The Terminal List Season 2, Eps 1–4 Review: True Believer Book vs. Show (Spoilers)

[00:00:09] All right, guys, welcome back to the Thriller Podcast. Or today we are throwing back to the Terminal List Podcast. And I am joined, unfortunately not by Chris, but good friend of the pod. He's practically our third co-host at this point. Tyler Boer, welcome back to the pod. What's going on, Mike? How are you today?

[00:00:30] I am good. And I am not more than 10 minutes fresh off of finishing episode four. So you are going to have hot takes, first reaction, hot off the press coming from me. All right. Sounds good. I rewatched one through four today after watching all the whole season upon release. So I have a couple of notes. So if we lose our pace anywhere, I can at least go like event by event a little bit, but definitely took some notes on some stuff. I think it is worth discussing for sure.

[00:01:00] Yeah, we always enjoy Tyler's notes on the pod. So that's going to be a good one. We know you're the gun guy. You're the gear head. You are Jack Carr faithful through and through. So can't wait to have this chat with you. But just to tell the people a little bit about who we are, if you don't know, the Thriller Podcast is your after show for all things thrillers. We review mostly books, but we've dabbled with TV and movies.

[00:01:22] And our big shtick is spoilers. We are going to be jumping right into the content, spoiling the TV show episodes one through four. And then we'll have a second part for you with episodes four through eight. But today only we're going up through episode four. And that's all I've watched. So you've watched the whole show. We both have read the book. We have already covered over an hour and a half podcast reviewing the book on the Thriller Podcast main theme.

[00:01:46] So if you're just joining us from the TV side of things and you want to know a little bit more about the books behind the show, we've covered every Jack Carr book, hours of content. So definitely dig into the archives if you are interested in some spoiler after hours episodes about the books. But Tyler, one thing you said to me just from the get go, this is one of the closest book to television adaptations you've ever seen. I completely agree.

[00:02:11] Yeah, I think going into it, knowing what the book content was, I think whenever you sit down and look at what all eight episodes encompass, which we aren't going to get into all eight, but the pacing really works. I think after watching one and two, I wished that maybe that season was 10 episodes and we got two in Africa.

[00:02:30] But I think almost a whole episode on the boat at sea was pretty ballsy of them to actually go with, because I think just TV viewers might find it a little boring or cumbersome. But I think they use their time well with having Ben Edwards on the boat and things like that. So I was curious to see what you thought. And we can obviously just start in order with episode one, which is what you say the title was? Romulus SV. SV, sailing vessel Romulus. Yep.

[00:02:59] Bitter harvest in the book. So a little bit of a name change. We talked about that in season one, but I like it. Romulus, you know, founder of Rome, killed his brother, won the throne. And brother comes up a lot in both the last season, but this season as well. And Ben Edwards and Reese. So what better setting, place to have Ben and Reese square off as brothers than on a ship named Romulus? I thought that was a fitting change.

[00:03:26] Yeah, I think to start off, I think something I found interesting was they decided to kind of introduce you to where Reese is since we last saw him, which it's been four years since the show ended season one. They did dark wolf since then. But basically, this is supposed to pick up shortly after the end of season one. He's still at sea trying to make it to Africa.

[00:03:47] And something I thought was interesting. They show him for a quick moment and then they go right into some online status and following of James Reese. There's like a hashtag. Where is James Reese? There's a quick little blip from the Jocko podcast with Jocko on there. Yeah. And trying to say that he knows seals that served with Reese and stuff and he's not ready to call him a terrorist and things like that. And I think a little bit later, they get into Katie on Bill Maher a little bit.

[00:04:17] But it's more like a digital following that he's gaining. And they kind of catch you up with a couple of events that have happened since season one, including they dug up all of Alpha Team's bodies and basically confirmed that they had tumors from the testing from Capstone. And so from there, they kind of get into some aftermath regarding some of the events from season one. Yeah. You missed the most important part, though, is Wilson and the volleyball.

[00:04:47] And oh, wait, never mind. That's Cast Away. Yeah. Wrong movie. But the whole time I was just I was just thinking, I'm like, is Chris Pratt trying his best Tom Hanks impression here? It just it felt outside of the series in the sense of it felt like another genre of storytelling. And then it was like, oh, this really is Terminalist every time we got the Ben Edwards flashbacks.

[00:05:09] And yeah, those those ghost apparitions are what really brought me back into the Terminalist universe of it all and really had me recalling and remembering season one. But I have to say a lot of what you just went into to me was a risk, like you said, to stay on the boat for so long and to have Reese go through this journey.

[00:05:29] But another risk they took embedded in all of this was leaning into the season one psychological drama of it all about Reese's memory not being perfect, him having these visions, these flashbacks, the headaches. I thought they played up a little more the unreliable narrator of it all from season one. And I was like, whoa, is this what they're going to do in season two? They're going to rehash that same kind of shtick that they led with so heavily in season one.

[00:05:57] But no, I think they just used episode one as a bridge to establish that. Yeah, I agree. I think episode one, they kind of show you the last of that unreliable narrator a little bit. And just in this episode, Reese goes through what is traditionally known as the hero's journey. There is like a full problem. He goes, it's not it's not a cave. He goes into the water, but he ends up being reborn the hero after that.

[00:06:21] And I think post the shipwreck, but we're, you know, getting toppled over, you know, overboard. I think there's a big moment where he's trying to decide whether to stay in the water or get out. And he has a hit rock bottom. Yeah. Which I think he does. I also enjoyed the Ben Edwards on the boat and things like that.

[00:06:42] But I think it also helped to bridge viewers probably from Dark Wolf to this because, you know, from release, Dark Wolf was last before this. So people are familiar with Ben. So I thought it was a good move probably to have him immediately on screen also. But I do think it was pretty gutsy and ballsy to spend so much time on the boat, even though I personally wanted it. And in the book, there is a lot of time, many chapters on the boat of flashbacks and backstory building with Rafe and college and things like that.

[00:07:11] And basically teen and early 20s is built on flashbacks of the boat and everything like that. And I also liked how they kind of sped it up a little bit. Every time you check in on him, it has a day counter. And there was a shot from the sky above it that they use in the trailer with the compass around it. It was pretty awesome. Starts heading west. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So good. No, I liked all of it.

[00:07:37] Unfortunately, one of my hot takes on episode one was going to be the best part of it. Was the teaser at the end, because I went through all of this just like in the book and people criticize the sailboat stuff. I loved it. People criticize the Africa stuff, which we'll get to soon. I loved it. So the fact that they're taking time with it is totally on book. And the fact that you're right, they have to not only bridge season one, they have to bridge Dark Wolf.

[00:08:03] So it's almost like they kind of stuffed this episode with so much that they just kind of had to do. I unfortunately feel like the actual story that's going to be the true believer plot doesn't take off until end of episode two, kicks off with episode three. And then we're full into it, episode four. And it just took a while to get there. And I don't know. I was wondering about that choice. I wanted the boat, wanted Africa. Glad they did it. But as I'm watching it, I'm like, is this going to work for outside audiences?

[00:08:31] Do you feel like episode one did enough to get non-book readers or maybe people who just watched season one to get them fully back invested and ready to go? No, I do. And I think if it was closer, if you wanted to really do the book content, you would end up with an episode and a half on the boat. That's probably too much for non-book readers just because of how long it does take in the book. And it's all important stuff. It's all necessary. It's not like a drag.

[00:08:58] And I think maybe upon first reading, both the boat and Africa seem like a drag. You're like, OK, where's the action? But once the action starts, it doesn't stop in book two in True Believer. And so I think myself and a lot of other fans look back on the first half of True Believer as like a pleasant and peaceful time for Reese. And we kind of go back to it because all the other books are just they're not stuffed with action or overdone.

[00:09:24] But there's not really a big chunk of time where things are peaceful for him, except for the first half of True Believer. And finding new purpose and a new reason to live is pretty awesome. And I was about to say that's why the book had to take the time. I'm still juggling with if it works in a visual format. But the book had to take its time to establish his purpose, give him a new lease on life, have him regain out in the wild, right?

[00:09:50] Out on family land with so much tradition and so much connection to people and nature and self-reflection on who you are. I don't think Reese could have became the badass taking names, kicking down doors, operating again type seal unless he went through that journey. And that journey was entirely restorative and all in. And so I think Africa, I think the boat in Africa allow him to go on that journey.

[00:10:15] And it's required to get him back to the Reese we all want him to be. The one who's just kicking ass and chasing down Moe and tracking terrorists. I don't think you would have sold me on that unless we took the time to do this. And like you said, the water scene, hitting rock bottom, deciding if the game is worth playing. And when he hears ring the bell, you know, tap out, he digs into that inner seal life and that code that's embedded in him and says, oh, hell no.

[00:10:45] You know, I'm taking action. And so that was the turning point. And then from there, when he's able to confront Ben, I think without having that moment, he would have never fought off Ben. He would have never released his demons. And so I think that scene followed with the confrontation with Ben where he's finally willing to let him go. To me, that's when things got started. And sadly, it was the very tail end of the episode.

