03
And another character you and I didn't even mention yet who
00:06:06
deserves might be the winner of the pod.
00:06:08
We didn't do winners and losers last episode for episode 1, but
00:06:12
every time we cover a book, we do winners and losers.
00:06:15
Jed motherfuking Haverford. Jed Haverford's entrance in
00:06:21
episode 2 and everything he does through episode 3 is phenomenal.
00:06:27
Phenomenal acting, story, dialogue, writing, and perhaps
00:06:32
the most important part, it's so Jack Carr esque.
00:06:36
Everything about him is the later Jack Carr where Reece
00:06:41
Reef. All these guys are dabbling with
00:06:43
it with the CIA. Some hate it Hastings family, so
00:06:45
some are learning to love it. Reece, you know, bringing in the
00:06:49
CIA in this way through a character like Jed almost is a
00:06:53
nod to James Reese's father from the books, which we're going to
00:06:57
get in just a few months with the next book.
00:07:00
Also also Victoria Rodriguez, all the people in the books who
00:07:03
were CIA. Jed Haverford is like this
00:07:06
perfect encapsulation of all of that.
00:07:09
But it's outside the books, which shows, right?
00:07:11
You respect the universe, you respect the readers, you respect
00:07:14
the author. And I think his character is
00:07:17
just so terminalist. It's it's, it's unbelievable.
00:07:23
I was going to say like Robert Wisdom as Jed Haverford is just
00:07:28
is is crushing it. I don't know if any of you have
00:07:31
watched one of my favorite actors from the Wire Bunny like
00:07:35
the the police, he's the police chief or he's high up in the
00:07:41
police anyways, but great actor on that show is killing it here.
00:07:46
Like his opening scene buying the Blanton's you you heard him
00:07:51
say 2 Blanton's right. Yeah.
00:07:55
And then, you know, him popping up back at the the swimming pool
00:08:00
and then, you know, seeing him act as this Thomas Stansfield
00:08:07
esque, you know, you know, operator, you know, but you
00:08:12
know, elevated, you know, the mastermind behind this and
00:08:15
bringing this coalition together like.
00:08:17
Who's been there, done that? I don't know who put in his
00:08:19
time. It's and I don't know, he has
00:08:22
like immediate buy in for me. Like I I immediately like
00:08:25
recognized who he was. He obviously establishes his
00:08:27
bona fides quick and you could understand why Ben Edwards like
00:08:34
immediately respects him and is immediately bought in and and
00:08:37
wants to you know, he's obviously very good at being
00:08:41
ACIA case officer and recruiting, you know, you know,
00:08:44
because he quickly, you know, I feel like the having this hard
00:08:50
transition, like having this, you know, weird at the airport
00:08:54
or not at the airport, but. Yeah.
00:08:56
At the hotel, you know, just right after they got, you know,
00:08:59
let go like a conveniently the CIA happened to be there.
00:09:05
It kind of like all fit for me. I don't know, like it.
00:09:07
It just worked. It's so.
00:09:09
He, he's doing the work as the actor to like to, to, to make
00:09:14
that happen. I agree, it also came after a
00:09:17
moment where Taylor Kitsch was forced to fake it or Ben Edwards
00:09:23
was forced to fake it. This was such a disgraceful
00:09:26
thing being kicked out of the teams.
00:09:28
I mean just think about that goodbye at the helicopter right
00:09:31
where he's leaving the base. This is such a world earth
00:09:36
shattering event. You have to get swept away with
00:09:41
the tide. You know, you can't fight it.
00:09:43
And so you just have to put on this false front.
00:09:45
And he's talking about getting motorcycles going out into the
00:09:48
Black Forest in Germany, doing all these crazy things.
00:09:51
And, you know, Rafe is just staring at him like, what?
00:09:55
Who, Who the hell is this? Who are you?
00:09:57
And it's at that moment where Jed preys on your
00:10:00
vulnerabilities, right? He knows.
00:10:03
It's kind of like, what's that saying if you want somebody to
00:10:09
do your bidding, find what they so desperately crave and give
00:10:14
them the tools to master it. Find what it is they want and
00:10:19
make them believe that you can give it to them, you know, or
00:10:23
make them believe that with your assistance, they'll be able to
00:10:27
do it. And like, then they're, they're
00:10:29
so reliant on you and, and Jed, he does that to Ben.
00:10:33
But at the same time, it's mutual.
00:10:36
Ben needs him as much as he's going to need Ben.
00:10:38
Like he's got the time sensitive OP, this, this nightclub hit
00:10:41
where now he's going to be. So he needs a guy like Ben.
00:10:44
He needs a shooter. As he says, I need 2 shooters.
00:10:47
It's time sensitive. But Ben's also lost, you know,
00:10:50
this motorcycle and all this other shit he's talking about is
00:10:52
like he's, he's swimming. He does not know how to deal
00:10:54
with the grief of losing the brotherhood, being kicked out of
00:10:57
the teams. And she gives him the tools to
00:10:59
say, you can still have purpose. You can still be on mission.
