I pull the trigger with The Terminal List Dark Wolf without even knowing there was already a Terminal List series, from what I understand Dark Wolf is a prequel and for this kind of content you really need to leave your brain at the door and take it for what it is, there is going to be a lot of unbelievable stunts and shooting, the NAVY SEAL story wont add up for the most part on how they operate, dress, look, its all Hollywood style so its not a documentary by any means. When it comes to action the series is very good at it but dont ask for over the top smart drama plot because its not, as I said take it for what it is, a cool action packed series and not a documentary of how NAVY SEALS operate, I mean what are the odds you are a long hair, bearded, chief working in Iraq and got kicked out of the NAVY SEALS for going rogue and then hired back to go black ops through a private contract to catch the same guy, cmon.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26576161/
- Platform: PRIME VIDEO
The series follows Ben Edwards played by Taylor Kitsch who gets his hands dirty in Iraq back in 2015 training Iraqi Special Forces and things go sideways real quick when a prisoner exchange with ISIS turns into a bloodbath, the whole setup reminds me of those 90s action movies where everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Chris Pratt shows up as James Reese but honestly its more like a cameo to pass the torch to Kitsch and I think Kitsch does a way better job than Pratt ever did in the original series, well I say this from clips I have seen from the OG series, I plan to watch that one too and go with season recaps since its two season only, the guy just looks more believable as a spec ops operator than Pratt who always looks like he is trying too hard to be serious. The show starts with this funeral scene and then jumps back seven years to show us how Ben ended up being the guy on Reese list and the whole time you know where this is going but its still entertaining to watch him make all the wrong choices that lead him down that path. What I really enjoyed about these first three episodes is how they dont try to make Ben some kind of superhuman, he gets beat up, he makes mistakes, he lets his emotions get the better of him and that feels more real than watching someone just mow down bad guys without breaking a sweat.
Episode one starts with this very intense scene that loos like out of a War Zone season with this prisoner exchange on a bridge in Mosul where they are supposed to trade this ISIS leader for eighteen hostages and of course everything goes to hell when it turns out the hostages have bombs strapped to them, the whole scene is pretty intense and you can feel the chaos when those explosions start going off. After that mess Ben gets back to base and finds out that his interpreter friend who lost his leg in the bridge incident has reenlisted even though Ben told him to take his family and go to Disney World, which by the way is probably the most unrealistic part of the whole show. The guy gets a prosthetic leg but it turns out to be packed with explosives and he ends up blowing himself up at the mess hall killing seven people including his own family, the whole thing is brutal and you can see how its going to mess with Ben emotionally. Everything goes to hell for Ben when he finds out that the ISIS leader who put everything together is actually a CIA informant, so basically the good guys are protecting the bad guy who just killed his friend and a bunch of innocent people, without taking in consideration the soldiers that went down at the bridge. Ben decides to go rogue and locate the informant but things go off rails when they had the informant and Ben realize ha had his interpreter's daughter as a prisoner, he recognize her voice and thats when he lost it and kill the guy, anyway they were on deep sht by going rogue and this gets him and his buddy kicked out of the SEALs, and thats where the real story starts because they get recruited by this CIA guy who wants them to do the dirty work that official channels cant touch. The second and third episodes move away from the military stuff and turn into more of a spy thriller with Ben going undercover in Europe to track down terrorists who are trying to buy nuclear materials, also involve with the bridge and the interpreter bombing, this is where the show starts to feel more like Mission Impossible than Black Hawk Down. The nuclear bomb plot feels kind of generic, you have this Iranian professor who is selling nuclear secrets, you have Russian arms dealers, you have nightclubs in Berlin and chases through European cities, its like they took every spy movie cliche and threw them all together.
The action scenes are definitely the highlight of these episodes, there is this fight in a nightclub that reminded me of John Wick with all the creative ways they use the environment to take out bad guys, honestly its even better than Ballerina (2025) a John Wick spin off when it comes to action scenes, and there is this tunnel chase scene that is shot to look like one continuous take which is pretty impressive even if its obviously edited together. What bothers me about the spy stuff is how convenient everything is, they need to get into a secure location and boom they have a hacker who can disable all the security systems, they need to impersonate someone and boom they have the perfect disguise, they need weapons and boom there is a secret arms dealer who happens to be in the exact right place. The show works better when its focused on the emotional stuff between the characters, like watching Ben struggle with his guilt over not saving his friend or seeing how the violence is affecting his relationship with his wife back home who eventually dumps him over the phone. Tom Hopper does a good job as the guy trying to keep Ben from going completely off the rails and there is this whole subplot about him having issues with the CIA because of something that happened to his family but they dont really explain it enough for you to care about it. What I think the show does well is showing how these guys are not invincible super soldiers, they get hurt, they make bad decisions, they have emotional problems that affect their judgment and that makes them more interesting than the typical action hero who never misses a shot and always has the perfect one liner.
By the end of episode three you can see where the story is going, Ben is getting deeper into the CIA world, enjoys it, starts to put his mission first and making choices that distance him from his old values, his marriage is falling apart, and he is starting to become the kind of person who would eventually put everything aside to finish the mission. Episode three has a great action scene with Mo making a trade for some Nuclear bearings that cost them $5M on the spot, Ben and his team discover that Iranian scientists are working on nuclear weapons with help from Russian arms dealers, which gives them a ongoing mission one after another and he gets very involve into going to the end of this but the thing is that there is no ending, there is always a new mission. If you are looking for a realistic series about military operations or intelligence work this is not going to satisfy you, but if you want to watch Taylor Kitsch shoot bad guys in exotic locations while brooding about his choices then this will probably work for you. The production of the series is very good, it looks like they use a lot of practical effects and real stunts instead of going crazy with CGI, good cinematography and solid action choreography, its true that some of the CGI explosions look a bit cheap and the European locations sometimes feel like they are trying too hard to look cinematic. Overall I would say these first three episodes are entertaining enough for what they are, mindless action with just enough character development to make you care about what happens to the main characters, so far I havent feel the need for more context for any of the characters. The show knows what it is and doesnt try to be something it isnt, which feels great even if it means the storytelling is pretty predictable and makes it very easy to understand and follow for anyone new to the series like me who have not seen the OG series, I give it a 7/10 for the first three episodes. This kinda release makes a bit angry when it comes to writing recaps, its just too much content to put into a 1000 to 2000 words long blog post without making it ultra extensive, but if you try to separate it into pieces then you are always behind so I decided to go with it on this one and keep releasing episode recaps one by one for the rest with four more episode to go, one per week.
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