[00:11:07] Yeah, and later on, there's actually a replacement for Ben in the seat of being haunted by your past in a dream sequence within the first four episodes here we'll talk about as well. So I think I agree. Defeating Ben and having the back and forth with Ben was absolutely necessary. You have to think about how much you would have missed out on if this season started with his feet hitting the beach in Mozambique and we lose the boat part. I think you really need it.

[00:11:37] So I think the boat part is super necessary. You brought up something that I actually missed upon my first watch. And so my second one was I loved whenever he's in the water, he's hearing Bud's instructor from season one. Commander Cox. Yeah. And he was basically telling him, you know, you can ring the bell and quit. And he decides not to. Real quick, the first funny moment that made me laugh is there's a faraway shot after he gets back in the boat from the storm and everything's broken.

[00:12:06] And flooding and everything's shit. And you can't quite tell what Reese yells. He either says like he just yells in general or he says, fuck, like super loud. But the shot is so far away. And it made me laugh because he's like, well, yeah, he's like going through stuff in close up shot. And then it cuts to far away in the boats real small year. Fuck. Fuck. And it's just him pissed off at everything. It's so funny. You know, I had captions on. I had closed captions on. Sometimes with TV, you miss stuff if you don't have it on. I put it on as well.

[00:12:35] So I wish I can go back and think about that moment. But that's good. I think closed captioning actually has helped my reading speed for books. Ah. I could see it. But yeah. Sure. That was a unique moment for you. One for me that hit particularly because it was pretty well played. But it was also something that I don't think was from the books. And that really connected this whole memory loss unreliable narrator thing was when he's holding the drawing. Lucy's drawing. Yeah.

[00:13:05] And he has the terminal list, the list on the back. Yeah. And it's got Lauren, Lucy, and him. And his name is not crossed off. Yeah. That was just one of his visions. Like that was one of those moments where he was contemplating it. Right. Yeah. I like when the crayon. The crayon that's not there rolls into shot and bumps and he realizes what's going on. And that was something they brought in again from the first season, which is any of the memories during the unreliable narrator push,

[00:13:32] any of the memories that Reese has where the daughter is wearing red or any other character is wearing red. It's a false. It's fake. Memory. It's like a false positive. Yeah. So if you watch, there's a couple of moments where. Yeah. Red crayon. And then there's a moment later on where you get to see a red cape again on Lucy. So, but real quick, before we move on to episode two, a couple of other things that are important just for story push was like Katie and Andranov.

[00:14:01] And Andranov meet for the first time and have a meeting. And then Mo pilots a drone and attaches an IED to a vehicle. Right. And do we also have the Christmas market scene? That's how the show opens, right? So Christmas market is right after the online following stuff with like Jocko and where is James Reese and stuff before you ever get back to Reese on the boat. There's a Christmas market. So we should definitely hit that real quick too. And Al Nawaz showing himself to the CCT cameras and them choosing to put in London. I don't think the book was London.

[00:14:31] I think it was Germany. It is. I thought it was. Okay. Now that you say Germany, now I'm second guessing myself. I thought it was London. I just listened to the book recently. For some reason, I keep coming back to a German Christmas market. Maybe that's just a thing in my head. In the book, it's also really brutal. It almost happens the same way where IEDs go off and it pushes the crowd to a bottleneck. And the secondary attack. Yeah, there's a secondary attack. Now the show, I had a friend say he thinks that the show should have been a little more brutal and honest with that event.

[00:14:58] Now I think they did the right thing because this is like the second thing you see. This is like first 10 minutes of the premiere. And I think if you get brutal first 10 minutes, you're going to lose a couple of people. I think you're trying to revisit and get back into these characters. So I think the way they did it was fine. I think the terror was there. You didn't need to have brutality for brutality's sake. You already created the fear when you had the crowd of people. You saw their faces.

[00:15:22] And I think what you have to do is establish Nawaz as a modern day terrorist, as the next wave of Al-Qaeda whose playbook is different. They're not hiding from the cameras. They are facing the cameras. They want you to know who they are. Yeah, and I thought it was really good that they chose to just have a new updated reborn and more advanced Al-Qaeda that's more capable. I think that's a good enough main villain pool to have for this season.

[00:15:47] And also in Al-Qaeda, that's no longer using, you know, leftover materials, you know, from the Mouge of the 90s. Like, no, they're getting the top of the top drone operators. Somehow the U.S. government and senators are involved in skimming this stuff off the top. But they have connections to people of power and high up places to get the weaponry that should really scare the shit out of us. Yeah, which in the novel, you get a bird's eye view of how those deals are happening.

[00:16:16] In the show, you get to learn it from Rafe and Katie's point of view. Rafe and Katie, for the non-book readers, they aren't in the book really that much except for very briefly. Rafe is in flashbacks. The Hastings obviously are in Mozambique. But Katie is in it briefly. Reese does do something stateside and sees her and wants to, like, talk to her. But he gets a phone call, gets pulled away.

[00:16:42] So the whole stateside visit from Reese here within the first half of the season doesn't take place, which I think is a good move. I think in the book, it's like they really bounce him around from place to place pretty quickly. I think they did well. And another thing I thought was cool, which we'll get to in episode three, is there's some redactions in the novel for locations. And in the show, they just tell you where it is, which is cool.

[00:17:11] I knew they were filming in Morocco. And I guess we're jumping to, what, episode three or so with this. Yeah, we can wait. But once they bring Reese in the black side in Morocco, I was shocked. I was like, oh, they said Morocco. So I remember Jack telling us that in some interviews. He's like, it was redacted in one copy, then not the second release or the paperback release. Yeah. You know, they vetoed or they appealed the CIA review board. And that information was made public. So they were allowed to say it in subsequent copies. So I was shocked when they were just that straight up with there's a black side in Morocco.

[00:17:41] Like, that was probably based on something real. Yeah. Yeah. So can I stick on Katie and Rafe for a minute? Because you're right in saying it's maybe the biggest off book switch that you notice early on. Katie is only in that one scene where Reese is kind of, I don't want to say stalking her, but he's ready to approach her. Yeah, he's stalking her. Yeah.

[00:18:04] He also doesn't know how to account for the scene at the end of Terminalist when he took the chance with her life that Ben had the dead cord around her neck. And so he knows she's wondering, did you know it would kill me? And he doesn't know how to answer. Yeah. You know why he did what he did and chose to kill Ben over save her. But he knew it would save her. But he still is like, he doesn't have an answer yet. He doesn't know what to tell her. Then the Rafe of it all, you're right in True Believer, we really meet Rich Hastings.

[00:18:33] And that's about it with the Hastings kind of aura. We are getting Rafe here with Katie. So I think a lot of the Voltstream media stuff is brand new, totally made up now. And Dreynov is in the book. He is a main character, just going to put it that way. But this whole idea of him taking over Voltstream, him being the billionaire oligarch who wants a media outlet. And we still don't know why. In the novel, she actually worked for Fox in the second novel. Yep.

[00:19:00] Because she moves on, I think, from who she was working for, which I think was Voltstream in the first book. Yeah. That and she's really supposed to be, what's her name? Jack's friend. Yeah. Yeah. So the Katie and Rafe of it all, through episodes one and maybe two, I was trying to figure out why this relationship. It's almost like they're Batman and Robin. They're like these kind of undercover investigators.

[00:19:27] And I'm like, I don't know if the detective story will work out between the two of them. Yeah. I think that instead of just us seeing events from the book that are like kind of what the bad guys are doing behind the scenes, it's more of like there's a little bit of a mystery and the Batman and Robin here are going to figure it out and we get to see it through the good guys point of view, which I think works. It was a little odd at first, but on the second rewatch, just knowing it's coming, it was a little bit easier.

[00:19:55] And also, I think Katie is a lot more well written this season than season one. Yeah. And as I was saying, I wasn't sure I was with you. I was like, I know they have to do this. They got to get the intel. They got to track this web of people. Yeah. And somehow that's going to tie to Mo and why Reese is brought back in to track down Mo. So I'm like all these loose threads, somebody out there has to be finding the pieces that are going to help it click. Kind of smart to make the two of them doing it.

[00:20:23] But all of it really landed with the end of episode four. The part that I'm just coming off with. So maybe we just keep rolling here because holy shit. Like spoiler warning. You had to watch episode four. She gets shot twice. What? And like Rafe is saving her. So they're really like all in. They're in the thick of it now. So let's build up to that moment. But let's stay in Africa for a little while. Yeah.

[00:20:46] So episode one ends with Reese getting off the plane at the hunting reserve and being greeted by Hastings. So into episode two, which is titled Warrior in the Garden, which is a little bit of a saying. It's better to be a warrior in the garden than a gardener in war. And so I have that like we start off with Rafe at work here. So Rafe's introduced for I think that's the first time we get to really see him.