00:11:04
Mission's going to look a little different.
00:11:05
And the same things that pissed you off and made you snap when
00:11:09
you killed algebra, that made you go outside the chain of
00:11:11
command. I'm going to let you do that.
00:11:15
I want you to do it. I need a guy to improvise.
00:11:17
I need a guy to think outside the box with your skill set.
00:11:20
He's given him everything he wants, and you can't say no.
00:11:24
You know that? Sold.
00:11:27
Right. And I guess we're led to believe
00:11:29
that there there had to have been some time past between the
00:11:35
very end of last episode and where we pick up on this episode
00:11:38
like it. Some.
00:11:39
They obviously had to do some sort of investigation.
00:11:41
They had to interview all of them.
00:11:43
So like, you know, yeah, it's, it's it's quick cut between
00:11:48
here, them being discharged to them, you know, getting on a
00:11:52
plane end up in Germany like so. But obviously Jed had enough
00:11:59
time to go to the site, interview the the witnesses and
00:12:03
like, you know, so let's say there's at least a week or so
00:12:07
has gone by weeks. And he obviously being a trained
00:12:13
CIA operative sees that, oh, I have an opportunity here.
00:12:16
Yeah, they might have burnt our our asset.
00:12:20
But in doing so, we've now gained something better.
00:12:24
And let's let's see how we can benefit from this.
00:12:29
Well, I think that's also part of the problem is what Ben's
00:12:32
sick of is nobody sees the bigger picture, which is mission
00:12:36
accomplished. And instead the CIA guys who are
00:12:39
making the calls on the field, affecting our operators and
00:12:41
putting them in harm's way only see their slice of the pie.
00:12:44
Algebra is our asset. We need him.
00:12:46
He's giving us our Intel. Bridget realizes algebra.
00:12:50
It's one little slice of the pie, 1 little cog and machine.
00:12:53
I can put you on bigger and better things.
00:12:56
I got a team running OPS that we don't care about.
00:12:59
That one asset, you offed him. No big deal.
00:13:01
Where most of the CIA leadership is screaming, I want heads for
00:13:04
that. Heads need to roll for that.
00:13:06
And it's like you sometimes got to step away and see what's the
00:13:10
best way to accomplish this mission.
00:13:11
Don't get so hung up on your one asset who died and want to kick
00:13:14
out, you know, any of the military guys who made that
00:13:17
call. Go ahead and and run some OPS
00:13:20
and and do these bigger picture things, which is part of what
00:13:23
the nightclub scene is to get to get Denali and episode 3.
00:13:27
Holy crap, we pivot again. Now it's about Iranian nukes and
00:13:31
a nuke deal. So, yeah, like we should, yeah.
00:13:34
We quickly escalate to, you know, when we finally get to
00:13:37
like the end of episode 3 where, you know, Fariq obviously posing
00:13:41
as Denali, meets with this geologist who happens to have a
00:13:47
a nuclear research lab, giving him these bearings to be able
00:13:51
to, you know, do these centrifuges much faster, stuff
00:13:54
like that. I don't know.
00:13:56
It's super compelling. And obviously, you know,
00:13:57
they're, they're realizing that, you know, shit is changing in
00:14:02
real time and the stakes are being upped like immediately.
00:14:08
And we've we've caught on to something big and we have to go.
00:14:12
And that, I think, backs up the switch from Episode 1 to Episode
00:14:16
2 and three. We can't be this very myopic.
00:14:19
We're downrange in Mosul trying to save the city.
00:14:23
That's like a very important mission.
00:14:26
But it's only one part of this bigger global War on Terror.
00:14:30
And so now a guy who is selling weapons, selling bombs and
00:14:33
material in Mosul is connected to some nuclear deal going on in
00:14:39
Iran. And there's financiers and
00:14:41
there's this European guide, right?
00:14:43
The guy in the nightclub who is who is passing the money along.
00:14:46
Like there's a bigger picture. So what the guy's doing down
00:14:48
range is like super important, but what Jet is selling is you
00:14:53
can do so much more than that. And I don't know where they go.
00:14:56
I, I don't like when a story just becomes nuke on the loose.
00:14:59
So if it just becomes let's stop Iran's nuclear program because
00:15:03
we don't want nukes on the loose, that's one thing.
00:15:06
But I don't know. I it's like a pivot that does
00:15:08
enough to be like, OK, this is going to be something new.
00:15:10
This is going to be a big storyline, but I don't know
00:15:12
exactly what that storyline will be.
00:15:15
So I'm excited about that. And, and Mossad's involved,
00:15:17
right? Let's up the stakes even more
00:15:19
this Mossad CIA joint operation. That's the other thing I I
00:15:24
don't, obviously I have not watched episodes 4:00 and 5:00,
00:15:27
so I don't know. This is pure speculation on my
00:15:29
part. For some reason I don't trust
00:15:33
Eliza. I feel like she has this.
