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Quantico (2015)
Entertaining spy nonsense, but leave your tradecraft/common sense at the door
Clearly conceived in the wake of the success of How to Get Away with Murder, this ostensible ensemble piece also offers us a range of relatively new actors with a splash of established talent in a complex, layered drama.
Sadly, that's as close as it gets. HTGAWM weaves numerous sub-plots together, bringing new threads to the fore to ensure a constant supply of twists which - complex and surprising though they may be - never over-complicate the specific sub-plot they relate to. As such, you never have to suspend your disbelief *too* much to imagine that any one contrivance is beyond the pale. Quantico, on the other hand, hangs everything on one grand conspiracy, and as a result you can't write off successive coincidences or deceits as a matter of luck or some kind of design that, given its complexity, would require almost god-like prescience.
With that said, it's not unenjoyable. You need to accept that it's not an ensemble piece at all, and that Alex is the main character, and Priyanka Chopra avails herself exceptionally well as the earnest but eternally persecuted heroine. The supporting cast are entirely competent, and seem capable of rising to further heights - it's just a shame that the characterisation doesn't really run to more than two dimensions. You feel this particularly keenly in the case of the characters who make it through multiple seasons with little to no development.
If you can get over those setbacks, and are prepared to give yourself over to the ride in spite of the silliness and the increasingly unbelievable incompetence of the characters as the seasons progress, then this is a perfectly entertaining show and entirely worthy of a binge month. If you're a current/former federal agent or spy, or if you've ever read a realistic book or watched a realistic series about them, maybe give it a miss or have a few bottles of wine to hand while watching. Otherwise baton down your common sense and enjoy!
Quantico: Who Are You? (2018)
Excrutiating
Parrish clearly did an awful job of covering her tracks during her time dead/in hiding, given any and every criminal so far inclined has traced her every move and identified poor Andrea & Isabella, her unfortunate erstwhile Italian family. Makes you wonder if the authorities even bothered to try finding her.
Anyway, we begin at Eamon Devlin's funeral, supposedly in Dublin and with the entire police force hunting Conor and monitoring entry. It soon transpires that everyone in the Dublin police force is apparently at his beck and call. Now at this point if I was Irish I'd be absolutely fuming that my entire country is being portrayed as some backward little parish in the airtight grip of a minor criminal who hasn't even set foot there in decades. It just doesn't wash, any more than the idea that said police force would be taking orders from the FBI, who have about as much authority in Ireland as I do.
The team have eyes on Devlin, but for reasons unexplained (given from the start they are explicitly a black ops unit with licence to do anything they fancy including kill at random) they do sod all. Probably just as well, because he then plays his hand and reveals the Italian hostages before making his exit.
Now at this point it gets *somewhat* better. Evidently they've learned how to read and have finished The Art of War, and it turns out that Devlin has been deploying tactics based on the individual chapters in order - as you do. They decide to try a bit of this for themselves, and turn his second in command. Great! Here endeth the somewhat better part.
Armed with a location for the hostages our brave team sally forth. Despite allowing reinforcements to ride up on motorcycle and take positions within the property they had already set a perimeter around, they free Andrea and Isabella for a good several seconds. Needless to say young Isabella does what every child would do in the middle of a gunfight, and breaks free of her loving father's arms and runs away from him and the only mother she's ever known back in the direction of the stall they were imprisoned in, and into the grasp of Devlin.
Now at this point I'm sorry, but I'd have just opened fire and to hell with the collateral - you runs away you takes your chance - but there's runtime to fill and this isn't a real black ops team so killing kids is off the cards. So it passes that Andrea gets hysterical and distracts all of these trained agents while Devlin runs off with Isabella.
Back to the mansion to regroup and it's time for some recriminations, with Andrea and Alex facing off over her deceit and his endangered daughter. Not that there is actually any real clash because Harry is on hand to diffuse the loud American and passionate Italian as only an Englishman could - with a cuppa. Thank goodness and God save the Queen.
Sadly the awkward stalemate is interrupted by Devlin calling with a demand that Booth be delivered to a random housing estate - sorry, did I mention he wants Booth for killing his son? - and so every one gears up for yet another final showdown. They calculate that with seven of them they will have a 360 degree field of view and be able to execute him on sight. No, I don't know why it takes seven trained marksmen to command a 360 degree field of view either. And no, I don't know why at this moment it becomes OK to just kill him, it just does, OK?
This means we're off to get the bad guy, finally! Except Andrea insists on coming along too. I swear for a second I thought Alex was going to knock his lights out and I was living for it, but no. As any crack team of would be assassins might, they bundle him into the SUV as well because you know, the more the merrier.