[00:21:15] He's at work, which is buying and selling arms out of Montana somewhere with a team of people. So he starts off buying F-16 engines, trying to sell them elsewhere. I think he tries to sell them to Turkey. His boss wants to sell them to Saudi Arabia, some things like that. So did you find it interesting seeing a white collar Rafe? It looked like he was working a desk job at a cubicle. I was so confused. A little bit. I don't think I felt like he was white collar Rafe. He wasn't like, I don't know.

[00:21:45] I feel like it would make sense with like all of his contacts and his preferences and stuff like that. However, I wish they had to write it in there for him to be this involved. Like he is tacking something from his side that just runs into what Katie's doing. But I really enjoy his occupation from Savage Son, which is where in the novels you really get to know him and spend the most time with him, I think. Which he's a custom gun maker in Montana. Right.

[00:22:14] I was gonna say, I knew he was doing something on the ranch. He was out in Montana. Well, so he's in Montana. He's a hunting guide. And somebody brought a gun. It went click instead of bang. And so then he started making custom rifles that are like six figures. Yeah. There's still time to see that side of Rafe. I do think what struck me as odd at first about this startup. But like you said, with his connections in the military and how many threads he can pull and the people he knows, he can get the insider scoop on a lot of stuff. So it could really help a startup like this.

[00:22:44] So I could see them bringing in someone like him for his level of expertise and knowledge. But it really took off for me when he's like greasing the skids with his guy at Fort Meade. And he's asking him like, hey, weigh the pallets. I don't care about these requests. You and I are gonna look into this and take it into our own hands. Yeah. And not just be pawns in a game that's being played by these senators and congresspeople. Yeah. I really liked when he started doing that kind of stuff.

[00:23:09] And that made me realize, aha, this is why a startup would need him and want him and why he'd take the job. Yeah. Yeah. He ends up, you know, proving his worth. And yes, I think being smarter and digging into stuff that nobody else was willing to. There's definitely some stuff that is very much like Rafe from the novels. And so there's a couple of things coming up we'll discuss that are pretty awesome that he gets to do.

[00:23:34] But one of the notes I wrote down is like at this beginning part, whenever we go back to Nyasa, there's a bunch of really awesome vehicles all in like a couple of shots. There's a bunch of Safari Land Cruisers with no roofs. There's all kinds of stuff. There's quite a bit of good vehicles in this episode. There's some FJ-62s that are right-hand drive with ambulance doors and high roofs and all kinds of stuff. There's a bunch of shit that like I was like picking apart super close because that's my jam.

[00:24:04] Dude, I was thinking about you during all those scenes with the Land Cruisers. And then I don't know, you know, four wheels from four wheels. So when he steals the other vehicle to get to the hospital in the medical clinic, I was like, I bet Ty's going to know exactly what model that is. Yeah, so that's just like the South African or, you know, right-hand drive version of what Reese drives in season one and in book one, which is his FJ-62 Toyota Land Cruiser. So it looked like it was a right-hand drive with ambulance doors, which is pretty cool,

[00:24:34] which is in the U.S. We didn't get the rear hatch. The rear hatch opens from bottom to top, but they have ambulance doors that split down the middle, open up each side. So you get excited about that stuff. But what got my, you know, wheels turning here was some of the dialogue between Reese and Rich. Yeah. They had a few sit-downs together.

[00:24:53] And knowing how much the Hastings family is going to mean to Reese and guide him, particularly Jonathan, the rest of the Hastings family, and even the mom. What's the mom's name? Caroline. Caroline. Caroline. Just how much they're going to mean to Reese in his life. Yeah. To get a taste of that with Rich doing it, because the uncle's not around much longer after Nyassa.

[00:25:18] To have a couple of these conversations where they talk about being warriors in the garden, and Rich says, you're dying. Let yourself live. And he convinces him of like, make the most of your time here. Make the most of your time on Earth. Do something for yourself. Find peace. And I think doing that in the presence of, he goes face-to-face with a lion. Yeah. Intertwining those conversations with some of the scenes. There's even another one.

[00:25:47] He's climbing up like rocks, and he gets to the peak, and he just looks out. I remember the sun was coming through the camera, and they had the rays on the camera. You know, it makes those like orbs. Yeah. Something about that shot. Then a little later on in the episode, the lion face-to-face. I was vibing with it so much. So everything on the boat that I was a little off-put by with the choices to adapt book to screen

[00:26:13] was undone completely with not only the artistic choices, the adaptation choices, the dialogue choices, the cinematography. I thought everything in Africa was perfect. Yeah. Absolutely spot-on perfect from every angle. And so now I'm like, dang, I could have taken a second episode. Like you said, 10 episodes. I would have liked that part to breathe a little more, particularly not to wax on about it,

[00:26:39] but one thing from the book that didn't make the cutting room floor, which I got to imagine they had considered filming, but just would seem a little bit too maybe political. I don't know if that's the right word. But that's when, clearly, Reese and Solomon and his son Gona, they have such an important relationship. But one time when they were out on a hunt and the locals, speaking Shona, were all the guides, they kind of kept to themselves.

[00:27:08] And during mealtime, they set the table for Rich and Reese and the white guides, the white landowners. And then they ate by themselves off to the side. And it was just kind of explained away as that's custom. That's what we do. We respect traditions. Very old world here. It's not us trying to say we're more powerful, more important. But Reese waited. He didn't immediately jump in and like turn over the tables and say, hey, you guys come over here eat with us. We're all equals. He waited until he had that bond. He waited until it was his mission. He was the one calling the shots.

[00:27:38] And only once he put in his time, once he established himself as a leader and he was given the right to run the mission, only then did he say, you guys are welcome at this table. If we're a team, we're equals. Yeah. The same way we do in the SEAL teams. If I'm the cook, if I'm the leader, I eat last. I serve my men first. And so it was this position of servant leadership where he gives an invitation to the locals to come to the table.

[00:28:05] Whereas Rich represents a little bit more of the old guard, the old world. He's still doing amazing thing for the people. He's employing them. He speaks their language. He loves them. They're his family. But at the same time, it's this old tradition of we're above you. We're another class. We're cut above. And I think Rich takes his military. Exactly. He takes his military lessons, what's embedded in his core and his ethics, and says, I'm going to show you a different way.

[00:28:30] I'm going to invite you to the table to learn a different way of doing things than just this old world hierarchical dynamic. I love that. I miss those moments. You know, there's a moment in this episode where it says like two months later. I miss him teaching them anti-poaching tactics. I miss them teaching him tracking. There is a moment where there is an animal with a missing leg and that just puts it down. I love the flashback.

[00:28:59] It's almost same exact camera angle to season one. He's seeing the sec deaf commit suicide and he gets brought back for a moment. Now, something I wanted to bring up was my feelings on this was season one is good. I have my nitpicks with it, but I think I find it more entertaining and more of a good show than some of the really hardcore book fans, which is tough because I love the book so much.

[00:29:26] I try and view it how First Blood book and First Blood movie are. They're both awesome, but they're really different. And so I try and still like hold that. But for whatever reason, some of these flashbacks in season two that solidify the events of season one make season one feel even better for some reason. I don't know. I don't know why. But I think season one feels even better after seeing some of this aftermath and how Reese is dealing with some of this stuff.

[00:29:54] And I also feel like Reese is like just on a warpath in book one. His interactions with people at Nyasa of just how he interacts with people, shakes hands, comments on stuff, talks to people. It feels much more like the James Reese from the books. I think that he's fitting into the role a little bit more. I think a little bit better this time around.

[00:30:20] I think he's kind of recommitted to the IP a little bit better, which makes me happy for future projects. I can't agree more. Something about first season. I enjoyed it while I was watching it. But I remember my ultimate conclusion was this is unfortunate that people who just watch this won't know the Reese that I know.

[00:30:45] Won't know the terminalist that I know because the terminalist I knew was so damn good and so cutting edge and so compelling in its plot and its development and its characters. And then the TV show I didn't think reached those heights. I had no compelling reason to go back and watch season one again. So I didn't. I just wasn't that interested. Watching this season, I want to go back and watch season one again. That's how I felt, too.

[00:31:13] I want to remember the Hartley's office and the raid on the island and him and Ben's conversations and how Rafe got him the boat and that let him commit the assault. And then Boozer. We even see a little bit of we hear a little bit about Boozer. He's mentioned in there, I think, was a flashback to him. I kind of want to go back to all that. On the boat in episode one, somebody's playing the guitar. He comes up and it's Ben. And he says, you can't play that. It's a Boozer song. Yeah, it's a Boozer song.

[00:31:44] Yeah. Jared Shaw plays Boozer. He actually writes at least one episode. And I know which one. And it's pretty awesome. He does a really good job for his experience and everything like that. But I wanted to say another detail I caught that was straight out of the book that unfortunately doesn't get enough attention because there is a deviation from the book we have coming up here before the end of this episode.

[00:32:09] But Rich Hastings has the drop block double barrel 500 express rifle, which I can't remember the manufacturer, but in the books they talk about basically those guns go for like six figures. And it's a drop block and they only made so many. And it was number like 36 in the book.