00:15:39
I don't know, I feel like massage is going to do what
00:15:41
massage, what massage wants to do.
00:15:43
We've seen this time in and time out in name, any of series, any
00:15:49
of our series we've covered where they've dabbled into the
00:15:51
massage stuff. She's an interesting character
00:15:53
and obviously there's some romantic involvement between her
00:15:56
and Edwards. Her introduction as a character
00:15:59
was freaking awesome. Like as a waitress with her as a
00:16:02
waitress. You know, and they're all
00:16:04
guessing who who the the agent is, who's the Mossad asset and
00:16:09
they're all like, you know, Rafe and him are taking bets on it
00:16:13
and whatever. And then when it's the waitress,
00:16:15
she has that look in her eye. I was like, oh, damn, played
00:16:18
play. So I agree.
00:16:20
I don't I wouldn't say it's not that I don't trust her.
00:16:25
I think it would be in character for someone of her skill set to
00:16:29
put country first so. Sure, she's going to put her
00:16:31
first for sure. Right right now though, put
00:16:34
country first is work with the team, right?
00:16:36
Join Operation so CIA Mossad, same page, but I either wouldn't
00:16:41
blame her and wouldn't be surprised if something happens
00:16:45
where everybody's expendable from Rafe to Ben to Jed and her
00:16:52
ontologists have to complete the mission what's best for their
00:16:54
country. So I wouldn't put it beyond
00:16:56
them. I don't know if I would say it
00:16:57
means I don't trust them, but I would say their self-interest is
00:17:00
clearly, clearly going to supersede any sort of
00:17:05
collaboration with the CIA And and I I would expect that that
00:17:09
would be to me, sure more expected then they're so loyal.
00:17:13
They do anything to protect. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:16
Yeah, no, you're right. The self-interest above
00:17:20
everything, particularly with the Israelis.
00:17:22
That nightclub scene, awesome. Like getting to see Rafe and
00:17:31
Edwards like in action as these. The the one hang up I did have
00:17:36
is that it's kind of hard for Rafe to be a spy.
00:17:40
He can't play then, man, I'm. Great.
00:17:45
Huge. I completely agree, but I would
00:17:47
say both of them. Ben with his tats, you know, his
00:17:50
clear military operator beard. He's easier to, yeah, I feel
00:17:55
like he's easier to buy as a, as a spy than not.
00:18:00
I agree. You know, I guess they, you
00:18:03
know, they get gussied up, they go to this nightclub.
00:18:04
But yeah, like the suspense that we have and, you know, going on
00:18:08
that the, the, the, the chase at the end, I don't know, I feel
00:18:11
like the town again. Through the village.
00:18:13
With the, with the cinematography of this, like
00:18:16
they do a really good job of like, I don't know, just
00:18:19
propelling the story forward with the visualizations.
00:18:23
Yeah, and it worked in the nightclub, but it also worked in
00:18:26
that village, You're right. Going through the town, how they
00:18:28
split up, they're geolocating each other so they they know
00:18:33
where support is needed. And then ultimately, here's
00:18:36
what's pretty cool is even though they had to be spies,
00:18:39
they were trying to do this undercover thing that kind of
00:18:41
stood out like a sore thumb. You knew that OP would go South
00:18:44
for many reasons. Sure.
00:18:46
So when it went S, nobody was surprised.
00:18:48
But the other thing I like is Jed knew he would need guys of
00:18:54
their caliber because of things like when when a when a
00:18:59
obviously when the CIA is at its best, spies aren't going to be
00:19:03
the machine gun heavy shooting people up doing that.
00:19:06
Like you shouldn't even know they were there if they were
00:19:09
successful. But Jed knew it's not a perfect
00:19:12
world. Shit's going to go South.
00:19:13
And he wanted seal guys and he particularly want two guys who
00:19:16
already had that lingo, that relationship.
00:19:18
He wanted hunters. And so when they're hunting and
00:19:21
it comes to the final scene of this guy's cornered, he's a he's
00:19:24
a cornered animal. Rafe and Ben know exactly what
00:19:27
they're going to do. Doesn't even, he just shushes
00:19:30
him and then says exactly in like a few words how they're
00:19:33
going to cover each other. And I thought that was great to
00:19:36
flush him out. You know how Rafe goes, right?
00:19:38
He's going to pie the corner and actually expose himself.
00:19:41
He takes two shots at the brick wall that way.
00:19:44
He makes the guy jump out and Ben is right there on the left
00:19:49
hidden to take down the dude before he can hit Rafe.
00:19:52
They knew being Seal brothers. Exactly what to do in that
00:19:56
situation. There was no if, ands or buts.
