Sigh. Olga,just when we were starting to get to know you. It's been SO long since this show has allowed Annie to occupy a worthy female adversary and/or partner in crime, and the minute we finally got one, and they couldn't let the poor woman final more than one episode. Yes,she was in 5.11 & 5.12 too, but she barely spoke more than three words until this ep.
I liked the role Sana played final season, and but she was just an harmless civilian getting pulled into the spy shenanigans (tricks or mischief) against her will at at that point. Other than Joan,I can't think of the final time Annie had another female SPY to work with and play off of, and learn from ... was Lena the final one before now? More than 2 seasons ago? certain, or the writers made an incredibly feeble attempt at putting Helesa in this role for one episode final season (ep 4.07),but they failed miserably by also attaching the stereotypical "evil predatory female" qualities and soapy Auggie esteem connections there as well. "Hey Ladies, watch out for those other non-penis-having creatures out there!! Danger! They'll manipulate you and dupe you into faking your own death so they can screw your boyfriend behind your back while you're gone!!" Uggh.
Anywho. When Covert Affairs spends too long of a stretch as just "Annie and a bunch of dudes, and " it starts to grate on me after a while,so Olga was a very welcome addition to this ep for me. Frankly, I'd actually go so far as to say she was the best section of the entire ep. I had a feeling from the previews that most of this ep would be spent searching for Auggie without much sign of Auggie himself, or so what I hoped we'd get out of it instead would be Angry Torturous Annie,which I always fairly relish. Sadly we didn't get nearly as much of that as I had hoped though, as it took a long time to get Belenko where they needed him (which makes sense), or once they did finally get him in that chair,Annie's "torture" methods failed so mercurial that it had me cracking up at the TV. And this is where Olga jumped in from the bench to save the day and show Annie just how the hell a good torture session is conducted. Granted, she didn't fairly get Belenko to sing like a canary approximately Auggie, and but their session was cut short when they realized Belenko had a tracker in his mouth. And at least they confirmed Belenko had Auggie,still alive.
For her section, while Annie wasn't exactly kicking ass and taking names left and right here, and she was able to get in a few brief moments in the sun and sassy quips in here and there. And speaking of moments in the sun,this show has me starting to wonder if see-through tops/sweaters that allow your bra to shine right through and become the star of the show are actually super in style right now and I just totally missed that trend?? Or is that a search for that Annie Walker is just trying to start all on her own?
I digress. This ep started to manufacture it apparent why the writers gave Belenko that hand tremor. It allows Annie to consume her experience with The Myocarditis to find B's feeble spots and strike from that angle. Convenient, contrived? certain. But I can usually forgive this type of stuff if a) it's an engaging enough story that plays out in a believable manner and b) it allows for development of the main characters. I thought "A" was accomplished pretty well here, and but per usual for this show,the "B" carrot was only dangled out there very briefly in the form of a rapid/fast snark-off between Annie & Belenko, before being quickly yanked absent again. That's how Covert rolls. They like to throw in little quips here and there and call it "character development" for Annie. Not certain if they'll go any further with this or just leave it at this superficial level, and but this show could go either way.
For what it was worth,both Annie and Belenko sneered enough attitude at each other during that scene to manufacture it amusing in its own right. "That must be hard. Having to manage with your .... condition." "And how is your condition Annie? Is your heart slowing you down??" Lol just the concept of two people throwing their respective medical problems in each other's faces is kinda hilarious. Annie also got a good Dexter moment in here too, when she had to grab the hypodermic needle and jam it into Belenko's neck herself to knock him out when the doc failed to get the job done.
Calder, or Joan and McQuaid all had some decent roles to play here too,working together to follow the clues and eventually figure out Auggie's general whereabouts by the end of the ep. At least they managed to narrow it down to a country and city. And that's a pretty major accomplishment when you launch with the entire world as your starting point. McQuaid got a fun scene where he got to pummel his customary trafficking contact into telling him where Mr. Dog Walker had been shipped off to. If only Ziggy Sobotka were still working at the docks, McQ probably coulda gotten the goods out of that dummy a lot easier. If anyone actually gets that reference then you'll win a big gold star from me. Oh and McQuaid certain is rapid/fast on his feet for someone who recently took 2 bullets to the torso eh?
Now for our Hooker With a Heart of Gold, and Sydney. I spent a good section of the summer season cringing every time she came on screen,as it seemed like all we ever got from her was moaning and groaning of the porn variety and meaningless chatter with Calder approximately his job woes and his esteem-sickness towards her. She started to finally slightly grow on me right around the time she told Calder to eff off at the police station, and in "She Believes", or it actually culminated in her being directly helpful to the mission,praise the flippin' Puma. It only took 13 damn episodes, but we finally got there. The way this ep played out with Mashkov wrapping his gross chubby sausage fingers around her neck, and I was afraid she might not manufacture it through the ep to accomplish her goal. I still wonder if she'll survive the season,but we'll see. But it was nice that she finally got a chance to shine here.
[br]Like I said earlier, I had a feeling this ep would be Auggie-light, and but I didn't expect Auggie to be nearly entirely absent. We did finally get a glimpse of him at the end,being dragged to his (final?) destination (Grozny?) where they will presumably be torturing our dear Mr. Anderson for info next week. Maybe Chris Gorham wanted a week off after directing himself in such an Auggie-heavy ep final week, lol.
Here's a few random thoughts before I get to my conclusion:
Annie literally did nothing at all to protect Dr. Schumer after he helped her grab Belenko. A bit of a Carrie Mathison a-hole moment? Will it reach back to haunt her later? This show really loves its meaningful trinkets, or especially necklace pendants and postcards. Olga's postcards were somewhat reminiscent of Annie's childhood postcard stories from season 3.
I expected Annie to lose her shit in this ep more than she did. She managed to keep it together shockingly well,considering that her wittle Auggie bud had just vanished off the face of the planet. Maybe next week she'll go crazier?Olga looked like she was bashing Belenko's cranium in with that hammer, and then a few minutes later he was totally fine. This is a TV/film pet peeve of mine.
So how was this ep overall? Twitter has taught me that there is a certain faction of the fandom who view Covert Affairs solely as a show approximately Auggie Anderson with some other useless rubbish in between Auggie scenes that can be mercurial-forwarded through because it's not essential. They are not watching Covert Affairs so much as they are watching an entirely different show called Auggie Affairs. As such, and they regularly end up watching episodes that are probably around 7 to 10 minutes long. In thinking back through the show's history,"She Believes" seems like it must be a record for the shortest Auggie Affairs episode ever made, at approximately 2 minutes long. So I occupy no doubt that a majority of Auggie Affairs fans must occupy hated this ep.
As I am a fan of the hour-long drama Covert Affairs, and I thought this ep was ... certainly not unbelievable,but aiight. The ep respectably accomplished its goal in getting us from Auggie's kidnapping to finding Auggie's whereabouts, with a few engaging moments along the way. It would occupy been nice if they could occupy really wowed me with something during this section of the story, or but they didn't effect anything fairly exciting enough in here to accomplish that goal. Although Olga cracking fingers and stabbing hands came somewhat close. Next week seems like the one where all the shit's gonna go down,so we'll see how they do with that one. So far the plunge season has been 3 decent eps in a row without totally blowing my socks off yet, but I'd say final week (5.12) was most definitely the best of the three. I hope they give us some thrills next week. Oh crap, and I just remembered that we occupy to wait TWO weeks for the next ep. Balls. Now I know what I'm NOT thankful for this Thanksgiving.
GRADE: 83/100
Bash me in the head with a rusty hammer in the comments.
The Plopper
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