Strike Back ep 6

http://www.buzzfocus.com/2011/09/23/strike-back-episode-1-6-preview-3-new-clips-still-gallery/

Strike Back Episode 1.6 Preview: 3 New Clips +Still Gallery
By Bags H. : September 23, 2011


The Strike Back epic continues this week as the hunt for Tahir (Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje) heats up on Cinemax’s new action series.

After the firefight at the arms deal exchange point, Tahir (Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje) escapes to the desert with Clare (Laura Haddock) as a hostage, and with Stonebridge and Crawford (Iain Glen) in pursuit. As they close in and prepare for an assault, Crawford gets under Stonebridge¹s skin and hints about a traitor within British Intelligence. Sinclair takes an injured Scott to the hospital and is arrested by the corrupt official, so Colonel Grant takes matters into her own hands.

Here are three new clips from Episode 6.

In this clip, Sinclair (Rhashan Stone) reports back to Col. Grant (Amanda Mealing) on the mission. You get to see just how serious Scott’s (Sullivan Stapleton) wounds are.

In the last episode, Tahir escaped with Clare (Laura Haddock). This second clip hints at a very tough decision for Clare going forward.

In this last clip, it seems that Stonebridge (Philip Winchester) has deputized a few of the locals as he gets into a firefight at a checkpoint.

Check out these stills from Episode 6:

http://www.craveonline.com/tv/previews/174858-exclusive-strike-back-episode-6-preview

Exclusive 'Strike Back' Episode 6 Preview

Colonel Grant tries to rescue Damien Scott as soldiers close in on Sinclare and Tahir offers a deadly choice to his captive.
By Blair Marnell
September 22, 2011

Following the death of his lover, Captain Kate Marshall (Eva Birthistle), Michael Stonebridge (Philip Winchester) grew increasingly agitated during last week's episode of "Strike Back" as he and the rest of Section 20 were assigned to capture Gerald Crawford (Iain Glen), the leading weapons supplier of Latif (Jimi Mistry).

However, when Damien Scott (Sullivan Stapleton) and Stonebridge caught up to Crawford, he said that his daughter, Dr. Clare Somersby (Laura Haddock) had been kidnapped by the African warlord, Tahir ( Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje) and she was being held for ransom in exchange for a delivery of weapons.

After Crawford promised to give Latif to Section 20 if they helped recover his daughter, Stonebridge and Scott led the effort to make save Clare without realizing that mercenaries loyal to Crawford were still active in the area. During the botched exchange, Tahir maimed Clare and cut off her ear while Scott was shot and badly wounded. With his right hand man down, Stonebridge decided to continue the attempt to retrieve Clare with Crawford... and Jacoub (Abdul Salis); the cab driver who brought Scott to the exchange.

In our exclusive preview scene of the week (courtesy of Cinemax), Scott lies wounded in a foreign hospital and under guard until Col. Eleanor Grant (Amanda Mealing) takes his recovery into her own hands.

During her captivity, Clare was forced to witness Tahir murder her fiancee. In the second preview clip of the week, Tahir brings Clare to the mass burial site where her fiancee's body was left and Tahir gives her an impossible choice if she wants to go on living...

And finally, the last clip of the week finds Major Oliver Sinclair (Rhashan Stone) reporting back to Section 20 on the botched exchanged just as a cadre of foreign soldiers storm the hospital while trying to find him.

Cinemax has also released a synopsis of the sixth episode:

After the firefight at the arms deal exchange point, Tahir (Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje) escapes to the desert with Clare (Laura Haddock) as a hostage, and with Stonebridge and Crawford (Iain Glen) in pursuit. As they close in and prepare for an assault, Crawford gets under Stonebridge’s skin and hints about a traitor within British Intelligence. Sinclair takes an injured Scott to the hospital and is arrested by the corrupt official, so Colonel Grant takes matters into her own hands.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2011/09/25/strike_back_episode_6_kicks_eleven_kinds_of_ass/#

Strike Back: Episode 6 Kicks Eleven Kinds of Ass
Thompson on Hollywood
Strike Back is an action drama, writes David Chute, that continues to work effectively at both levels.