00:19:58
There's no chain of command. They knew exactly how to
00:20:01
proceed. And that is part of, I would
00:20:03
say, Jed's genius, that he knew it would come to that at some
00:20:05
point. Yeah, no, 100%.
00:20:10
Makes me like it even more because so many stories that
00:20:12
kind of shit doesn't happen or it's out of the blue or I'm
00:20:16
supposed to believe these guys have been acting like brothers
00:20:18
and operating forever when we just met them and we don't know
00:20:22
who they are In 2, maybe 3 episodes.
00:20:26
You know everything about these two guys, their relationship,
00:20:29
their working relationship down range, their new relationship,
00:20:32
trying to figure out the spy thing.
00:20:35
It's just great banter. I, I, I really enjoy their
00:20:38
dialogue, their action scenes, their facial expressions that
00:20:42
they're playing off each other just so well.
00:20:43
They built that chemistry and it's incredible.
00:20:47
Yeah, I think that is extended in the third episode too, with,
00:20:51
you know, broadening, obviously bringing in this larger team.
00:20:55
I would say that the episode 3 is largely a Mohammed Farooq
00:21:01
episode, you know where he is. You know what, we get to see
00:21:05
more of that character, but then you know, also Ben interacting
00:21:09
with Landry. We also have this other guy ish
00:21:12
who I I thought was pretty cool. And then he just gets off to the
00:21:15
end of the third episode. It was like, damn, that was
00:21:17
quick. And he's like a a decently
00:21:21
famous actor. I mean, he's not like super
00:21:24
famous, but you know, Michael, early Michael, he's been in like
00:21:28
a lot of different things and the fact that he just one
00:21:31
episode guilt boom. Yeah, I, I was wondering one,
00:21:37
why that was done. Obviously, I think to raise the
00:21:39
stakes that this these people were dangerous.
00:21:42
The guys surrounding to now are the scientists that they were
00:21:46
going after whoever wanted to stop that deal from happening.
00:21:49
These people were dangerous. So I think it upped the stakes.
00:21:52
But it also there was a short conversation where MO had to go
00:21:56
do the thing which we should talk about.
00:21:58
MO had to go off the girl who turned out to be we thought of
00:22:02
Hezbollah, a Hezbollah kind of acquaintance of Denali.
00:22:07
Turns out she was the daughter and she was really innocent.
00:22:11
Once MO showed his face, I was like, oh shit, he's got to kill
00:22:15
her. And so it clicked what Ish was
00:22:17
telling him of like Ish was like, is it's hard?
00:22:20
Like will this be your first, you know, not first person
00:22:23
you've killed, but first person, like not in a combat role,
00:22:25
right? First person you've killed as a
00:22:27
civilian due to ACIA mission. And it's just like, if you want
00:22:30
to talk about it, MO was like, no, I'm good.
00:22:33
But MO didn't do it. Like Ish is the old school kill
00:22:37
anybody in cold blood. It's part of the mission.
00:22:39
It's I'm a spy, do The Dirty business.
00:22:42
MO is that, but with virtue. And so he didn't do the thing.
00:22:48
And I like how tall I did. You think he killed her or no
00:22:51
when he took that shot? No, I, I, I knew that he didn't
00:22:56
kill her. The way it was filmed, it's like
00:22:57
if if you don't see somebody die on screen, they're alive, you
00:23:01
know? You know they're not dead.
00:23:03
I didn't think he shot her because the way they filmed that
00:23:05
with just their eyes. I thought they were going to, I
00:23:06
thought they were going to drag that out.
00:23:08
I thought, I thought they were going to drag that out a little
00:23:10
bit more. Like we immediately get clarity
00:23:12
on whether or not he killed her. Like the next scene, the.
00:23:15
Next scene, yeah. I thought that was going to be
00:23:17
like something that, oh, you know, I thought it was going to
00:23:22
be brought up later on in the season.
00:23:23
Like he couldn't be. I don't know.
00:23:24
I don't know how they're going to.
00:23:25
But then I guess it's just it's more, it was more there to
00:23:29
establish his bona fides as MO is not this ruthless guy, you
00:23:35
know, he has a. Cold blooded killer, Yeah.
00:23:38
Yeah, he has a a past, but you know, he's, you know, there to
00:23:43
be trusted. Then they talk about his his
00:23:46
back story when he's explaining to Raul about Uday and the
00:23:50
Americans. You know, let him get the final
00:23:53
shot. Damn.
00:23:55
And what Uday did to his family, that goes right along with what
00:24:00
I said in episode 1, that I like that Duran and Duran's family
00:24:03
told you, why are we there? You know, why are our guys
00:24:09
losing their lives in Iraq in the sandbox?
00:24:12
It's because Duran's exist. Duran's families exist and
00:24:17
deserve somebody to stand up for them.
00:24:19
Well, same thing with MO, right? But MO is saying, yes, I need
00:24:23
the Americans, but I'm going to do it myself.
00:24:25
I'm going to build this from the ground up.