[00:32:29] And one of the reasons we don't get that, and I wanted your thoughts on this, is in the book, Freddie comes to recruit Reese at NYASA in person. And Rich is very anti-CIA and very anti-Freddie, but doesn't really verbalize it. He just does it with his responses. Yeah, yeah, with his look for sure.

[00:32:54] So Freddie grabs a rifle and basically proves his knowledge because in the book, Freddie is such, such a gun nut. And so Freddie kind of wins him over a little bit. Yeah. But the gun that Rich Hastings is walking around with is the gun from the book, which is cool. It is that one. Okay. Yes. See, I'm so glad that you noticed this because I would have never in a million years.

[00:33:18] Yeah, it looks like a double barrel shotgun, but it shoots 500 Express, which is just a massive Churchill sized cigar bullet. So I wouldn't have put it together. But hearing that makes me very glad. And you're entirely right that on page, I remember Rich's hesitance to let the CIA close to Reese and let these guys on his ranch. Yeah. And I was like, I have to, but I'm really, really hesitant here.

[00:33:46] He did that in like a five second cut of his face when Reese is putting his hands up and being taken to the chopper. The amount of emotion that that actor portrayed in those few seconds. Yeah. He nailed it. Just everything about his eyes, his sunken face. He had this anger and resentment, but also this kind of holding back of I can't lose my cool right now. Yeah. It's Reese's choice. It's Reese's life. And maybe there's a greater good to come of this.

[00:34:15] I think he also knew it probably means the end of his ranch. If he's on the CIA radar, they're either themselves going to mingle and interfere. He knows if they're arresting Reese to put him on trial, that's going to come to his doorstep and the FBI is going to come knocking. And I think he's wondering about his men, right? All of his guys and Solomon. And I think I think one of the reasons Reese gives himself over is to avoid Rich from facing any consequences, which is good.

[00:34:42] But one of my favorite parts is Reese has his bags packed and Rich is coming to tell him like, hey, I have what you need. You can run. I can give you money, papers, whatever you need. And Reese says, no, I'm done running. And Rich immediately goes, then we fight. And he's like ready to kill anybody immediately, which is awesome. But that's the Hastings way, right? Yeah. So the other thing I wanted to bring up real quick, I have a note on is the drone stuff.

[00:35:04] Whenever Rich says we have a drone, that entire sequence right from the book is line for line, event for event from the book, which is cool. And another cool thing, I don't know if you caught, but he brings up they talk about the poachers using the river to get in and out a lot that they're using the riverboats. And he mentions that his dad talked about in Vietnam.

[00:35:31] They used the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but they also use the riverways and things like that. And I was like, ah, now I want to read Cry Havoc again. That goes right back to Cry Havoc. Yeah. There's a lot of these little nuggets and connections for the book fans. There's some good Tom Reese stuff in here, mainly some voice lines from Tom Reese. That stuff was a little weird. Was that episode three or two? I don't remember which. Yeah.

[00:35:59] So Tom Reese voice I have written down for episode three. But dude, there's there's a lot of good Tom Reese little content here. So it's interesting, though. It kind of like he was a good father till he wasn't. It kind of like seemed like they're going for some sort of like abandonment issues and that cutaway of him leaving the house. I assume that's just him doing it, doing his secret squirrel stuff. Right. Like black ops stuff.

[00:36:23] But yeah, I have a feeling that that scene is him leaving to go do the beginning of cry of what would that be? Only the dead. Only the dead. Where he. The two people. The man and the woman. The Stoes. Yeah. Yeah. Or going to the Poe ranch meeting with Poe or something. Yeah. I think you're right. It just seemed like they were trying to make this some sort of. They are. Trying to make Tom not be perfect. Right. Right. Which is OK. We'll see what happens. It's OK.

[00:36:53] But it was just an interesting decision to drop that now. And the books do that. There is a history in the books of you get early drops like and you have to wait for the payoff. Like how long were we waiting to find out about. So the first. Oh, the watch was book two. And then he gets it back in book three. But then, you know, you thought Landry killed the dad and it ended up being someone else. And things like that. So it's another character. I don't want to say the name because he's shown in these first four episodes.

[00:37:23] Let's put it this way. Somebody. We'll talk about him. Someone on the table. But I don't want to say any more yet. Next episode. Mike, we'll talk about him. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to come. Before we leave Africa. Oh, can we talk about the shootout real quick? Pre ambulance. Right. That's what I was going to say. OK. I was going to say when Reese is seeing the vision and it's almost like Lauren and Lucy are leading him to that elephant. Yeah. I was like, oh, that's really poetic. That's nice.

[00:37:52] But actually, they were leading him to a vantage point where he can see and intervene. So Solomon. But I also felt like the elephant and the baby elephant are Lucy and Lauren. But also that shot, if you go back and watch it, it's really cool. They have the elephants and Reese on the right hand side and on the left hand side is a dead tree in the river. There was just something about the framing of the shot that was really, really cool. I don't think that they meant anything like all the dead tree is something special. It was just a really nicely composed shot.

[00:38:20] Whoever the director of photography was for all the Africa stuff was awesome. Episode two, I think, could be award worthy with its cinematography. Yeah. It's dialogue. It's overall. It's one of those episodes that is perfect for critics and audience and book lovers alike. So that leads us into the shootout, which is absolutely insane. And I will say it's the first time we see the old Reese operating. He is mowing down guys.

[00:38:47] And even when Gona turns to him and is like, you killed all the men. And Reese just has to be like, I'm just keeping us alive, right? Yeah. Mission first. Yeah. I like how mission focused Reese is. There's so many times in the book where somebody's hurt and he thinks to himself, finish the fight first because you can't help them. You know, you're still being attacked and stuff. So I thought it was good that you don't hear that or get that. But if you read the books, you know exactly what's going on.

[00:39:14] He actually looks and sees that somebody's hit and just turns back to the fight. It keeps it going to finish it up. Yeah. Priorities. And I, yeah, there's a good scene where he shoots, does he shoot under a car? I think he blows somebody's leg apart right there. Yeah. Yep. And then, you know, you get some, some good old Winkler tomahawk action there at the end that was quite satisfying. And it's just the guy with the tomahawk. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:39:37] I actually really love, I think the whole Africa episode, one of my favorite like little details is he has the Winkler on his belt, but it's horizontal. So it kind of blends in a little bit. It's at his, it's at his back. So it's right above, it's right above, it's at his lower back on the belt. And so it's there pretty much the whole episode. And it's just nice detail that he goes everywhere with it because that's what I would expect. That's, that's what I would expect. So you have to, you have to have that through line and the Winkler is clearly that.

[00:40:06] And then he has it again when he's in Morocco later in the next episode. So to round out this, it's also great storytelling because him and Rich already talked about on the phone. Hey, you know what it means if you go to the clinic, right? And he's like, yeah, I'll keep my head down. I won't be seen. Yeah. And then as soon as he's given Gona the instructions and he knows this could be Solomon's life because Gona is just a kid and he's shocked and he, he won't be able to get the details right. Yeah. He looks up and sees the camera.

[00:40:33] I just think all of that was really great decision making by the, the production crew and is also very in line with Reese and the decisions he makes on the fly. Yeah. To do what he thinks is right. Yeah, I agree. But that one moment of him looking at the camera is basically him exposing and giving up Rich, all the guys. Could this mean the end of, is the whole CIA going to come in, right? Is the whole world law enforcement looking for him?

[00:40:59] FBI most wanted fugitive list now going to descend upon these poor people in Mozambique who had nothing to do with it. And then similarly at another point, I think it was later with Freddie strain. So we should get into episode three. He says something like you could either join us or not. And then everyone's Liz, he mentions Liz and he mentions Marco, the rich guy who funded his, uh, in Mexico, him going after the drug cartels in Mexico. So he's like, all that's going to get exposed and all those people will be taken down with you.

[00:41:28] So you have no choice here. So Freddie strain, while he is his buddy and he's like his closest ally at this point, he's also playing hardball or he's at least showing him the real politic of what, what his decision to not play ball with the CIA would. Well, he even says, you know what the CIA's playbook is Reese. Like he just, it's stock standard. You know what's going on real quick. You mentioned Marco. He has something of Reese's. I hope he gets back at some point trying to remember this. I don't remember where we left off with him.

[00:41:56] Well, he, they take care of the cartel and Reese gives him the Eccles legend rifle. Oh, okay. That was his dad's. That's also a really high end, you know, super expensive rifle, but he leaves it to Marco. Is that also the one he takes the opening shot with in Terminalist? Uh, in the book, I think so. In the show, I don't, I don't know that they use it. It's a sniper?

[00:42:24] It's, it looks like a hunting rifle, but it's really special. It's a, okay. It's made by Darcy Eccles and it's called an Eccles legend. No, I remember them talking about that. I forgot he gave it to Marco though. Yeah. I believe he uses it in, uh, in the blood, which is the sniper versus sniper book. Oh, with Nizar Katan. Yeah. Which episode three, Freddie strain, Nizar Katan. There is so much going on at this point. Yeah. Episode two Africa is where one, I was bought in. I was liking it a lot more than episode one.