Actor Philip Winchester gets a nice showcase for the tightly-wound intensity of his character, SAS ninja Michael Stonebridge, in the sixth episode of the lean and mean Sky/Cinemax action drama “Strike Back”—reminding us in the process that this Mid-Atlantic adaptation of a hit British series has men at the top (writer-producer Frank Spotnitz and director-producer Daniel Percival) who take the drama side of the equation as seriously as the action stuff—which kicks ten kinds of ass on a weekly basis, with occasional sharp clicks up to eleven.

Thompson on Hollywood

Stonebridge is emerging as a man who may have too many ties to the sanity of ordinary life to be able to execute his assignments with the level of prejudice that’s often required. Not without subjecting himself to a fair amount of emotional turmoil. “People die. I’m fine with that,” he says, arguing with Clare (Laura Haddock), a judgmental UN aid worker, visibly failing to convince even himself.

One of the key differences between Stonebridge and his revved up partner Damien Scott (Sullivan Stapleton) is the gulf that separates an earnest husband and father from a roguish bachelor—the difference between the “self-loathing” detected in Stonebridge by perceptive arms dealer Gerald Crawford (Game of Thrones’s Iain Glenn) and the bordering-on-suicidal despair that hums beneath the surface of Scott’s raunchiness, thanks to Sullivan’s excellent work bringing behavioral texture and depth to a role that in the lesser hands would be a sub-Martin Riggs cartoon.

I’ve been getting skeptical looks from friends who have never watched it when I tell them how good Strike Back is, and I can see their point. Very few shows of this type, in this genre, have attempted to weave such a dense pattern. And I wouldn’t want to discourage people from watching it who want nothing more or less than a suspenseful hard ride into cathartic action. All of the suprisingly complex supporting players in the current storyline—Glenn’s Crawford, Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje’s militia monster and Haddock’s Clare, constantly bemoaning the levels of violence required to rescue her—play bass notes, or grace notes, in what is funadementally a hard-rocking tight piece of action showmanship, complete with smoke pots.

http://www.craveonline.com/tv/reviews/175002-strike-back-106-episode-6

STRIKE BACK 1:06 'Episode 6'

Stonebridge undertakes a dangerous rescue alongside an unlikely team while Scott attempts to break free from the foreign hospital.
By Blair Marnell
September 26, 2011
0

Episode Title: "Episode 6"

Writer: Richard Zajdlic

Director: Alex Holmes

Previously on "Strike Back"

In the aftermath of Captain Kate Marshall's (Eva Birthistle) brutal death, Section 20 was ordered to track down Latif's (Jimi Mistry) weapons supplier, Gerald Crawford (Iain Glen). When Damien Scott (Sullivan Stapleton) and Michael Stonebridge (Philip Winchester) caught up with him, Crawford claimed that his daughter, Dr. Clare Somersby (Laura Haddock) was being held by Tahir ( Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje) — the deadly leader of the Janjaweed marauders — and he agreed to give Latif to Section 20 if they helped him save his daughter.

While posing as Crawford's employees with Stonebridge and Major Oliver Sinclair (Rhashan Stone), Scott ran into a war zone journalist named Maggie (Rachel Shelley), whom he knew from previous overseas encounters. Maggie alerted Scott to the fact that Crawford had already hired a mercenary team to help him retrieve his daughter, so Scott hijacked the cab of her driver, Jacoub (Abdul Salis) to take out two members of the mercenary team before relying on Jacoub and Maggie to get him to the exchange in time. At the meeting, Tahir rejected their attempts to buy Clare's safety with cash instead of weapons and he cut off her ear as a threat. Crawford's remaining mercenary team opened fire and as Tahir escaped with Clare, Scott was shot and badly wounded.

As Maggie and Sinclair brought Scott to medical help, the unlikely team of Stonebridge, Crawford and Jacoub came together to hunt down Tahir and save Clare.