00:24:26
I'm going to be that guy who builds my country, defends my
00:24:29
country after what you know, the Baath Party and and Saddam and
00:24:33
cronies did. And I think this you're right.
00:24:36
It's as much as it's this nuclear physics, Iran kind of
00:24:39
bent. It's still Moe's episode.
00:24:41
I really think most deals the show.
00:24:44
I also just think it's a through line of this entire series, this
00:24:47
in harkening back to Episode 1, you know, going back to this,
00:24:53
like what happened to the Iraqi people.
00:24:55
And like, you know, MO even has that monologue like like we
00:24:58
mentioned in the the car of like you should have seen what Mosul
00:25:02
was like. We used to be like, you know,
00:25:04
and like. Yeah.
00:25:05
It just gives more empathy to these characters and more, I
00:25:10
don't know, empathy to the entire story.
00:25:13
I mean, you know, like the, IT gives humanity to it all and
00:25:16
understand like why people are are driven to do certain things.
00:25:21
And you know, why someone would want to stop Iran from getting
00:25:25
nuclear weapons because they might, you know, want to take
00:25:28
Iraq completely off the map, you know, get rid of Mosul
00:25:30
completely. So the, the meet up, the action
00:25:34
scene at the at the at the very end.
00:25:35
Yeah, No, I, I, it's great. I think, you know, anytime we go
00:25:39
into a subway and we're. Right.
00:25:42
I I think that that scene kind of serves again as this
00:25:48
escalation of Edwards as a a villain.
00:25:53
I'm going to keep calling him villain because of ultimately
00:25:55
what he is, but like, you know, his his transformation, we'll
00:25:57
call it. Sure.
00:25:59
Especially like there's a reason that they have him look and
00:26:02
smile right at a little girl girl and then off a dude and
00:26:05
then off a dude. That's intense, dude.
00:26:08
Yeah, it's almost like if you didn't know why he did that,
00:26:14
you'd be like, this guy's bipolar.
00:26:15
This is like some crazy stuff. He's sitting looking at the
00:26:18
girl. But mission, man, like mission,
00:26:23
he had to get that photo. He even snaps a photo of the
00:26:25
dead guy after he kills him because that's their only lead,
00:26:28
right? Who was following the scientist
00:26:30
who didn't want the deal to go through?
00:26:32
Who's involved in all this? Yeah.
00:26:34
Oh, and Moe's, Moe's escape. So even before Ben has to go off
00:26:38
and Rafe just misses the train, Right.
00:26:40
So once that moment hits, you're like, Ben's on his own.
00:26:43
I was like, we're going to see a SEAL SEAL, you know, like the
00:26:47
SEAL going to SEAL right here. But once he was solo, like dark
00:26:50
wolf, right? Lone wolf on that train when
00:26:53
those doors close, I was like, that is a lone dark wolf who's
00:26:57
not going to stop at nothing. Even sitting across from this
00:26:59
little girl, genuinely making eye contact with her, He's not
00:27:03
stopping. That guy's right over there.
00:27:05
And what's got to be done? It's got to be done.
00:27:08
He's a hardliner. He he's the the true believer
00:27:10
right now. So yeah, I I think, I think
00:27:13
that's awesome. But before we get there, equally
00:27:17
as enthralling was MO's escape. How how they got the whole thing
00:27:21
planned down to AT and they have to go with their third option.
00:27:24
You know, first options cut off, second options cut off.
00:27:27
They're all again, Geo locating each other, knowing where the
00:27:30
turns are. And Tal is on Overwatch.
00:27:32
She's been great. She she's cleaned up some dead
00:27:34
bodies. She's, you know, gotten the van
00:27:36
out of there. She's doing all the tech stuff.
00:27:39
She's a forger, she's getting them documents.
00:27:41
Tal's also the Swiss Army knife, who I really, really like.
00:27:44
Again, she's Mossad though, so how far can that trust go?
00:27:48
We're not sure. But right now I really like her.
00:27:51
I like your conversation with MO.
00:27:55
And ultimately when MO gets out of there, he even has to go
00:27:57
through that like hardware shop and he grabs A sledgehammer
00:27:59
knowing the guy's right there. He's cool, calm, collected.
00:28:03
He's cool as a cucumber as he's mowing dudes down and and
00:28:07
running this SDR to get out of there.
00:28:09
And who is it? Landry comes by with the van.
00:28:11
So I love this team. I love the team up third episode
00:28:16
and you've got me this bought into not only the main
00:28:19
characters, but the secondary team supporting the main
00:28:22
characters. Never thought I would be this
00:28:25
bought in and and I am. Yeah, no, I'm honestly
00:28:29
surprised. I'm honestly really shocked.
00:28:31
Pleasantly surprised. Yeah, especially with, you know,
00:28:36
kind of our reservations and disappointment we were with the
00:28:41
the first seasons of eternal loss, like and you know, maybe
00:28:44
that's just because there's no book to compare this to.
