I got up at 3am in order to rewatch FBI: International, because if we’re being honest, I have a lot of mixed feelings about this episode. A LOT OF THEM. There was so many things that I loved and so many things that I didn’t. It’s weird when an episode of television makes you feel so many things.
Lets just not sugar coat it. Lets dive right into all of the feelings about this episode and the thing that infuriates a majority of us.
Forrester.
You could show me a tape of Luke Kleintank quitting and I still wouldn’t believe that he quit. I have worked in the entertainment industry long enough to know that there are a lot of excuses and explanations that are smoke and mirrors. But, I don’t for a second believe that he would have let a character that he invested his life into and developed into one of the most loved characters in this franchise – end on this note.
Now, I know that we have one more episode left and this could turn around. The reality is that with Forresters storylines, there was a lot to wrap up and they are trying. They are trying and playing on the fact that he would do anything for his Mom. That being said though, if they knew that he was leaving, they had a season to wrap up his storyline. Not rush everything into two episodes that leave us all going, come on now.
I am guessing here, but I am guessing that they couldn’t come to a new contract when the show was renewed and therefore he was gone. Quite frankly, I do hope that is the case, because that I can respect. But I can not see Kleintank just disappearing from the show.
Especially because for all intensive purposes this cast is family.
This season of the show has seen a lot of shakeups and it feels like there is a lot missing. While you can see that the way that they ended last season they wanted to take the show a different way. Then the loss of Damion and Kellet in the series… you knew that it was going in a different way. But now with the loss of Forrester, there is something more that is happening here.
Maybe it’s the mistrust of Wolf Entertainment because of the way that they have handled these things on their shows (historically), that has left me skeptical. Yet here we are.
And it just puts a damper on the show.
But as I said, here we are, and I think we all know that we will never have the answers that we may want.
Or need.
Diving into the episode, we have a case. Forrester hasn’t responded to anyone and no one knows where he is. Red flag, that’s definitely a red flag. But the team has a case and a neurotic NSA agent that is making little sense. Basics – dude was murdered and he used to own one of the biggest cyber security companies/networks in Europe. The nanny and the dudes two kids made it into the safe room before the shooter could get to them.
The NSA has informed the team that tons of classified info has been stolen. They need to get to Copenhagen.
Meanwhile in Washington DC, we get our first look at Colin Donnell as Brian Lange. His nightmares are even scaring me and I am not easily spooked (ok I am, but let me have this). He receives a phone call and immediately you can tell that he’s nothing like Forrester. Complete opposites. Whatever is said on the call, he is on his way.
First impressions of Brian Lange? He’s uptight, a player, dedicated to the job and in desperate need of a drink. Seriously, dude has to be dehydrated because of how much he’s sweating and that makes me worry a bit. He’s the type of person whose life is the job and he’s good with that. The less personal connections, the better.
When Vo, Raines, and Smitty meet Lange, he wants to know where Forrester is. But all Vo says is that he is on his way. She’s running point for her team at this point and well, she’s GOOD at it. She isn’t afraid and that’s part of what I do love about her character.
The team goes about solving the case, even heading into a swingers club to try and find who wanted this man dead. But, that being said, the entire point was leading them to the head of a hacker group. A hacker group that sent the fly team a message that Angela Cassidy (Forrester’s Mama) had been captured and was in a prison.
While Vo tries to keep this away from Lange, he reads her like a book.
Now, we do find out that this message had also been sent to Scott, who had opened it. When Vo reads in Lange, I am a little mad and also a little like okay, I get it. Why mad? Because Smitty and Raines don’t even know yet. But it really does make me like Lange when he heads straight to the CIA and is like where is Angela Cassidy.
Though I do appreciate the fact that we got a lesson on the CIA and the NSA being compartmentalized and everyone not knowing everything, I do call bullshit. Not that I know anything about the intellegence community, but I am just saying. I think that they have known where Cassidy is and I think that they know that means that they know where Scott is.
And TBH, I wouldn’t be shocked if they are willing to sacrifice Scott and his Mama for something.
I don’t know why it is that I like Lange, but I do. I think that it’s because he’s so different than any other character on here. I will be honest, I didn’t remember who Colin Donnell was, but I learned that I needed to remember. He was great. Absolutely fantastic. His nightmares may have freaked me out, but they way that he was so dead pan, so driven and so mysterious was intriguing.
The whole swingers club thing was akward. The whole nanny lying even after the boss was murdered – come on now. Also her being like why could my boss have visitors in his own home, but I couldn’t? Well, again, come on now. There were lots of awkward and weird moments.
But I was all a means to an end. Catching the hacker, him saying he knows where Cassidy and Forrester are, and then having to make the choices. The Army of Shadows is not to be trusted and well, this hacker dude – he runs it. Giving them five minutes to let him go, or the file saying where Scott and Cassidy are is destroyed.
The Fly Team would do anything for each other. Brian willing to go to the CIA and basically put the screws to the jerk that keeps trying to antagonize him, shows that he’s ready to do whatever for the job also. BUT he’s also about the people that do the job.
And then there is Tate, who is willing to do whatever to find the people that matter to her. So seeing her be willing to do anything for Scott, who has always been willing to do anything for her – well, I love her even more.
She asks the NSA for what was on the hackers computer and like the CIA she’s given the boiler plate answer. But when he slips her the note on the way out, she’s given clues. It’s Oslo and the name of the Norweigan political figure trying to orchestrate the release of some prisoners in Russia. Are Cassidy and Forrester going to be traded for them?
What is going to happen? Not sure. But here we are and I am all sorts of on the fence. I just know the team is not going to give up.
OTHER THOUGHTS
One more random thought – Raines trying to chase down Axel. I could never… the cardio man. THE CARDIO!