[00:42:54] And also episode two made me realize, oh, they're really doing the book faithfully. Episode three made me feel like I am okay with them adapting the book and doing it a little differently. Yeah. He got picked up on the helicopter instead of Freddie strain coming to the ranch and converting him there. Yeah. They took him to a hangar. I thought that conversation with him and Freddie was just exactly what I was looking for. If done in a different setting, that's fine.

[00:43:22] Nizar Katan taking shots again, this long plot. It's not only the long game for the end of this episode and this, or excuse me, this season, Nizar Katan is going to be a long plant for future seasons. Yes. I just thought this is where I'm like, okay, I'm going to trust you to make a story, go your own way. And now I'm okay with it. Like episode three was like, let's rock and roll. Yeah. So I have like Freddie deal black site meet up with Landry, reintroduce him and Morocco is like the first couple of notes I have.

[00:43:50] And then the next one after that is Reese reading books. So something from the novels that doesn't really get hit too hard in the show is that Reese has a gigantic library and he has a big. He's an academic. Yes, he is. Or he's an intellectual warrior. I think that's a very good way of putting it. Yeah. He likes to know his enemy. And so he has somebody at the black site in Morocco, get him some books and he comes

[00:44:17] in with a stack and he basically says, I've read these, take these back. And I wanted to read this one. So I'll keep this. And then, and it's just a small detail that is cool because it's from the books and B, it's cool because he's getting to know his enemy a little bit better. Yeah. And that was prefaced a little. So when he first meets Majid and they're in a briefing, I think it was Landry who was giving them the rundown. He's all cocksure and all this. Yeah. And he's trying to mislead them on Mo, which we'll learn out why that is.

[00:44:47] But he's trying to tell them like, nah, Mo's an extremist. Mo was turned. You don't know the real Mo. Like because he lost his father and his family, he was always bitter. That's why he is in with Al Nawaz. Yeah. And Reese is like, something doesn't add up. And he's looking at Majid and both of them are on the same page of, this is not how a typical extremist story goes for a man like Mo, who was trained by the U.S., who committed his life, who gave himself to the service of others and his country.

[00:45:16] He doesn't just turn to terrorists all of a sudden. Like Majid knows that as much as Reese does, only because they're intellectuals. And Landry doesn't because he's a fucking meathead. Yeah. What it does. So. Another small detail from the book. They give Reese a cover identity. He is a Canadian. And his name is James Donovan. Donovan. And he's like Wild Bill. Yes. Which gets used for a really long time throughout the book. So. Yeah.

[00:45:45] I would expect to be ready for that in the future. But of course, what does Landry say to him as soon as he rolls up on the black side in Morocco? Reese, what's up? Yeah. His fucking real name is as loud as he can. What an asshole. I will say we can talk a quick, quick change from the book. In the book, Landry has not been working for the CIA for quite some time.

[00:46:09] He is former CIA and he is running Moe as like an undercover in a terror cell. And Moe thinks that they're still working for CIA together. And meanwhile, it's Landry and he's using Moe to kind of do his dirty work. Yeah. Essentially. So Moe is under the impression they're still CIA. CIA is after Moe because they think he's part of the terror cell. Yeah. And his basically, I believe his image is plastered all over the news and stuff like that.

[00:46:38] And then they figure out that Landry has been lying to him essentially. So Landry isn't quite as part of like the good guy group as he is in the show. Yeah. Landry really was off doing his own dirty business in the shadows. And Moe didn't know that he was cut off from the agency. And he thought everything, all the bidding he was doing from Landry was coming from top down when it was really Landry just being a dirty scoundrel. Yeah. So Landry really is more in it here. Yeah. In the business.

[00:47:07] So then after that, we have a really awesome training montage at the Blacksite in Morocco with Freddie and Reese, which is awesome to God smack for some reason. But it works really well. I like that tonal shift, though. Yeah. That was really smart. That was smartly played. Yeah. It's like coming out of retirement and getting back in the game a little bit. Yeah. Getting off the bench. You needed like a more badass version of Thin Lizzy, like Boys Are Back in Town.

[00:47:35] You needed like something that just hits a lot harder, but has that same impact, same vibe. Yeah. The first season, like musical theme was Outlaw Country. There's not quite as much in this season. There's a Chris Stapleton song, and that's about it, really. But yeah, they do like God smack and a couple other heavier rock songs. That are a little bit change of pace, which is good.

[00:47:59] Dude, awesome scene, especially because it reminds us of Reese's skills and like dusting, getting the rust off. When he wins the hat off of Freddie. Yeah. I was going to bring that up. They're using a shot timer in that. I have one of those, the same one that Freddie has. You basically hit the button, and it'll either do it at a random interval from the time you hit the button, or it'll go right when you hit the button. And you are basically following around the shooter. And it has a speaker on it and a microphone.

[00:48:29] And it picks up. I think mine goes to the 10. If you make a shot. Well, every time it's shot, it captures it in timestamps. And you go back through and look at the timestamps. So you basically look at the splits, how long it took between shots and how, you know, from nothing, from go to the first shot is usually important and stuff like this. So Freddie's following him around with the shot timer so it can capture all of the shots on the microphone and everything like that. And so it goes down to usually like a tenth of a second or a hundredth of a second.

[00:48:56] I was wondering about that, but knowing how, you know, knowing who's making the show and who's on set, I was like, I'm sure that thing is accurate. But him with the awkward stopwatch, like following just layman was like, what the hell's going on here? But I was like, I trust that's that's how a range. Some of them are a little bit bigger than my mouse. OK, like mine's actually pretty close to this size. Do you think it picks up on the target getting hit to know if it was an accurate shot as well? So people have people have talked about that. If you hit the steel target, is it registering that ding?

[00:49:25] And that's why like Freddie should be walking with Reese, which he does. It should be it should be picking up on like the supersonic crack and things like that. Like to my knowledge, if you were running like a suppressor, it was quiet and you're running subsonic ammo and it's really quiet, doesn't crack sound barrier. And you're hitting the plate target at the end. You may it's easier to hear be having like false false positives. OK, OK, like on the on the machine, essentially.

[00:49:52] So, well, I knew they got it all right. So I just I just trusted that's how one of these sessions would go and what it's like out there. I like how he so he's running the MP7, which is from the book as well. Freddie talks about MP7 and he describes it the same way. It's got tiny bullets to put half a mag in a guy. Why was that was I was trying to figure out, is that because this is a newer weapon that Reese wouldn't have used in his time since he's been run or why? So it seemed like a new thing to Reese.

[00:50:21] Well, in the book, I believe they have a little bit longer of a conversation about it, but it's just like one of Freddie's favorites for CIA work because it's easy to conceal. It's really, really easy to conceal. It collapses down kind of kind of small unless you have a big suppressor on it, which they do. But I think Freddie asks if Reese is familiar with it in the book. Reese says, I've shot it a couple of times, but nothing crazy operated with it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is pretty much how the conversation goes. So then Freddie makes him train with it, which is good.

[00:50:50] Because during this ambush they're about to get into, it gets utilized. Dude, what a scene. Pretty awesome. What a scene. For episode two to have the shootout with the poachers and then to follow that up with the hit on the black site, two massive action scenes up there with Dark Wolf episode one, which is the shootout on the bridge. This season has definitely not lacked for action scenes.

[00:51:15] And it's really, really living up to the action, the quality of action scenes that's in the book. Yeah. Yeah. That one too, especially with all the, with the nods that they were using and the, and the beams. Yeah. He had quad nods, which they talk about in the, in the book as well. So the cool detail is I think they're trying to show you that under night vision, if you have an IR laser, infrared laser, it shows up under night vision, but not to the naked eye.

[00:51:42] So something really cool that happens is they get hit by a V bid, the vehicle based IED. So from there, they like Reese gets out of bed, gets the nods on, has the MP seven and he sees two other laser beams in that like big square courtyard area. Yeah. And he's trying to say like, I'm a friendly. Yeah. And he says, why are you flanking me?

[00:52:05] Well, it's because the, they're so used to the enemy being under like way under, uh, the same level as us when it comes to technology. So I think it was cool that like, he thought they were friendlies at first. You got to think if you're in the middle of Morocco in this black site, no one around, you can't imagine a very heavily equipped modernized elite forces attacking your compound.

[00:52:32] So if you see a guy with that equipment, the equipment that you know, Americans use, you're automatically going to think they're on our side. Like that's not just a random terror cell that's out, out in the desert, you know? Yep. So yeah, it's a tough scene, but the way him and Freddie are communicating through it all, operating, getting the tactics right. I was waiting for them to get to the armory and just go ham. Like if they reach the armory, then they just pull out some heavy shit.

[00:52:58] But the suicide vest, I think even topped what I was anticipating. Yeah. When McGee turns the corner and that guy has that split second moment and he takes him down and covers him from the vest. What'd you think about the cut scene to all of a sudden Reese is now being triaged, taking care of and wakes up? Yeah. Well, so I, I liked it because, so you get a couple of preemptive things and there's actually another thing that's straight from the book.

