B.A.

"Roadblock Duty", Episode #102.



Cast: Josh Henderson, Erik Palladino, Keith Robinson, Kirk Jones.

Original Airdate: August 3, 2005.

Over There

Mopower

Let's hope this episode doesn't suck.

Heat

Why the spoilers? The name of the episode is "Roadblock Duty", the fact that it is an episode where they are assigned to guard a checkpoint shouldn't be a shock to anybody.

And it should be good, I read the review of it last week. This episode will give us some character development.

Geofferson

Yup, looking forward to getting to know these soldiers.

Phil L.

I'll be on board for tonight's ep. Well...I'll be recording it on the DVR, might not get around to watching it tonight though.

B.A.

purely due to habit.

Noojimbo

I'll be watching

Big Worms

I will be recording and watching it tomorrow.

Mopower

Well this episode was miles better than the pilot. I hope the rest of the season is as good as this episode.

Noojimbo

Yeah, it was much better. Though I didn't really see any advances in the characters, besides Dim becoming considerably more annoying. I did like the replacement, however, I hope he stays permanently.

Jae

crap, i just missed it. was this the episode when the soldiers didn't know what to do because there was a girl in a car? i'll probably catch it tomorrow

TruGator

This episode was much better, but some things still bother me. Their squad is like 5 people, when most squads are like 8-10, but I guess I'll have to get over it.

Noojimbo

Yeah, it was that episode. You do know that FX always has encores of these shows immediately after, right?

Heat

And the one black guy is a racist.

I also like the replacement, pretty sharp.

mikehunt

the SAW should have been deployed with the bipod resting on the sandbags, and a guy with an M4 or M16 and no M203 should have been the one to go check the car

B.A.

You've got it completely backwards.





I thought it was much better than the pilot, too. Better pacing to the story, etc. And the replacement was a definite improvement over the guy who wanted to know everyone's damn nickname.

Red Dog

Better than last week. Still not grabbing me though. Maybe consistent with the fact that I'm not big on war movies in general.

Mopower

Thank you Dale Dye.

Heat

The only question I had about the episode... how realistic was that?

SPOILERS

Here's the problems I had with it:

The first car that got shot up, why didn't they just stop and let the soldiers search the trunk? Everybody dies, but they know that they got a soldier, why try to run the checkpoint?

So the whole thing was so that the bad guy could get smuggled out of wherever. He sent five people (including the kid) to their deaths solely to check the security of the checkpoint? (and of course two others got killed) Why not just walk across the desert and meet up with the car past the checkpoint?

And just a question: Do you think Bo (the guy missing the leg) will return to the unit? I think he will because, well, it's television.

Red Dog

I had the same thought. It's a fucking desert - maybe a rough ride, but still relatively flat - isn't the obvious thing to do is drive a mile (out of sight) around the checkpoint?

Mopower

It would be kinda dumb for this show to be 2 episodes because everyone dies in the second one wouldn't it?

But I agree about the guy just running thru the desert. Unless they didn't know the checkpoint was there until it was too late. Either way Muslim extremists aren't the smartest people in the world obviously.

B.A.

I almost said the same thing.


They couldn't have avoided the checkpoint by driving or walking through the desert because then we wouldn't have had an episode.

Heat

SPOILERS

I was thinking about that a little more. They must have assumed (and probably correctly) that the area around the town would be monitored by infrared from helicopters, so it kind of makes sense that they would want to stay on the road, even if it meant going through a checkpoint.

They knew the checkpoint was there, that was the point of testing the checkpoint by sending the two rich Syrian guys to their deaths with a bomb in the trunk, followed by the car with two (or three) Muslim women. The point there was to see if the Americans would be checking the trunk after a car tries to run into them.

So the first car was sent through with a bomb in the trunk, it got shot up. The second car came through as a test to see if they’d check the trunk after the first car had a bomb in it. The one American soldier forgot to check the trunk. Now the bad guys are thinking “OK, if we send a car to get shot up, they won’t check the trunk of the car right behind it”. Which is why they sent the 3rd car (two men and the little girl) to run the checkpoint (and get shot up), followed shortly afterwards by the car with the couple and the bad guy in the trunk. Their plot was spoiled when the new guy (Tariq?) heard the cell phone ring in the trunk. Which brings me to another point, if you are hiding in the trunk and want to remain inconspicuous, why not put the cell phone on vibrate rather than the ring? They were trying to build suspense in making the viewers think that there was a cell-phone activated bomb in the trunk, but what they should have done was have Tariq see something out of place and want to see the trunk, or have Tariq just check the trunk because he does things by the book.

The show is OK to me, but not a “must-see” yet though it still has potential. Next week I think I’ll watch LOST on ABC at 9pm (CDT), followed by the second showing of Over There.

Phil L.

Wow, this show discussion got shuffled back to page 2 fairly quickly huh?
And in the summer no less.

I thought this episode was better then the pilot and actually fairly intense at times.

Considering I watch the CSI's I won't spend a lot of time looking for, and picking out gross inaccuaracies in this show.

I'll cut em' some slack. Since after all... this is, um, TV.


Edit: Does this show repeat during the week like Rescue Me?
I checked the FX site and their schedule info is incomplete.

Heat

Looks like it’ll be shown again on Saturday at 10 and Sunday at 11 (I’m assuming Eastern Daylight Time), but I don’t have the full list of when it’s shown.