The Unit: Five Brothers (Episode 307)

The first time I saw this opening scene, I thought it was shot for shot a scene out of the first season, at least until they got to the bathroom. And then I thought, “oh, wait, this is new.” I don’t know what to think about that.

So Jonas, Mack, and Bob stalk their way through a dilapidated old building to the sounds of gunfire outside, knock out a bunch of locals asking for mercy, and then bust into a rat’s nest of a room. A man cowers in the corner, and though he’s emaciated and beat up, Jonas IDs him as this week’s package, Marc Granger, a reporter for the Washington Post. Outside, Williams radios that the ants are coming back to the farm and they want the grasshoppers out. At the other end of the building, Grey tells them his side is clear, and tells his brothers to make their way to him. Just as they clear into the daylight, Grey holds them back, as the militia’s arriving. The boys are penned in, and Granger is throwing a nutty after four months of torture and starvation. Jonas radios for extraction, and Grey gives the all-clear. Which is the cue for the militants to scuttle in from the back, guns popping. The boys parry and retreat towards their evac site. As they make it into the open, Grey takes a hit in the back and falls. Bob pops the shooter, Williams drags Grey to cover, and Jonas tries to radio out. Grey’s clearly hit hard and the comms are down. Grey says he can keep going towards the evac rendezvous, and Williams hikes him over his shoulder to keep him walking. They round the corner, only to see their ride out flaming there in the street.

Jonas leads his men to an apartment complex. Mack and Bob scope out the building, up to an apartment on the top floor where a family’s eating dinner. It takes the family a moment to notice the men with guns, but once they do, they discreetly panic while Mack and Bob tell them to shut up. A boy at the table begins rocking and chanting (I believe he’s meant to be autistic). The guys herd the family to a corner while Jonas and Granger enter; Granger sees dinner and immediately starts shoving food into his maw. Williams comes in, Grey over his shoulder, and Mack clears the table so he can be laid out for medical attention. Williams thinks the bullet’s collapsed his lung. Blood’s bubbling from the wound in Grey’s side. He’s ghostly pale as he tells Williams to give him a chest tube; Williams is like, dude, let me work, okay? But in a very nice and fraternal way. There’s a lot of “baby” and “brother” and tender homoeroticism in this episode between the two. Grey tells Williams he can’t breath.

I continue not to care that Tiffy’s dancing with all her clothes on, but apparently Kim and Molly do, because they’ve arrived to be shocked and concerned, right on schedule. Tiffy tells them to take their money and their morality and shove it, because she’s providing for her girls. Kim can’t believe Tiffy’s not ashamed of herself, and Tiffy’s like, I don’t have time for that right now, because my car is kinda missing. Annie joins the party, because the guy Tiffy stormed out on mid-lame-dance wants a refund. When she hears the car’s missing, she says that a few of the girls have had their cars towed in the last few weeks. The only thing interesting about this scene is how pregnant Kim is.

The autistic son, Aabid, is freaking in the corner, and Grey is having a hard time stifling his own screams, what with Williams digging in his side to insert the chest tube. Jonas then provides some porn as pain management—and while this was funny when Christina was narrating Naughty Nurses Four during the second season of Grey’s Anatomy, it’s downright creepy to hear Jonas talking Grey off to distract him from the whole chest-tube, bullet in the side, not breathing thing. Mack, keeping watch out the window, informs Jonas that the militants are looking for them from house to house. He thinks they have less than an hour. Aabid continues to scream, which makes Mack scream, which makes Aabid run to his room, which leads the other son to tell Bob he speaks English and he can calm his brother down. He does, and the family regroups in the living room at gunpoint.

Kim and Molly hang out at the club while Tiffy and Annie figure out where her car’s been towed. They offer to help (at which point Kim dryly asks if Tiffy’s ever seen her beg for anything, which makes me laugh). Tiffy asks Annie instead, but Kim and Molly follow.

Williams thinks Grey’s bleeding internally and discovers that he’s been shot twice, and the second bullet hole is bleeding like whoa. Grey seems to be shocky, with the groaning and fishy skin. Jonas tells him to keep it down and Williams digs around for the bullet. It is gross. He gets the bullet out, and there’s more bleeding. Grey tells tries to convince Jonas that he’s dying and they should leave without him. The blood loss has made him forget the part of the Ranger creed that makes them all the way they are: they leave no man behind. Jonas tells Grey that he is absolutely not dying.

Mack keeps watch; Bob tries to connect to dispatch; Williams does surgeryish voodoo. Mack tells Jonas they have about thirty minutes, and they should head to the plan B extraction point at the beach, which Williams points out is ten blocks away. Grey will die if they try to move him. Mack says that if they don’t, they’re all dead. Williams says they need another chopper, but Jonas says that’s not an option at the moment unless they can contact the cavalry with their location. Williams is resolute: he’s not leaving his bro. Granger offers a comm. line a few blocks away for Jonas to call dispatch, and Jonas asks to be taken there.