[00:53:26] There's a scene where he can't get a guy behind a car, lays down on the ground, shoots his foot. He falls down and Reese puts like half a mag into his head. So that's straight from the book as well during this scene, which is kind of similar to how the shootout with the poachers went. Yeah. A little bit. Um, but you see a guy within, well, so you get to see the cleanup. Like they didn't finish the mission. Yeah. You, um, you see a guy with an S of S come in, Reese drops him.

[00:53:52] There's a little quick little knife encounter Reese has as well that he, he recognizes the guy that he later wants to PID. True. True. Um, but yeah, so there's a quick cut that Reese is back in the water, uh, and swimming up towards the boat, like in episode one. And then he wakes up and he's being kind of treated for, for, uh, you know, getting his bell rung. So I could have lived in the battle a little longer. I could have just lived in it a little more.

[00:54:21] See now Freddie wins the fight. But yeah, I, uh, I, I agree. I think the way it was in the book is maybe a little bit better, but I feel like this in the show is a little bit closer to how it might go. Like, I don't know. I really like them thinking that there's friendlies and meanwhile, they're just evenly matched adversaries. And then there's S vest guys coming in and, and things like that. And I don't know. I, I just thought, uh, the equal gear Landry makes a big deal about these guys wearing our gear.

[00:54:50] And so something else from the books is that the group that attacks more, the Morocco black site is, uh, I think they're called the Scorpions, which was a group, small group with Moe that Reese and some of the others helped train up. Yeah. Yeah. And that's very in universe TV universe with dark wolf, how recent Ben are training up Moe and his people. So that when, when Reese recognized the guy and they were like, this is Moe's men and yeah, it's all connected.

[00:55:20] It also tipped off Reese of that's how he knew someone in the CIA was a leak. Uh, because I don't think Moe, if he was out operating without no was would have known where Reese and the black side was necessarily. Yeah. There had to be a link between Moe sending guys to go after the black side. Someone from the black side must have reached out to him. Yeah. And I think, um, yeah, I like the, I like the connection. Like Reese has to PID that guy and says that he was with Moe as well. Yeah.

[00:55:48] Which I think is the only reason that Reese now thinks there's a leak, which allows him and Freddie to kind of put their little, uh, their hats on and say, lay low in this meeting. You know, the boardroom meeting with Vic Rodriguez. Reese is like someone around that table, you know, loose lips sink ships. I don't think him and Freddie would have done that necessarily unless Reese ID that guy. They might not have realized there was a leak. Yeah. Whenever he, it flashes to him in the water again before getting triaged.

[00:56:17] Um, there's a quick audible voice that's talking to him in the water that wasn't there in episode one. And it says, it's, it's Tom Reese. And he's saying, uh, this will help you to not get lost. And he's talking about the Vietnam, uh, wrist compass that he gave to Rafe. Yes. Dark wolf. But yeah, that gets revisited in episode four in a little bit more detail. Yeah.

[00:56:42] Um, there was also a cutaway to rich Hastings looking at his, uh, his compass on his wrist for a minute. And I was like, are they just trying to establish some sort of like visual language between like the Reese's and the Hastings as they're both like families of these totems and these heirlooms and family and passing things down. I just wondered about that. Um, so you're saying rich was looking at it. Rich looked at his watch for, I forget when exactly. Does he have a compass on it?

[00:57:12] And yeah, I think it did. You know what? No, he, his has, his has the flip up. If you're talking about the part where he flips up the leather cover. Oh yeah. Yeah. This is a little different. I was trying to remember why they focused on that so clearly. Like, you know, like a Chekhov's gun type of thing. Yeah. Why did they do that shot? I was just wondering if it was to establish the kind of importance of, you also have Tom Reese's watch and the Submariner.

[00:57:34] And yeah, there's so much about these family heirlooms that I think shows the kindred spirits that the Reese's and the Hastings are. Yeah. Yeah. But I agree. But I think this, the scene you're talking about, I think rich looks at it and he flips up the leather cover. They have like a little, uh, leather cover that would protect like the watch face. I think you're right. I think that's what I'm thinking. Anything else from season three? I forget exactly how it ends. It kind of ends at that Morocco black site.

[00:58:02] And I think, uh, they just established that they're going to get Mo and then it kind of cuts to black. I think there is one thing that we did skip over, which is Katie and Rafe kind of better establish that some of the arms aren't making it to Ukraine. They're getting some, something's getting pulled off of pallets and they're making it to Al Nawaz's group basically. And is this the episode where Rafe interrogates his congressman who actually is a weasel and doesn't want to help him? Yes.

[00:58:32] Because at the beginning of episode four, he's reviewing the security footage for the car. So I think this all in this episode, the, this, the congressman dies at the wheel. The lobbyist. Yeah. The one that he's going to use to link the senators to the terrorism. So, um, what do you think about, or was that for, uh, which event? What do you think about Katie going to stake out the lobbyist in the coffee cup with the bug?

[00:59:01] I actually really liked it. Rafe is decked out with a, um, star link in the car to listen in. I thought it was cool. It was just a little bug under the coffee cup. She throws away. She gets in there and pisses him off. Yep. Kind of gives shows her hand a little bit. Yep. She wants him to make the call though. Yeah. She wants him to make the call for Rafe to listen to. So, um, yeah, I mean, he told her to shake the tree. So I thought it was really, I thought it was good. It's a really good use of her and her personality. I think that she's just better written. Establishes the two of them.

[00:59:32] There was one earlier scene where Rafe is like, I'm in. He tells Katie, like, I'm willing to do this with you. But I think this was the first time I really bought into them. They're going to play each other's game where Katie maybe doesn't want to break the law, do anything super illegal. Rafe has now convinced her. Things are so important that we might have to bend the rules. Yeah. You know, if everyone else is bending the rules. The first time that's established of bending rules or breaking laws is when they meet at the gun range and he goes to shoot with her.

[01:00:01] And she goes, there's no, you can't see Kisiel Carrey in DC. He goes, I know. And draws his 1911 anyways and puts rounds down range. All those little things are making me buy the Katie and Rafe, you know, good cop, bad cop. I just think it's a better use of her by. You're giving him something other than pure action to do. Yeah. So, yeah. He's also driving a Defender 110, which is his vehicle from Savage Son.

[01:00:29] And he uses a 1911, which is from the novel. So all that is why I enjoyed the ending to episode four a lot, because I wasn't sure how I was going to buy them working together initially. I wasn't sure about the Volt stream of it all and drain up. But what happens in four where Katie is really in the thick of it in that parking garage after she went to the archives, she found the document. She's going to figure out code word Kestrel.

[01:00:57] And she texts Rafe like, meet me. We got something. And I was like, oh, I am so bought into their act. They're two man act together. But I wasn't bought in until the culmination of episode four. And that ending just blew my mind. That ending wants me to get to the second half of the season almost more than the most stuff. Like, we didn't even talk Reese and Mo talking. We just jumped up so far. Yeah. So we'll get into four. So it starts off with Nizar Katan briefly.

[01:01:25] And then after that, it goes to Katie getting a promotion at Volstream. And then briefly, like, it jumps really quick for the first three scenes. So it's Nizar Katan, Katie getting promoted at the meeting at Volstream. And then Ox and Django getting introduced to basically the audience because Reese already knows him.

[01:01:48] And one of the things I was going to ask you about is there's a roundtable at this scene with a couple of characters from the books, namely Vic Rodriguez. Sure. Who was already mentioned or in the show briefly, but I think we skimmed over him. There's also, I think, the deputy director of CIA is there. I can't recall what her name is. Is that the woman? Yeah. She's straight from the book. Yep. And then you have all of them. There's a financial expert. Oliver Gray.

[01:02:18] Yes. So, yeah. So I was going to ask you what you thought about the roundtable and everything like that. So, again, without wanting to give too much, I thought the roundtable was real interesting for some name drops and some character glances. Yeah. I thought it was really sly. I thought it was really sly how well, how smooth they just glide right past everything. They glide right past it. You wouldn't even know what's coming.

[01:02:47] We're kind of playing coy because there's a name that is so central to the book and what I assume is going to be the second half of the season that it's going to have to come to loggerheads. And now seeing that person inside the war room. While I know Freddy and Reese are onto a lead that they suspect somebody at the table isn't playing fair. And I feel like the book readers, they know a little bit more. We're kind of holding all the cards. And that's a lot of fun. That's a fun position to be in.

[01:03:16] But it is irking me in that there's something unfortunate about linking Andrenov in with Voltstream that takes away from something that was going on in the book. I can't say much more than the camera and the recruitment on the beach of a certain trader and how they really get him to turn against his country.