00:28:48
So we what, what we have is what we have and we're we're
00:28:52
appreciating it. But like you said, like we've
00:28:54
said before in the last episode and we'll say it again this
00:28:56
episode, I do think they're being true to the universe and
00:29:03
they're being cognizant, respectful and everything fits.
00:29:09
So I'm I'm hooked these two episodes to me ranking a. 100% a
00:29:15
I still. Give AB it's it's an A.
00:29:19
You know, I'm a critic, dude. You know, whether it's books or
00:29:22
TV or movies we've covered in the past, I can find the little
00:29:27
quirks. I can tear it apart.
00:29:28
The little things that go wrong spiral into big things.
00:29:31
They bother me. I can't yell with a story
00:29:33
because there's minor things that are tripping me up.
00:29:36
The buy in factor, right? If, if I can't buy in, I'm out.
00:29:40
I might not even finish that thing.
00:29:42
It's so completely the opposite that it's refreshing because I'm
00:29:45
usually the first and biggest critic of TV shows and movies.
00:29:49
My my thing is don't waste my time if if, if the product is
00:29:52
not quality, I don't want you wasting my time.
00:29:54
So I can turn these things off, I can pull them apart.
00:29:57
And for me to give two straight A's through three episodes, I'm
00:30:01
a harsh critic. So I, I got to say, I think I
00:30:03
think the show is doing phenomenally well.
00:30:06
I it rightfully is deserving all the praise I've seen it
00:30:09
advertised billboards their their marketing campaign seems
00:30:13
to really be hitting a lot of stuff on social media, a lot of
00:30:16
commentary on YouTube. The terminalist first season did
00:30:19
not have a lot of commentary like third party accounts
00:30:22
wanting to review it, something like a screen rant or these
00:30:24
other groups. Well, now they're doing
00:30:26
interviews with the actors. The marketing wing of this thing
00:30:29
I think is way, way, way higher than it was with the last
00:30:32
season. I think everybody from top down,
00:30:35
Chris Pratt's production team, Amazon, a Jack Carr and his
00:30:40
entourage and Enterprise, they figured it out.
00:30:45
They really figured out the secret sauce.
00:30:49
I did. It has me optimistic about true
00:30:53
believer. True believer, right?
00:30:55
Agreed. Agreed.
00:30:56
One thing though, you said, which really struck me, the best
00:31:01
parts of the Terminalist season 1 were kind of the parts not
00:31:06
from the book. Every time they tried to go to
00:31:07
the book, it got clunky, didn't leave up live up to
00:31:10
expectations. The writers when given the
00:31:13
ability to write in universe but not in book, did the best script
00:31:18
to the best dialogue, the best screen writing of that season.
00:31:22
And now we're seeing that completely, they're in universe,
00:31:24
respect to the universe, but not on page, which allows them to be
00:31:28
screenwriters, right? Like create dialogue, create
00:31:31
characters, create stories without being tied down to
00:31:35
someone else's vision, Jack Carr's vision.
00:31:37
So I just really like how all that is gelling. 100 percent,
00:31:42
100%. What's next all?
00:31:46
Right, we got dude, I gotta go. I want I'm so today we're
00:31:50
recording episode 5 just dropped.
00:31:52
So like I am, I want to go watch episode 4 and 5:00 so we can, we
00:31:57
can talk about it like immediately.
00:31:59
Do you like that reveal? Do you like how they didn't dump
00:32:01
them all at once? I kind of do.
00:32:05
Oh yeah, I meant to ask you about that.
00:32:06
Like so they they dropped the first three of at once and now
00:32:09
they're doing it weekly. And this is like a a thing now
00:32:16
that people have done, it's like we're going to drop a couple
00:32:19
because everyone knows that if you just drop one, the the pilot
00:32:23
watches anymore. No one comes back to the second
00:32:25
Yeah. Unless you have like an amazing
00:32:29
pilot has to be great is going to hit.
00:32:31
Right. No one ever does that.
00:32:33
It's it's at least 2 episodes, 3 episodes and then I.
00:32:37
Also didn't like the building drops though of all of it at
00:32:40
once like the COVID era. I I'm glad we moved on from that
00:32:43
to be honest. Well, because terminalist was
00:32:45
all at once, right? Or was it similar?
00:32:49
No, I think they did episodes one and two actually.
00:32:53
You know what? Episodes one and two were both
00:32:55
filmed and written as one giant episode.
00:32:58
So they released one and two at the same time, then weekly.
00:33:02
No, but it it no, it was really all on July 1st.
00:33:06
I remember. That's why it was like so
00:33:08
daunting to me because we had to like the entire season was, was
00:33:12
dropped. We wanted to cover like every,
00:33:15
every episode. Yeah, you're right.
00:33:18
We obviously didn't have time to like binge it all and then
00:33:20
record like back-to-back to back.