Story:

In the desert, Tahir brings Clare to the mass grave where he had the body of her fiancee dropped. He tells her that she can join her lover in death or live with him as his woman. With not other choice, Clare accepts. At the hospital, Sinclair reports back to Col. Eleanor Grant (Amanda Mealing) about the disastrous exchange and Scott's impending surgery when government guards storm the building to arrest him. To save Maggie, Sinclair tells her to pretend that she doesn't know him before he is taken away. Scott lasts a little bit longer and he finds a sympathetic nurse to help him before he passes out from his wound. However, the soldiers quickly find him and the nurse.

Out in the desert, Jacoub guides Stonebridge and Crawford towards the Janjaweed camp and he tells them that Scott promised him a new car and cash if he helped them. At the hospital, Scott wakes up after life-saving surgery and finds that he is under guard by forces loyal to Matak Achmed (Fraser James), the corrupt government official working with Tahir. Back to Stonebridge, he and his makeshift team catch a Janjaweed raider to get information about their camp. And at that very camp, Clare is tended to by her female friend who tells her that she will be safe as Tahir's woman. Clare promises to find a way to save her as well, but the woman simply says that not everyone can be saved.

As they travel towards Tahir, Stonebridge tries to make Crawford give up his information on Latif before their suicide mission reaches its end. But all Crawford will tell him is that Latif has a spy inside British intelligence. And even a gun to his head can't make Crawford say more than that before Clare is saved. In Darfur, Col. Grant arrives to oversee the release of her men. But first she meets with Maggie and demands all of the photos that she took of the botched exchange for Clare. In a subsequent meeting with Matak, Grant is able to get Sinclair released but not Scott. However, she makes sure that Matak knows that she has pictures of him trying to escape with the ransom money at the botched exchange.

At the Janjaweed camp, Stonebridge and his team await their opportunity while Tahir prepares to take Clare by force. Outside, Clare's friend runs from the soldiers as they attempt to rape and molest her. She grabs a grenade from one of the soldiers and blows up several of them with herself, giving Stonebridge the chance that he needs. Tahir comes out of his quarters with a knife to Clare's throat, but Najim (Siyabonga Xaba), a young boy whom Clare had befriended at the aid camp stabs Tahir, giving Stonebridge the shot at Tahir. Clare is less than happy to see her father, who is broken hearted... but he still retrieves the ransom money.

As they speed off with Clare and Najim to avoid the returning Janjaweed soldiers, Tahir rises and reveals that Stonebridge's bullets struck his multiple layers of kevlar. At the hospital, Grant disguises herself as a nurse and frees Scott from custody. He tells her that Crawford's mercenaries had access to a helicopter and while she pursues that lead with one of Crawford's hospitalized team members, Scott kills Matak when he attempts to murder Scott. Out in the desert, Clare tends to Stonebridge's leg wound and she learns that he is from the British government. He tells her that Crawford will give them valuable intelligence on a deadly terrorist in exchange for her safety. But she realizes that the only way he would know anything is if he was already working with the terrorist.

The Janjaweed and Tahir catch up to the group near a government checkpoint set up by Matak, with Crawford mortally wounded in the first exchange. As Stonebridge and Jacoub hold off the assault, Clare tends to Crawford and reconciles with her father while she can. He whispers a name to her before he dies. Stonebridge is once again confronted by Tahir, but this time Stonebridge makes sure that he is dead. Scott and Grant then arrive with Crawford's other mercenaries by helicopter to extract them. He tells Grant that Crawford gave the name of the British spy to Clare before he died.

For Jacoub and the orphaned boy, it's a happy ending as they get the ransom cash and the stolen jeep. Later in a hotel room, a recuperating Scott convinces Maggie to step away from her computer long enough for another sexual encounter.