[01:03:44] I can't say much. But yeah. So I'm trying not to say even though we started this by saying we like spoilers, but I'm trying also not to spoil it for you, Mike, because you haven't seen the second half. And I have right. all I'm just going to keep my mouth shut you just got to watch it we'll talk about it next time they have to handle it some way to find out the person who is the mole the traitor how they were recruited why they were recruited so we're going to need a little bit of backstory

[01:04:12] I'm just wondering who was involved in that process who did the recruiting how did it get this far where this person is in the upper echelons of the war room making decisions advising people like Vic people like the deputy director and I hope we learn how that came to be all I'll say about it is that you will like it cool love that I remember loving so much how it was done in the book preying on some vulnerabilities some lifestyle choices exploiting that

[01:04:42] that's the part of True Believer the book that made it a top spy novel where that British school of spy novels takes the time to do the slow burn do the personality deep dive get to know the psychology behind a profile and then use that to exploit them and turn them and make them betray their country yeah and it takes time to develop that I don't know how you find that time in a TV show the way it was done in the book on the beach with the camera

[01:05:11] I thought was brilliant so I'm hoping we just get a version of it yeah you'll get a version of it it's just not in as much detail and that's understandable to go from a book to screen adaptation because that whole like turning of that character in the book it's like definitely definitely like several weeks and then it goes into months and then it goes into how it goes into years and you get a good taste it's a good version yeah well done so

[01:05:41] speaking of a few things like that missing from the book just to come back to the Freddie strain of it all do you feel like we're missing a little bit of Freddie something about the manhunt for Reese I asked Jack I'm waiting on a reply of what got left on the cutting room floor that he wishes made it and I think if this was 10 episodes instead of 8 we could have got another Africa episode and we could have got a little more brotherhood build up between Freddie and and Reese sniper school together yeah

[01:06:10] yeah there's some good stuff I mean I think I got the sense that Freddie is the gun nut but in the book they really dive deep into him just absolutely being walking encyclopedia sure I did like the sniping scene though and that was a little bit of the rust that Reese had to dust off was that he was still holding on to these memories these visions the tumor was still affecting him from knowing how to take the shot and then they talk about the ammo and he's like oh it's this ammo it's not that ammo so he changes something

[01:06:40] yeah that's pretty much from from the book and that establishes the two of them yeah there's actually a scene similar to that that mirrors Freddie and Reese that is Nizar and Tosho later on in the episode so from there they kind of go I know Reese goes and gets a burner phone Landry's tailing him from there they kind of get a contact it's going to find them Mo Mo reaches out we cut to a sniper challenge that

[01:07:10] Ald-Nawaz is holding Nizar-Katan is there and Tosho is there there's an older older guy with a ridiculous red beard that's right I remember and they they kick ass and the Chechen he's the Chechen yes so while Nizar is good Tosho shows off some experience in that scene and it's kind of like the Freddy and Reese mirror yeah no that's true so they're basically the two best snipers they tell everybody else

[01:07:40] in the competition to go out and get the targets Nizar and Tosho hold back shoot the other competitors basically because Al-Nawaz wants to cover up what they're working on I can't wait to see where this all ends up knowing the ending of the book True Believer how they're going to adapt the two snipers the two enemy snipers pulling off their their mission yeah or their objective I'm really curious about how that's going to go down it's I'm excited for that yeah it's pretty awesome

[01:08:10] there is a cool nightmare that Reese has where he wakes up in his bed and Boozer is playing guitar and then it leads into a little bit more of a nightmare where it's the Dark Wolf intro but some things are changing a little bit that I kind of enjoyed so he gives Rafe the compass he looks at it and he hears Tom Reese say this will help you find your way in case you ever get lost and the compass is just infinitely spinning and then instead of Ben being in the seat

[01:08:40] like he was in Dark Wolf it's Mo because I think that that seat is for your past haunting you and so he kind of outgrew or is came to peace with Ben Ben really doesn't show up anymore but now the person in that seat of haunting you from your past is Mo yep and so I thought that that was pretty cool which leads to the meet after they go through the souk and he loses his tail Landry is you know putting Ox and the other guys on him

[01:09:10] yeah Donovan Reese has to break that he does and it's Freddie helping him the whole time is it not yeah he kind of knows that Reese is going quiet he gave him some hand signals yeah he gave him some hand signals I mean he doesn't like hold up Landry on purpose but he doesn't help him either he doesn't help him yeah also Ox is played by Keith Jardine who's a former UFC fighter so he's pretty cool I know Ox is I think Ox is described as like having cauliflower ear which Keith Jardine certainly does he looks just like that yeah dude when I heard the name Ox

[01:09:40] when they introduced him in that hallway I was so excited something happens in a later book with Ox that is just dude so fitting and yeah I just hope he sticks around that long to get to moments like that and the show continues that long Ox is arc let's say really really I think on the next episode we can talk about the some of the stuff that has been discussed for future of the IP so I think okay great cool great great great so

[01:10:09] what'd you think though about Moe the meat Reese and Moe finally I really liked it so watching it the second time today I think that I think the first time around I was a little bit I was like here we here we go something stupid or like a diversion of when Reese finally gets to Moe he gets tased and drugged something I do like about that scene is when Reese gets up he instantly starts fighting and starts fighting starts trying to beat the shit out of people even though he's he has a bag over his head

[01:10:38] it ultimately leads to him and Moe having a honest conversation with each other and Reese getting a better a better feel for things so first watch I really thought Moe stole the show in the scene he runs the show he has all the information he acts more more calm cool and collected than Reese but while watching it the second time I think Reese is like their equal playing field I don't know why I just like the guy that plays Moe does a really good job

[01:11:08] and I thought the first time around I was like man Moe kind of like didn't school Reese on anything but he kind of made the scene feel that way but I do like how they kind of get interrupted Moe puts that guy down like without thinking twice which was awesome but oh yeah so Moe Dar Salim I think is his name I'm gonna 100% agree I think even his facial shots so far during his operations with Nawaz like when he's piloting the drone takes the goggles off

[01:11:37] have already been so powerful yeah it's reminding me of the best part of Dark Wolf which was him which was just him and his acting yeah so getting that now also here is just so much fun I I thought that scene was really good and I didn't realize it could be topped with what comes next with Katie and the shootout in the parking garage because I was like oh this is how they're gonna end it Moe hands him the phone and says here's the information you need here's what will prove I'm in the clear

[01:12:07] and you know it's Landry who's off reservation giving me these these these ops basically to continue operating with Al Nawaz yeah I think the the coolest and snappiest and loudest Moe gets is whenever Reese claims that Moe had something to do with the Christmas thing you know and Moe's like no innocence yep yeah he's like I told I told Landry he's like I tried to tell him he didn't do anything about it yeah told him we're going too far with this yeah it's like

[01:12:36] can you imagine being undercover being in that deep with a cell or a network and you know you're starting to blur the lines you're starting to do things you never thought you would do things against your morals and you also know if you refuse to do it you're blowing your cover and the whole op is over and possibly they're gonna take your life and brand you as a mole yeah he can't do anything so he's just gotta wait to play his shot but he's gotta go along with it in the time being which just sucks and he's had to compromise himself

[01:13:06] because Landry hasn't given him that cover yeah yeah and I think he needs Reese overall Landry is a little bit more of a shit bag in the books he like at this point you at this point in the book you learn that he like basically chokes out prostitutes to death like nightly that's right essentially and he's just a huge drug addict not that he isn't in this but he's still a shit bag but in the book they make him out to be just much more of a dislikable character

[01:13:35] and it's not that I like Landry but I like how Landry is a little bit from Dark Wolf but I knew where he was headed ultimately and so I was like okay I can't really hitch my wagon to this character to enjoy because I know where it's going but they did enough to make him irksome with his whole bravado America short man complex I find him funny yeah but they almost made him a little too cartoonish like I appreciated the cartoonishness in Dark Wolf because he was just kind of like a sidekick

[01:14:04] but now he has to be like a really big villain like he has to be a mastermind and I don't know if I have that level of just I didn't until post where we're stopping today gotcha okay the other part to me though is you're right we haven't got those personal stories of him doing just those disgusting brutal things in his own personal life but we have seen him send in a whole team just without caring about them dying to kill Reese and hit the black site we've seen him

[01:14:35] getting Mo to do these things that lead to the Christmas attack and having no thoughts about it yeah and Mo Mo and Reese discuss that he's like hey he had me hit an American camp and Reese goes yeah you hit me it was me yeah but it's like you can understand everyone's in over their heads I think Landry is gonna have his due and it's well hold on from the book he's gonna get what's coming to him I wonder how they're gonna put that on screen not gonna say much more

[01:15:05] but boy am I looking forward to talking to you next week about Piano Wire if they go that route so he's gonna get his due so I think that's the moment where it's all gonna sink in that we hated him and yeah he was the worst of the worst and he's the scum of the earth you're right I'm not there yet but I think they have an opportunity to lead me there they I think you'll be fine right so let's talk about how this episode ends

[01:15:34] which is pre-recording your big shock moment because you were 10 minutes from finishing the episode which is Katie goes to a party in a dress and ends up getting a call that is it a contact I think has a file for her that's already redacted that she needs to see I think it's Lucas the guy from Volt Street yes he's the former editor-in-chief yeah he calls her she goes she obviously has a tail I think she leaves which she drives a forerunner in the show which is also

