A new country and a whole bunch of new venues were the subject of gunfire and explosions on last night's seventh episode of the final season of Strike Back: Legacy.
Michael J. Bassett directed the episode written by Richard Zajdlic & Ed Whitmore. In addition to the plentiful gun battles and explosions, snippets of what's sure to occupy the final three episodes were revealed.
The action resumed in Vienna, Austria, where Section 20 were directed to in the final moments of last week's hour by their Russian friend Nina Pirogova. One of her colleagues, Nadia Dansky, embedded within the Russian mafia, had gathered some vital intelligence when she stole mafia member Myshkin's phone and cloned it.
You're gonna need tuxedos.Retrieving the intel called for a change in wardrobe which was met with a somewhat shocked expression by Damien Scott and Michael Stonebridge. The boys looked smart in their tuxedos, as did Pirogova in a dashing black gown. The good news ended there unfortunately, with the rendezvous at the opera house in which Dansky opted to meet was quickly located when Myshkin tracked the phone's GPS. Dansky was killed in the shootout but the remaining trio escaped alive. Pirogova was understandably devastated and took a gleeful Scott to town in the bedroom in the first scene of its kind this season.
What??
Philip Locke remained on the sidelines for much of the hour as he took over the command role from Kim Martinez who departed last week. Locke did venture into the field when things got personal as the intel gathered from the phone revealed Kwon was meeting a longtime adversary, Oppenheimer, a prolific IRA bomber who he believed had killed his son. Donauzentrum Square was the location for the meeting, with all four taking up positions. When Kwon and Oppenheimer finished their discussion, the chase was on for Scott who took Kwon down after a minor scuffle. Stonebridge faced a war of words with the bomber in a superbly written scene which culminated in him and Locke having to choose whether to evacuate the square from the planted bomb's radius or take him in. The pair chose the former.
Scott in particular had his way with Kwon in an abandoned house outside Vienna as the topic of conversation turned to the whereabouts of Li-Na. Still fuming after having been interrogated by Kwon in North Korea as well as for the injuries dealt to son Finn and death of girlfriend Julia Richmond, who was thankfully absent in this episode, Scott may have taken things too far, with Stonebridge having to hold him back at times. The pair acted this out pretty darn well as the idea all along was to allow Kwon to fall into a honeypot, escaping in a bugged vehicle. Kwon figured that out though, losing the pair a short time after.
I thought Pirogova had sort of faded into the background for a wee bit there, but she was hot on the trail of Myshkin. She followed his crew to a bank in the city which was promptly held up as Li-Na sought to retrieve a notebook from a safety deposit box. Pirogova was quickly neutralized by Myshkin, who spared her life out of spite for the former relationship they had when she was undercover. I guess bad breakups have a silver lining after all. Nevertheless, Scott and Stonebridge shot their way through Myshkin's men in spectacular, well directed fashion, but ran into bulletproof glass and locked doors separating them from their arch-enemy in this season of Strike Back.
In all, another pretty good hour of television by the Strike Back crew. The storyline was paced nicely and easier to follow than normal which was a bonus. As we saw in the meeting Kwon had with Oppenheimer, and in a snippet in next week's episode promo, something big is going down, and it's clearly where the final three episodes in the season, and in the series, are going to focus on. Next week's hour will no doubt be a cracker.
Thanks as always for reading. Don't forget to share your thoughts on the episode in the comments below. It's hard to believe there's only three episodes to go!