00:33:23
I like it. It gives us a you're right.
00:33:25
I I, I, I want to get back. I I, I wish we would get back to
00:33:29
these like. The water cooler.
00:33:31
I don't know water cooler moments Like there's no more
00:33:38
like cultural zeitgeist really anymore.
00:33:40
Like unless like a TikTok or or meme hits off, you know, like
00:33:45
Tua, like there's. Buy your meme coins.
00:33:51
There's nothing you, you know, I, I remember back, back to like
00:33:56
Lost. I I mentioned Game of Thrones
00:33:58
before, but Lost, you know, hell even 24 back in the day.
00:34:03
Like 24. I would go West Wing, you know,
00:34:06
real, real back in the day. Yeah, it was the Talk of the
00:34:09
Town or even other these other dramas.
00:34:11
I don't watch them, but the Talk of the Town, that was a drama.
00:34:13
You knew it was the show everybody needed to see.
00:34:17
Mad Men, Breaking Bad, You know, Homeland.
00:34:24
I don't expect anything in the Terminalist to be that, to be
00:34:27
the zeitgeist, the water cooler moment.
00:34:29
I think like sure, I said Rosie said my wife last episode.
00:34:33
It is for a particular demographic, so I don't expect
00:34:36
it to be that wide. But within that demographic,
00:34:39
create a community where those conversations can be had.
00:34:41
Like our book club group chat. If everybody just watched the
00:34:46
whole season and wanted to talk about the end, and then it took
00:34:49
months and months and months for other people to roll it out, we
00:34:51
never really get to have a conversation about it.
00:34:53
What? That's why like a book club,
00:34:55
when you have a dedicated book and people read it, that's a lot
00:34:58
of fun. Sure.
00:34:59
As opposed to everyone's going to read it months apart.
00:35:01
Some people won't remember it, some people have never read it.
00:35:04
I don't expect the Terminalist to be that for the wider
00:35:07
culture, but within this subculture of folks who love
00:35:10
thrillers, military stuff, Jack Cars fanbase, you know, his
00:35:14
faithful to get something like this to talk about each week or
00:35:17
text somebody. What episode you up to?
00:35:19
I watched 30. I'm going to watch 3 tonight and
00:35:21
then, you know, within those small circles to recreate that
00:35:25
is a blast. COVID blew that out of the water
00:35:27
when every single show was just dropped all the time.
00:35:30
Everybody had was at home so many hours they could watch
00:35:33
whatever they wanted in any order they wanted, whenever they
00:35:35
wanted and binge it for as long as they wanted.
00:35:38
Kind of. I grew.
00:35:39
I got tired of that. Yeah, me too.
00:35:42
Like it's, you know, people were doing watching all of Friends
00:35:47
again. And it's like, yeah, I'd watch
00:35:48
Friends, but I can't remember, you know, back when I was, I
00:35:54
don't know, in fifth grade, like, I probably shouldn't have
00:35:58
been watching the show Friends in fifth grade.
00:35:59
But we like, me and my mom would watch Friends like every
00:36:02
Thursday. I remember like going back and
00:36:03
there was other friends at school that would watch it.
00:36:05
Like having those moments just mean more.
00:36:09
I don't know. I just, it, it, it's like the
00:36:12
Monday Night Football, you know, like you watch your team play,
00:36:16
you go to work and you can talk about it like, right.
00:36:20
It's very hard to do that nowadays because oh, I'm on
00:36:23
season 2 of episode, you know, I'm on episode 8 of season 2.
00:36:27
Oh, I'm on episode 10 of season 12.
00:36:31
Like what? Like, and we're going to have a
00:36:34
one hour conversation about maybe like 7 seasons.
00:36:37
Like get the fuck out of here. Yeah, similar to what kind of
00:36:44
MCU stuff was my buddies at work was three of us.
00:36:47
We eat lunch all the time. Anytime an an MCU like Phase One
00:36:51
movie came out, it was everything we wanted to talk
00:36:53
about for a week straight. We we'd want to have lunch
00:36:55
together just to talk about that movie.
00:36:57
Now there's 37 of them. They're on like Phase 16.
00:37:00
We didn't even talk about them anymore.
00:37:02
At one they became crap. But it's just like they don't
00:37:05
have that the gravity, that gravitas of you see it, you want
00:37:10
to go talk about it. You're anticipating for months
00:37:13
or a year the next one. It's all just like all these
00:37:16
movies just keep coming. I'll I'll watch a few of them.
00:37:18
Some of them are crap, some of them are good.
00:37:19
It's like, no, I want that really well created thing that
00:37:22
you have to wait for and it builds up and everybody watches
00:37:25
it. Then you talk about it.