Breakdown:

Even in an episode in which Scott is badly wounded, he still finds time to bed the girl of the week... although I suppose being with Maggie twice in two episodes is as close to a serious relationship as Scott can get. Scott's ongoing sexcapades are quickly becoming one of "Strike Back's" signature elements. If you're looking for a "Strike Back" drinking game, take a shot every time Scott drops his pants.

So far, "Strike Back" has been set up as two episode miniarcs, with a separate guest cast for each arc. Like Liam Cunningham before him, Iain Glen had the most memorable guest role as Crawford. However, Glen was able to bring more pathos to Crawford's portrayal and actually make him sympathetic before the end. While watching Crawford, it was difficult to tell when he was lying and whether he was being sincere. I kept expecting him to betray Stonebridge. But in his last moments, it was clear that Crawford really did love Clare more than anything else.

The boy Najim had one of more oddly hilarious moments of the episode when he used a grenade to blow the hell out of a government checkpoint. But it was handled in such a straight forward manner that I wonder if the writer realized how funny that came across onscreen. There was supposed to be an element of tragedy about Najim, after his mother was killed and he stabbed Tahir. However, it didn't register as strongly as it could have. I can see why Jacoub and Najim essentially adopted each other as family, since they each fill the respective holes in their lives. It may have been a little cheesy for them to drive off together with the cash, but I can't begrudge them a happy ending. It's not like anyone else got one.

In the last two episodes, Philip Winchester has upped his game as Stonebridge by making his character more intense. There were occasional moments that didn't ring true, but for the most part it's given Stonebridge the edge he needs to be more than just Scott's straight man. This was a mission of redemption for Stonebridge, even though he didn't get everything that he wanted out of it.

My primary issue with "Strike Back" is that the overall plot is moving at glacial pace. There hasn't been any real movement on the Latif storyline since the second episode. On the whole, the series has been entertaining, but its lack of focus could be a problem if the season doesn't wrap everything up in the remaining four episodes.

Crave Online Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

http://www.ology.com/tv/strike-back-recap-episode-6

'Strike Back' Recap: "Episode 6"
By: Ian Wissman

Strike Back Recap: Season 1, Episode 6 (09/23/2011)
More Strike Back: Recaps | News | All TV Recaps | TVOlogy

Another episode down, and another step closer to Latif. We hope anyway. Picking up shortly after last week’s episode, the latest Strike Back plays more like a part-two of the plot arc we started then. So here’s a quick reminder: last week we joined Section 20 on their excursion to Sudan where they arrested spy-cum-arms dealer Garard Crawford whose daughter was captured with a price tag of some of Crawford’s weapon supply. Section 20 shakes hands on a plea with Crawford to help him save his daughter if he’ll give them a lead on international terrorist Latif whose been just beyond the agency’s grasp for the past five weeks. Ending as the kidnappers get away with Crawford’s daughter, Claire, the opening gambit of “Episode 6” involves Claire being introduced to a mass grave in Darfur in what has been perhaps the most chilling visual in the series yet. Her captor makes his point, and brings Claire back to the camp unscathed for now.

Roll credits. While Stonebridge packs up a few million guns for the road trip to find the raider camp, we find out Agent Scott’s undergone surgery in a Sudanese hospital to remove a bullet from his spleen. He’s cool, though. However, there are some hostiles in the hospital with him; for example, Hendricks, one of Crawford’s former accomplices who Scott rammed with his car last week. Scott, too, is considered an “enemy of the state” by a corrupt Sudanese minister of some sort and “arrested” at the hospital until he can be questioned, viz. killed.

To find out where Tahir’s camp is, Stonebridge takes out a random horse-bound raider by jumping from the car onto the man. Stonebridge does it like that. On course to what they hope is the final encounter to save Claire, Crawford gets under Stonebridge’s skin, reading him like a newspaper. Stonebridge flips his lid, hitting what may be the pinnacle of his madness after the death of his lover-on-the-side, Kate, and holds a gun to Crawford’s head demanding the information Section 20 needs, immediately. Crawford calls his bluff--I mean, dude’s got like Cliff notes on Stonebridge or something--and Stonebridge backs down, but not without dropping the name of Latif’s main spy.