It may come as no surprise that the showdown/exchange doesn't go to plan, with Andrea running out to make a fatherly plea to Devlin's obviously considerable humanity and being shot dead by him as a result. A pedant might point out that Owen survived being shot in the same place not too long ago, plus an extra shot for good measure, but in the world of Quantico we don't talk about such things. In any case consummate hero Ryan gives himself up and, give him his due, Devlin releases Isabella in return.
Back to the mansion and time to regroup again. This time we're *definitely* going to kill the bad guy and save - wait, who is it that's been stupid enough to get captured this time? -oh yeah, Ryan. Cue resolute "we'll get him back" scenes cut with some of him having the living daylights knocked out of him. Oh and he activates the transponder he had showing them exactly where he is. Which he definitely couldn't have activated before turning himself over.
Ryan's transponder coincides with Conor taking a break from smacking him about, and results in his almost immediate freeing, which of course explains why it couldn't be activated any earlier while Conor might still be there. All hostages rescued, Parrish now approaches one of the other 2 crime lords who apparently run all of Ireland (I told you the Irish would be pissed) and offers him a deal. She could've done this earlier but maybe they hadn't got to that part in The Art of War yet.
Cut to Devlin walking into a pub, surrounded by our heroes, and killed by the younger Devlin's second in command who with the FBI's blessing will now take over as, um, new crime boss of eastern Ireland? Hurrah for justice I guess? Anyway that's it. There's a few minutes of emotional wrap-up at the end for Alex but it feels cursory and hollow. And Ryan is alive? Dead? Oh who cares, it's finally over thank God.
Quantico: Ghosts (2018)
The least bad of these last few episodes
Let's pretend for a moment that Conor "the Moustache" Devlin (seriously, that thing should have its own billing) could magically escape from his restraints, get and put on a parachute, and *open the rear cargo door of the plane* without anyone noticing...
Let's also pretend that the team in the plane - last known to be on approach to land in the city of Dublin - made some attempt to either land the plane or at very least point it in the direction of the nearby Irish Sea, as opposed to potentially allowing it to career into the middle of Ireland's capital. Thank goodness the Wicklow Mountains go so far north.
Probably best not to pay too much attention either to the fact that the Devlin brothers seemingly went to the same elocution classes as Harry and his sister, where they teach siblings to speak as if they come from entirely different places.
That's all over with in the first 5 minutes though, and after that it wasn't too bad. Yes it was part of this wider story arc being inflicted on us but in essence it was a nice, straightforward mission to save the girls. Utterly predictable, including the double-agent and what's become a slightly wearisome trend of slaughtering henchmen with abandon but only every pointing your gun conflictedly at the bad guy while they saunter off. But still, a nice enough jaunt that sets up a big showdown for the finale, and we got some pleasant Irish scenery and the beautiful Old Library at Trinity College.
As an added bonus, with the action now actually taking place in Ireland they were able to stop making constant references to it, which kept the annoying conflation of the Republic and Northern Ireland to a minimum.
Finally, I have to say another reviewer took issue with MI5 agent Quinn's Irish accent - this isn't especially odd as she has a Northern Irish accent, Northern Ireland being a part of the UK and MI5 being the UK's domestic security service. The fact that she's operating on foreign soil in the Republic of Ireland on the other hand...
Quantico: The Art of War (2018)
Good grief
Despite being far from perfect I quite enjoyed seasons 1 and 2, and I've been very patient with season 3 but we're coming to the end here and the writing is fast becoming completely inept.
Look, put it this way, I've read The Art of War and I just work in IT. For a bunch of spies and special agents to be referring to it as 'some old library book' like they've never even heard of it is just... I have no words.
Clearly geography and politics were not on the curriculum for the writers either, as the entire Ireland storyline from these episodes would only make sense to someone whose sum knowledge comes from stumbling half-drunk through a St Patrick's Day parade.
Despite being wanted for treason, which has surely got to make him #1 most wanted, King manages to effectively evade the entire US intelligence and law enforcement communities while waltzing in and out of maximum security prisons cunningly disguised as himself. He then kidnaps Doyle's sister, and he and his three - yes, just three - remaining henchmen also locate and take out the loft.
This is in no small part all made possible by the fact that, after Devlin organised to kill them and their families from behind bars last episode, the team are now resting easy because he's behind bars and therefore can't get to them. Oh and they have agents watching 'all his people'. But not him. Or their relatives.
Our intrepid if not well-read heroes - those of them not getting themselves shot - are in what isn't so much hot as tepid pursuit all the way, finally cornering King even as Devlin gets the extradition to Ireland he wanted. Doyle recues a load of girls from a shipping container but - plot twist! - his sister isn't among them, being held in a different container elsewhere. Parrish, who has been thoroughly chided throughout for wanting revenge on King for her assault and the death of her unborn child, takes the moral high ground by not killing him, but then he grabs her gun and... I dunno? He shoots himself? She shoots him in the struggle? Who can tell. It's all a bit rich anyway considering they were all practically cheering Turner on 5 episodes ago when she murdered the baddie in cold blood.
