Episodes 2–3 of The Terminal List: Dark Wolf raise the stakes with shocking twists and shifting alliances. We break down all the major plot points and character moves.
⚠️ Full spoilers for this episode of The Terminal List: Dark Wolf
🎙️ Part of No Limits: The Thriller Podcast series covering all Jack Carr books and TV.
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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
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.