Alan Greenspan tries to rescue his daughter with inflation-curbing money policy, but it fails and the A-Team has to rescue him.
Last week I was actually too sick to watch The A-Team, which is a measure most doctors use for their patients. But I did think about them plenty, and that put me in the right frame of mind. Why get upset about a little congestion, when the team’s seen far worse on their missions and kept their heads each time? Look at how they handled themselves when B.A. got shot a few episodes back – did they fall apart? No, they got in the van and did what they had to do. I pondered this for a while, then “borrowed” the neighbors’ van and drove myself to a doctor in a small town somewhere to demand treatment. And what do you know, I’m on the mend already.
Which brings me to my larger point. Now I don’t want to be a “back in my day” guy, nor can I pretend to know what it was really like in the A-Team’s heyday, but I can say it doesn’t feel like their approach speaks to our heyday. It’s too straightforward and we’re too meta, too in need to talking about what we’re doing instead of just doing it. You can’t conduct commando missions on Facebook… can you?
See? It just doesn’t add up. And that’s not even the worst thing the modern world could inflict on them; that would be tacking on weird layers of childhood trauma to explain why the team did anything. They’d have it so that Hannibal’s dad refused to ever plan anything, so he grew up to be an obsessive planner. Or Murdock’s parents refused to believe in the healing power of balloon animals, or whatever. Is that what we want? Of course not. So a little less meta-commentary, please, and more action. A lot more. I’m counting on you, America.
One More Time
Wild Guess Preview: The A-Team is sent to help Wilford Brimley remember the number to order diabetes supplies over the phone, but not before Brimley’s nemesis, a murderous pirate played by Andy Griffith, skewers Hannibal’s plans for a homemade “leprosy bomb.” Surrounded on all sides without any weapons but talcum powder and large posters of Jimmy Carter gargling, Hannibal realizes the only way to finish the mission and escape certain doom is to rob the Bank of Hanoi… the very act that put them on the run in the first place! (Why am I not a TV writer?)
I love it when makeup comes together. This makeup did not come together.
The Recap: Hollywood! It’s glitz, it’s glamour, it’s… Hannibal dressed as an old woman, getting strangled by an asbestos bodysuit monster for a movie. The director thinks the scene was “as scary as my Duncan yo-yo” – obviously he didn’t look closely at the creeping horror that is Old Crone Hannibal. Some military police show up, because Hannibal is working under Colonel Lynch’s name – hey, I think this is the first time we’ve actually seen Lynch on-screen since Triple A put him in the trunk of a rental car in the pilot! They scamper up to catch Hannibal, but they go for the guy playing the masked monster, and Hannibal grabs a nearby motorbike to make his escape. “He’s going to warn Templeton Peck!” says the ADR, and he does, pulling ol’ Faceman away from an attractive but pantsless woman for a few ramp jumps on the motorbike. The military cops chase them toward B.A.’s hideout; he takes off in a sweet-looking vintage red convertible… right into the path of Face and Hannibal. They spin out, B.A. slams into a parked car and they’re all surrounded by Lynch’s men at last. Uh oh. Face pretends to throw up on Lynch as they’re led away; if you can’t beat ’em, barf on em.
So the team is in custody at long last, and Lynch is positively giddy about it. But he barely gets enough time to taunt them before a small, balding man from the State Department show up to take custody of the team. Lynch is furious and vows to go to “the top” to fight the decision, but this very Randy Newman-ish looking guy says “I AM the top” and Lynch has to clear the room.
A meeting of the minds
Triple A, meanwhile, has figured out the team’s been captured. She wants to get inside the base but it’s in lockdown; she has to call Murdock, who’s in the middle of playing with monkeys, to get help. Animal therapy can wait, says Murdock – “the king of crazy is on his way.” He lets all the animals loose as a diversion, then steals a delivery truck to get away from the hospital.
So why is this State Department guy interested in the A-Team all of a sudden? Turns out they know a fella named General Ludlum. All too well, as it turns out; B.A. punched him out and then “that sucka sent me to the brig!” The State Department guy explains that the general has been captured in Borneo trying to rescue his daughter from guerrillas, and since the A-Team is already on the lam they could go in and rescue him without leaving any government fingerprints. How clandestine! The guerrilla general is named Rasham and he’s basically in league with the Commies, so he has enough evil on his rewards card to qualify for a free burrito. Their reward for doing the mission? A “head start” on Lynch’s men when they come back, though the long-looming charges probably can’t be dropped. B.A. doesn’t want to help the sucka, and Face isn’t sure it’s a worthwhile mission. On the other hand, it beats a guaranteed thirty years in military lockup, so Hannibal agrees to take the job.
It does a mission good.