In possession of the photos Scott’s main squeeze snapped last week at the shootout, Colonel Grant has some bones to pick with the Sudanese government and the two basically wind up in a double-blackmail kind of situation that’s more complicated than it probably needs to be, but just winds up with Scott later knifing the Sudan minister in the neck. It’s pretty cool. The knifing, I mean.

While this all takes place back in the city, Stonebridge and his posse make it to Tahir’s camp. After sniper-scope analysis, Claire’s location is deduced and a nighttime incursion is planned--Stonebridge will sneak in and take her, while Crawford and token Sudanese helper snipe from the hill. However, their cover gets blown when a captive nurse is about to be raped by some of Tahir’s men and she pulls the clip on a grenade, fragging the hell out of them. Obviously, knowing Crawford’s on his tail, this twist gives Tahir pause enough to think Stonebridge is outside. Which he is. And so gunfire ensues. In a stand-off, Tahir has a knife to Claire when the little boy whose mother Claire saved last week magically shows up with a knife and takes out Tahir long enough for the crew to hop on the Jeep and peel.

Knowing the Sudanese government is now out to peg Stonebridge and Co., Grant and Scott gun-up and hop aboard a heli- to search and recover the crew, whom they believe may or may not be dead as it is. On the getaway, and crossing paths with some less-than-welcoming government agents, Crawford gets fatally wounded. Trigger Claire’s sudden shift from revulsion at her father’s arms dealing, to utter humanity; to the point that she insists Stonebridge hold off his interrogation so she can save him. You know, and I know that he’s going to die before any more information’s received. Mark this as flub six-million for Stonebridge, by the way. Anyway, there’s an amusing MacGyver-meets-Pulp Fiction moment when Stonebridge has to jam a pen casing into Crawford’s chest to release the pressure on his lungs.

The car runs out of gas and a final gunfight between Stonebridge and the raiders goes down. Anyway, after all the bad guys have been extradited to the afterlife, Tahir gets the sneak on Stonebridge: at pointblank range, Stonebridge pulls the old “hey, what’s that” trick, which works, and the old dog gets the sucker. Then pumps a few more rounds in him.

The Section 20 chopper shows up thirty seconds too late for the fire-exchange, but get all the bodies out of the desert. Grant seems okay with the information Stonebridge got from Crawford, but really, I still think the dude should have been made redundant already.

The only thing left to wonder at the end of the episode--beyond whether their new lead on Latif is worth a damn--is where’s the boobs? Well, in almost cartoonish fashion, knowing that we’re demanding salaciousness from our TV screen, Scott and his photojournalist girlfriend get ready to light the fire. No boobs, and the credits roll before we see the bones get thrown. But it happens. Don’t worry, it happens.

SumOlogy: I feel like the writers were spinning the wheels with these past two episodes. Truth be told, it seems to me like, had they been spliced together as a single episode, I would have been more engaged. Is it really necessary to have three different gun battles waged between the same group of people? Seems a bit superfluous. Anyway, hopefully, with the new lead on Latif, the pace picks back up. Take note Cinemax: boobs and guns only get so far; we need some plot movement here.

Grade: 5/10

http://www.reelgoddess.com/2011/09/26/strike-recap-episode-1-06/

Strike Back Recap: Episode 1.06
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So last week saw Section 20 crawling into bed with known arms dealer Gerald Crawford. In exchange for information regarding Latif, Section 20 agreed to help Crawford rescue his daughter Clare from the Sudanese terrorist, Tahir. As they were preparing to exchange money for Clare, all hell broke loose and Clare ended up back in the hands of Latif, while Scott ended up with bullet in his spleen.

This episode picks up were the last one left off. Stonebridge, Crawford, and their driver, Jacoub, head to rescue Clare, while Sinclair, Maggie and Scott head to the hospital. The “police” show up to arrest Sinclair, who shoos Maggie away so that she doesn’t get arrested too. The police then search for Scott who luckily is being aided by one of the nurses.