With Owen down, Doyle's sister still missing, Devlin on his way to Ireland (or Northern Ireland, or Wester Britain, or wherever the heck the writers think Irish people are) and the loft compromised, we head into the penultimate episode. I only hope newly-returned Deep and his many degrees can save them because otherwise, based on the rest of the episode, they haven't got a chance.
No Time to Die (2021)
The greatest Bond movie that never was
The premise is solid enough: boy's family is slaughtered, boy grows up and sets out for vengeance, boy spares the assassin's innocent child, boy does nothing for a couple of decades then finally gets round to killing everyone in the organisation responsible, bar its head who is safe in jail. And who should happen to be the only person with access but his therapist, the spared child, giving an opportunity for that earlier mercy to be repaid in blood. It's somewhat contrived and more than a little leaky - how did the child survive? How did he find the assassin with no resources? Why did it take him decades to get around to his second attempt? Why does he have scars all over his face? Nonetheless, it's a decent attempt at a Tarantino-esque homage to classic action-revenge flicks.
Presumably it was at this point in the process that someone rushed into the writer's room and shouted excitedly "but it's meant to be a Bond movie!" Cue flinging the script open to random pages and inserting something Bond-esque - an Aston here, a gadget there, replace some of the characters with anyone you can think of from a recent Bond movie. M, Moneypenny, Q, Felix. The one dimensional bimbo characters were happily left out, so too the cheesy sex scenes - in fact it's positively chaste for a Bond film, and no worse for it. There's the small matter of the now antagonist being more of an anti-hero than a villain, arguably doing a much better job dispatching evildoers than all the double-ohs combined, but give him a quirky henchman, a secret lair, and a scheme to kill millions and voila, instant baddie. His motivation? We'll add that in on a rewrite; someone make a note, will you?
So we get No Time to Die: a Tarantino-esque homage to classic revenge flicks, masquerading as an homage to James Bond. And that might have been the end of it, but this was Danial Craig's last outing. This was to be the end of the reboot arc that saw Bond set up as a heartbroken, tortured shell of a man, then did nothing in particular to advance the character besides making him ever more heartbroken and tortured for three films. There had to be closure and with nearly three hours to play with, surely a third plot could be wedged in there? Enter Double-Oh-Daddy: a soft, squidgy old codger beneath the bulletproof glass exterior of past films. Does the kid seem the right age for the film's timeline? I'm not convinced - heck, even the mother seems undecided who the father is - but I guess actual five-year-olds are a bit heavy to be scooping up when the hired guns arrive. In any case, convinced by her blue eyes (because Bond is the only blue eyed man in his universe) James casts off his inner demons literally overnight and gets stuck in playing house.
But this isn't a Hallmark family drama: it's a Tarantino-esque homage to classic revenge flicks, masquerading as an homage to James Bond, masquerading as a Hallmark family drama. It's back to the action, a car chase and some very atmospheric murder in the forest sets up the inevitable kidnapping of the female lead and Maybe Baby Bond, and we're steaming straight into the big climactic finish. And, credit where credit's due, it is a big climactic finish in the very best tradition of Bond - in no small part due to the fact that it's basically a little something from the end of the last 24 films tossed together. I did like the little background details - the movers still hanging the paintings in the new lair and the finishing touches being put to the landscaping in the Poison Garden. I'd have liked to see some more fun had with that - "oh no darling don't hang that there, over to the left a bit, I don't want it getting hit by the laser sharks!" - but alas we were to be denied such campery, presumably considered too close to giving our villain a personality.
And then, that's when they did it! Of course, to anyone familiar with the best revenge movies it was a solid bet: our protagonist, having avenged his dead and safeguarded any remaining loved ones by vanquishing the villain, himself dies. OK so it wasn't Bond's revenge to start with but given the mash-up of half-plots it's hardly a wonder characters get a bit switched around. And I didn't hate it. Yes the nanites were a stupid sci-fi contrivance when a good old fashioned DNA targeted virus would've done. Yes in any other sci-fi movie or series with nanites his EMP watch would've disabled them, or a giant magnet pulled them out, or M would've had the foresight to build in a kill switch. Yes it would've been a better film if he'd died in the first five minutes and it had been three hours of Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas. Still, you have to admire the sheer audacity of killing off the main character in a multi-billion dollar movie franchise that's been running for 50 years. If only the plot had been more joined up, and more of that extravagant running time had been spent fleshing out Bond's supposed growth and really earning an emotional payoff. Instead it'll remain the greatest, most daring Bond movie that could have been.
Oh and don't even get me started on the dour Bond-by-numbers theme song or the shameless flogging of OHMSS, Tracy would be spinning in her grave!