Tiffy tries to talk her way out of paying to get her car back. Tow Guy won’t bite, but he does offer to front her the money if Tiffy will blow him. He then uses a lame trick to look up her skirt. She tells him she’ll call the cops, and Kim, Annie, and Molly walk her out.

Jonas gives Granger a gun and some clothes. Mack offers to go to the roof and set up the rescue symbol for the copter. He raids the family’s linens, starts tearing them to shreds, and makes for the roof, telling Williams to get Grey ready to move. Williams says he’s not ready, but Mack just powers over him, adding that he needs to back Bob up with another weapon to keep the oh, so dangerous polite family at bay. Williams does as he’s told, not looking too happy about it. Mack makes for the roof. Grey wakes, protesting that he needs to get ready to move. Williams gives him some water. Grey tells him to leave, and Williams literally tells him to shut up. They continue to argue a little, until Grey tells his friend that Annie’s good for him and keeps him from being boring. Annie is pretense for Grey to tell Williams he’s a hero, and to put his hand to his friend’s face like the dying wife he’s turned out to be. Williams tells his bro to shut up again.

Aabid starts to yell again, and Bob tries to gag him, which leads to drawn guns and the whole family freaking and on their feet. Aabid’s mother tells Bob that if he touches Aabid, she’ll yell and alert the whole building. Bob says if she does, he’ll kill her. On the table, Grey is bleeding internally, and the clamp on his artery has come off. A neighbor knocks; he won’t take the weak protests through the closed door that everything’s okay. Bob sends the elder son to speak to the neighbor, and after a moment, drags the man in under threat of death. Williams asks for help, and Bob trains his gun on the father until the elder son goes to help him. He calls Bob a son of a bitch. “I know,” Bob sighs. Such a thing to say about your mother, Bob.

Williams has his fingers literally in Grey’s back, and he’s talking his unwilling helper through some more impromptu surgery. Williams is trying to stop the bleeding, and it’s all very unsanitary.

Outside, Granger has bamboozled Jonas: there is no comm. line, and hat’s more, the reporter’s been Stockholmed into turning his gun on Jonas. Jonas reminds him of the family he left behind.

On the roof, Mack sets up his emergency signal with broken planters, strips of linen, and a code book. His signal (relative of the pentagram) set up, he watches the militants advance.

Williams finishes sewing Grey up and dismisses his helper.

Mack just escapes being seen by some militants. Not by a resident, though, who he shuts up with a gun pointed in her face.

At the bar, the ladies strategize. Lou has a security camera, but it doesn’t show Tiffy’s car. Kim offers to pay for the car, and they all make to leave. Molly and Kim start to talk about bluffing their way out, telling the towing guy that they caught him towing Tiffy’s legally parked car on tape. Annie is smart and tells them they’re lamers for trying to blackmail him. Kim thinks her belly exonerates her from anything, and they all go back to the garage. Tiffy tells TG that she knows he took her parking pass off the dash, and she waves the tape at him. He is not entirely stupid, just perverted, and doesn’t believe their story. Things get tense, and when TG starts tussling with Tiffy, Molly pulls out her police baton and beats him down. Seriously. Her police baton. I don't know why I'm surprised. Tiffy kicks him a few times in the gut, and the ladies take off. If not forever, then for the rest of the episode.

Jonas arrives back at the apartment, just in time for Grey’s hart to stop. He and Williams do CPR while the others watch. Grey’s name has never been quite so literal. He coughs back to life, and the English-speaking son takes advantage of the Uniteers’ distraction and runs into the hall, shouting. Bob shoots him in the back. Jonas decides now is the time to leave, and Mack can catch up. While Grey’s still gasping like a fish, Jonas and Williams load him into a tablecloth, and Bob and Williams carry him out on their makeshift stretcher. The family sobs over their dead son and brother in the hall.

Jonas leads his boys out. A woman walks straight into the barrel of Jonas’s gun and raises the alarm. The men have a veritable shootout on their hands. They’re penned in the middle of the hallway, militants on either end. Williams shoots himself clean out of ammo, and at the last moment, Mack arrives and sharpshoots them out of the hall. They make it to the door, and Jonas tells them it’s ten blocks to the beach. They all know they’re walking out to a Bolivian massacre like Butch and Sundance, but they’re ready to go. Jonas counts them out. When they burst into the alley, the find the marines waiting for them, thanks to Mack’s signal.

The guys load Granger and Grey into the flatbed of a truck while Jonas gives a status update. Williams settles Grey, his head in his lap, and smiles. Grey starts to speak, and a lone gunshot rings out. Williams’ head snaps back, and he falls.

Jonas presses his hands to the younger man’s throat, telling him he’s going home, but it’s clear he’s already gone.

RIP, Hammerhead. I will miss your occasionally psychopathic, always intense, strangely enjoyable crazy eyes. And I will blame Tiffy and her ill-advised booty calls for your death. Someday, she will bring an end to us all.