Stonebridge and Crawford plan out their next move when a group of Tahir’s men show up on horseback. Stonebridge, being the bad ass that he is, dismounts one of the men (because that’s how he rolls) to find out where Tahir’s camp is. The drive to the camp gives the boys some much needed bonding and self-reflection time and Crawford reads Stonebridge like a book. Stonebridge is still reeling from Kate’s death and the fact that his marriage isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Crawford may not know the details, but he’s got a pretty good idea what self-loathing is all about and that’s exactly the space that Stonebridge is in. Stonebridge ends the conversation by pushing the barrel of his gun into Crawford’s temple, but thinks twice and doesn’t pull the trigger. He does however remove his wedding ring which I found rather interesting.

Col. Grant is pissed with how things have progressed and makes the trip herself to try to clean up this ungodly mess. She arrives at Maggie’s hotel room demanding all the pictures that Maggie has and tells her not to publish her story until the mission is completed. From there, she retrieves Sinclair from the clutches of the evil prime minister, who Col. Grant has some questionable pictures of. Next stop is to retrieve Scott from the hospital. Which she does but not before he dishes out his quips peppered with a hefty dose of flirting. Oh and he also shanks that evil prime minister in the neck….after just having surgery. And that’s how Scott rolls. Trying to find a way to get Stonebridge out of the pickle he’s currently in, Scott suggests going to Crawford’s man who’s also in the hospital following the nasty car accident from last week. Once they’re able to secure a chopper, Col. Grant shows that she really isn’t a woman to be trifled with.

Meanwhile, Stonebridge & Co. make it to Tahir’s camp, but realize there are way too many men to deal with so they wait until the numbers thin come nightfall. Using the sneaky-sneaky approach works until one of the women is about to be raped by a whole lot of men. Instead of going quietly, she pulls the pin on a grenade blowing them all to hell. This however doesn’t do much for Stonebridge’s sneak attack because it makes Tahir think that Stonebridge is there. And he would be right.

Tahir comes out of his hovel holding Clare at knife point but gets shanked by Najim, the little boy whose mother was killed last week. Stonebridge also puts a couple of caps into him just for good measure. Clare and Najim hop into the back of the truck with Stonebridge and crew and haul ass out of the camp. Little do they know however, that Tahir was a smart cookie and had a vest on so he’s not dead. You just can’t keep a good villain down. And Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje always plays a great villain. Well, he’s just great no matter what…but I digress.

As they make their getaway, they have to blow through a check point where Crawford ends up taking a bullet. Clare freaks out, but good thing she’s a doctor. In a rather nasty scene, Stonebridge has to go all MacGyver on his ass and jam a pen into his lung so he won’t drown in his own blood. Tahir and his men show up right as the truck dies and there’s one final fire fight between white hats and black hats. Even though Stonebridge took a bullet in the leg, he’s still a one man army and proves this by waxing several of Tahir’s men. Tahir meanwhile is able to get the drop on him, but no matter, Stonebridge shoots and really kills him this time.

Clare tends to her dad, who ends up dying despite her efforts, but not before giving her the name of Latif’s spy. Of course we don’t know the name yet because we still have to get through the final few episodes of the season. Grant and Sinclair show up in the chopper just after the action ends and are able to extract Clare and Stonebridge. Jacoub and Najim stay behind with their new wheels and the suitcase full of cash Crawford was able to get back from Tahir.

As the chopper flies away Stonebridge seems to come to some sort of acceptance and puts his wedding ring back on. Scott meanwhile is rehabilitating with Maggie in her hotel room and is just about to get lucky once again when the credits roll. This guy…..nothing keeps him down.

The hunt for Latif will take us through the remaining episodes I image and I have a feeling we’ll get some sort of cliffhanger at the end, since every episode kind of ends in a cliff hanger anyway. I get sucked into this show more and more with each episode that passes. Let’s hope that new lead on Latif leads somewhere fast.