[01:16:04] what she drives in the books which is kind of neat little detail and she goes do you know what building that would be that she goes to this was a little disappointing which is just me being nitpicky about everything DC since I live in DC work in DC they kept saying the archives so I'm assuming they're talking about the national archives yeah it doesn't really look like that she's at like a reading room that looks more like library of congress so maybe they meant library of congress

[01:16:34] archives or maybe it's some sort of congressional archives senate house the documents she's looking at are already redacted though and she I think she gets up and heads to a printer to the copier yeah that all felt very much of like early 2000s like me doing research or you know that generation doing research in college like you had to still scan documents or you had to take notes on a legal pad like it wasn't just all sourcing was digital yet so when she has to

[01:17:04] go make copies at a scanner I was like oh she has to go see a hard print document in an archive scan it a nice little retro throwback yeah and I think she is headed in the parking garage and has a tail yeah and we know she's been texting Rafe and Rafe is like hold tight I'm on my way so I was waiting for I was wondering if he was going to be the knight in shining armor before she gets hit by the team right as she gets hit by the team but man

[01:17:33] he's a few seconds too late yeah I my jaw dropped well first off I was confused in the first shootout I saw her reach into the bag and then they both kind of fall at the same time her and the first assailant and so I'm like I think she shot him because he went down or did Rafe shoot him from like another angle and save her but then I'm like wait she went down too so she probably got hit then you see her kind of in the corner and it looks like she's bleeding out the shoulder I think you see blood on her hand

[01:18:03] it's like oh shit she got hit and I don't think Rafe is here yet so she must have simultaneously hit the other guy yeah but then there's a second man she's trying to run from and has a shootout well before the second man what do you get to see it's in that parking garage she's hiding behind it the cct there's the cctv camera well no not that there's something that she's down there for that she ends up stashing the files that she made the copies she made she stashes them

[01:18:32] she stashes them under Reese's FJ62 Land Cruiser from season one is down there in that bottom parking garage dude I didn't see it yeah oh so that's where she left the documents yes so that's where she's sitting like right behind it and then she ends up trying to go back and exit and then the second guy is on her by that point from what I recall do we know Reese left the car there do we like was that a thing that had happened um so in the books

[01:19:00] he leaves it somewhere basically with the so you don't really know why it's there or how it got there but in book three he gets it back and Rafe has restored it and put a new motor in it put a new engine in from Rafe picked it up well at some point in the books Rafe got it and restored it he sent it to Icon 4x4 ah yeah yeah yeah I remember that okay um it gets a Corvette engine which is how Jack Carr's Jack Carr's real FJ62 is set up like that

[01:19:30] which is cool I didn't put two and two together though that that vehicle is where they are so does Katie know it's there is she intentionally going there uh to store the documents or just happen to be at the archives no she I think she goes there intentionally from her initial reaction at the beginning of like the number five which you have not watched yet no so okay I won't spoil anything but there's it's it's cool because I was slightly confused if the shootout is at the archives and these two guys tracked her there

[01:19:59] or if she had gone somewhere else and yeah it's not clear it's not clear where this parking garage is but she goes on foot instead of taking stairs she goes down the spiral concrete yeah yeah yeah to like the basement floor and Rafe does say hold tight presumably at the archives I'm coming yeah he sent a text that said stay there I'm on the way like this is all her fault I don't I don't feel sorry my jaw dropped just from the shootout of it all and then the second shot where she gets hit in the back

[01:20:29] like holy shit and Katie well I don't want to say too much from the books but she does get injured at some point yes but it's way later yes three four books whatever later it's a totally different scenario it has nothing to do with the events of true believer in this stage of things yeah so I'm not surprised that Katie's injured because it happens in the book universe but I'm very surprised at the time and place yeah I think it's I was surprised and I was like okay

[01:20:58] like I'm a little bit more invested like I don't know I feel like the use of her character is wise in this like if you had this tell me that like Katie's gonna be in true believer but I know she's not really in the book all that much I think the use of her has been pretty good and it ends up it ends up being yeah well done I think it's also gonna make it easier for me to buy into the eventual spoiler warning the eventual romance I won't say with who

[01:21:27] at the end of season one I was like I don't know how that's going to be reconciled I think now both sides the stakes have been upped she understands a little bit more of Reese's world and the violence and brutality that comes with it why do you think why do you think that she knows more about Reese than maybe anybody well one she's writing the book that's probably the biggest thing she's gonna be like one of these it's not quite

[01:21:57] Stockholm syndrome but like once you're that deep into studying somebody yeah you can you can fall for them a little easier you can understand where they're coming from you can empathize with them it's almost like as that author that journalist you have to be that person but I think one bridge too far was that with the Hartleys and that whole scene I don't think she understand the world that Reese lives in or she didn't even understand the world that Rafe lives in this world of pure violence revenge

[01:22:26] do whatever it takes the seal ethos like I don't know if she embraced that world she's studying it she's a journalist she's analyzing it she's writing about it she's taking it from an outsider's view but I think all these things are bringing her closer into that world and being able to understand and exist in that world when she chooses to take the gun with her in Paki when she's at the gun range to me that's the transformation of Katie becoming a warrior like she's always been a warrior

[01:22:55] at her job in her lane she's been a journalist warrior asking hard questions getting to the truth of the matter but now I think she's a warrior Reese sees her Reese sees her in a part earlier in episode one or early in two and he goes still on the battlefield and he's talking about her defending him basically yeah she's learning the real battlefield she's learning Reese's battlefield and Wraith's battlefield yeah and I think that's what's going to allow a relationship to blossom eventually

[01:23:25] yeah that their worlds are intertwining I think if they do go that route which I hope they do I think it can be done because I think if you don't have her it's just such a such a dude show and you need that investigator side of the house a little bit more so I hope that she I hope that she sticks around at this at this point I think they also set her up with her getting shot like this where you could very easily recover and run you could live scared the rest of your life yeah I think they set

[01:23:55] her up as somebody that's not who she is she's going to recover from this and she's going to want to play the game even more she's going to even be more deep into it she's not going to be scared that she got shot and traumatized and go to therapy and just avoid violence for the rest of her life she's going to move into that space once she yeah I think so too and there's something that happens in book three that sure she participates in that is pretty awesome related to being in the in the fray basically so yeah

[01:24:24] dude do you remember the scene though I was referencing the lake or yeah it's at Reese's cabin in Montana I believe I want to say he is learning to fly with Liz and they're up in the air and somebody's walking up to her and shoots her and he lands and they end up like setting up a really cool fob across the street from the hospital with Rafe and everybody at a hotel standing guard yep yep

[01:24:54] and that's when he's really doing insane like first aid to keep you alive really detailed like life saving very detailed stuff yeah very EMT medic front lines yeah stuff yeah it's good so what do you think so far thankfully after episode one I was a little hesitant I was a little uncertain with some of the decision making and where they were going then episode two hit and I was like this

[01:25:23] show is award winning this is so good this is incredibly it makes sense it makes sense why they did movie theater premiere around the country at regal cinemas for episodes one and two gotta have two in there yeah I think you have to have two in there yeah I think it would have been cool to do three four because what I really like about three four is that they're bringing me into the true believer of it all the actual plot lines that are going to turn into the Ukraine stuff and that's going to turn into the sniper shots I won't say more than that

[01:25:53] I don't think episodes one and two totally made me believe what's going to be the plot line is going to be the plot line episodes three and four I'm like oh let's go episode one I was like I don't know where the season's gonna start it's kind of how the book goes a little bit though you're like very boat in Africa and then you're like oh now you're gonna get picked up by Freddy and that's what I mean like the first half of book two it's like so many

[01:26:23] people are find it to be a downer and they're like man I can't get through it's so boring I go back to it for that first half because it's so peaceful and nice and he's in Africa and it's meaningful and he's finding new purpose but the second half once Freddy gets him and they get the foot on the gas there are no brakes on that car for the rest of that book so three and four making me feel that way episodes three and four making me feel that exact way yeah well

[01:26:53] so I'm ready I'm all in and then the end of episode four is just I need to go watch five right now I'm I wasn't super pumped for seeing how the end drain of the vault stream the Katie the race I wasn't so entirely interested in how that plays out I was interested in how the Reese the strain the Landry the Moe of it all plays out but after episode four I'm interested in the whole bit I want the whole gambit and I I am I was pretty much the same way the first time around and once you kind

[01:27:23] of see what they end up doing I it made me like it a little bit more so now like second time around I'm paying attention a little bit closer so dude well let's do it again next week let's uh sounds good hang out the next four episodes and uh I cannot wait to see what happens good it's good I enjoy it all right guys well before we sign off we gotta thank our patrons including our deputy directors Sherry F Brad E Crowley C and Michael M along with our

[01:27:53] special agents Adam Mike S Ben Daryl George Matt Don Chris and Mark please subscribe rate and review to all three seasons of no limits using the Apple podcast and Spotify apps you could also find us on YouTube please like comment and subscribe over there and visit us at thrillerpod.com or on Twitter and Instagram using the handle at thrillerpodcast and as always just let James be James