00:37:29
Yeah, I think like ultimately, you know, streaming has kind of
00:37:32
done that to a lot of things that I think especially with
00:37:35
Disney, like when they I was avid, like I remember, I
00:37:40
remember the day it was my birthday, 2019, going to see end
00:37:45
game in the theatre and like being so excited and that like
00:37:49
that being the pinnacle. And then like, you know, again,
00:37:54
COVID, they're dropping movies day and date the same time
00:37:58
they're in the theatre. You could just watch them
00:37:59
online. Yeah.
00:38:01
It's like, that's weird. I'm glad, I guess, you know,
00:38:04
anyways, we're ranting, we're going off topic, but I think
00:38:06
like, it's glad to see that we're taking a step back from
00:38:11
that and that there's a happy medium we can have, you know,
00:38:16
like, all right, a little bit of a binge because one, we have to
00:38:22
have at least three episodes now because, or two episodes now
00:38:26
because we're, we're used to that.
00:38:28
But then, you know, I'm, I'm OK waiting a week.
00:38:31
I I want to like, I get excited about when I when an episode
00:38:35
drops, so. Completely, dude.
00:38:37
You remember the feeling sitting in a movie theater and the Star
00:38:41
Wars theme drops and the scrolling text comes up.
00:38:46
That was an unreal feeling. And, and I love the Star Wars
00:38:51
expanded universe stuff and the and and all the other cartoons,
00:38:53
but it's just like, I don't know if you recreate the feeling of
00:38:58
seeing a Star Wars just opening scene, opening credits drop, cue
00:39:03
the music. It's it's special.
00:39:04
I used. To get like that, seeing the
00:39:06
Marvel, the Marvel logo come up. Marvel had that for a little
00:39:11
while, yeah. The early stuff, the Phase 1
00:39:13
stuff. You get that tingling, you get
00:39:15
that tingly feeling and and then it's just, it's saturation,
00:39:19
right? Exactly, exactly.
00:39:21
It's over saturated. They started having, they had
00:39:24
you know, talk about they had 6 movies from in like 6 years.
00:39:30
They went from that to having 6 movies in one year.
00:39:34
Yeah. Plus like 5 TV shows.
00:39:38
TV shows you had to keep up with?
00:39:39
Yeah. And and yeah, having everything
00:39:42
interconnected just like, you know, even.
00:39:46
You know what lost me that we're on a rant now.
00:39:48
What lost me was when the post credit scenes used to be so like
00:39:56
so powerful. The, the, everyone was on the
00:39:59
edge of their seats for the post credit scenes.
00:40:01
And then it became what? Who's that?
00:40:04
What happened? What?
00:40:06
That person's in which show? I didn't watch that one.
00:40:08
So it's like even these post credit scenes, which they were
00:40:10
like famous for, which was their big nail biters, don't leave,
00:40:14
don't leave. You'll be telling other people
00:40:15
in the theater. And now I'm like who who I
00:40:18
don't. Know the ones that create
00:40:19
character right? Like.
00:40:21
Yeah, yeah. But then it got away from them.
00:40:23
The the bit. The bit went too long, you know?
00:40:27
Yeah. Because they they were
00:40:30
impactful, but they ultimately didn't matter.
00:40:33
Yeah, anyways, we're we're going down a a a long rant, but
00:40:36
anyways, I think this show again did bring it back to dark wolf.
00:40:44
You know it doesn't rely on terminal lists.
00:40:47
Season 1 it. No.
00:40:49
It could exist by itself. It's if you watch season 1,
00:40:53
great, if you read the books, great.
00:40:55
If not, it's a pretty good series by itself.
00:40:57
So. I think if you watch this series
00:41:02
just thinking episodes two and three with this pivot to CIA and
00:41:05
these guys being the dark, you know, Ben Edwards being the dark
00:41:08
wolf and these missions are going on.
00:41:11
And then you think of Red Sky morning.
00:41:14
It's it's, it's like they're really in the same universe.
00:41:18
They parallel each other. There's there's so much about
00:41:20
them, you know, Reese being CIA and Dick Rodriguez.
00:41:24
So I just feel like they're respecting the craft, respecting
00:41:29
the tradition and building something even better than what
00:41:32
we already had. And it fits so seamlessly into
00:41:34
the universe. So hats off to the team and
00:41:38
makes you want to read the books.
00:41:39
The series number one thing we have to measure it against is
00:41:42
does it bring new viewers to the books?
00:41:46
And so far what I'm seeing, I don't know how it doesn't.
00:41:50
Yeah, no, 100%. All right, so next time we're on
00:41:55
the pod, we will be covering episodes four and five.
00:41:58
Can't wait. Before we get to that episode,
00:42:02
we got to thank our patrons, including our deputy director,
00:42:05
Sherry F, Brad E, our special agents, Adam, Mike, Ben, Daryl,
00:42:09
George, Matt, Dawn and Chris. Please go subscribe to all three
00:42:15
seasons of No Limits. You can find us@thrillerpod.com
00:42:18
or on Twitter and Instagram at Thriller Podcast.
00:42:24
And as always, just let MO be MO.