Writer: James Dormer
Director: Julian Holmes
Previously on “Strike Back”:
Coming into this season, I knew that Rhona Mitra had landed a role on TNT’s “The Last Ship.” So I keep expecting her character, Rachel Dalton to be written out of ‘Strike Back.” The groundwork for Dalton’s exit was laid out in the two previous episodes. But just when you might think that Dalton was heading out the door, she refuses to go quietly.
It’s hard to see how Dalton can redeem herself if she’s wrong. That’s why I think that she will be vindicated… eventually.
There are full spoilers ahead for the third episode of “Strike Back” Cinemax Season 3, so if you aren’t up to date with the show then you might want to skip this review or else Leatherby will provide another culinary lesson.
I was certain that Sgt. Damien Scott (Sullivan Stapleton) would be feeling the emotional pain of Rebecca’s (Lyne Renée) death in last week’s episode. But instead, Scott seems relatively well adjusted and he’s already got a new bed buddy named Katya (Rain Elwood). Meanwhile, the lingering trauma belongs to Dalton, who keeps replaying the death of Sergeant Liam Baxter (Liam Garrigan) in her mind while self-medicating and putting her team and her assets in danger.
The early minutes of the episode demonstrate Dalton’s increasing recklessness as Leo Kamali (Zubin Varla) is outed as a traitor to his contact, Amir (Joseph Long). And when Amir is fatally wounded while Hezbollah forces surround them, Dalton forces Sgt. Michael Stonebridge (Philip Winchester) and Scott to interrogate the man on his deathbed.
Stonebridge’s blackmail was clever and effective. He threatened to plant documents on Amir’s body that would make him look like a traitor and endanger his family. Thus the dying man whispers that Al-Zuhari is coming.
From the opening teaser, the episode belonged to Section 20’s newest nemesis, James Leatherby (Dougray Scott); a rogue operative with ties to Al-Zuhari. Leatherby is the rare openly gay Bond-villain type. But Leatherby’s defining traits are his psychotic and paranoid tendencies as well as his ruthlessness. Leatherby seems to be legitimately dangerous to everyone around him; which only made it funnier when Leatherby hit on Stonebridge during their initial meeting.
In the background, there’s a subplot building with Arkady Ulyanov (Marcel Iures), a Russian drug lord with a grudge against Section 20. It turns out that Scott and Stonebridge created a major problem for themselves when they killed Victor Ulyanov (Greg Kolpakchi) back in the first episode of the season. Arkady already knows who they are and Katya appears to be working for him.
Meanwhile, Kamali also had a major role in this episode as he became a lot more sympathetic. Kamali is the first to warn Dalton that she’s going to get him and her team killed. And his prophecy nearly comes true when Leatherby threatens him with a gun for asking too many questions before injuring his lover and shooting a young waiter over a possibly imagined slight. Kamali is so shaken by the ordeal that he immediately quits the operation.
When Scott and Stonebridge catch up to Kamali, we learn that he has a secret daughter named Ester (Amy Leigh Hickman). The scenes at Kamali’s house did a lot to flesh out his character and even added more dimension to the lead characters; as Scott bonded with Kamali and his daughter while Stonebridge acknowledged the loss of his wife. Scott was moved enough by Kamali’s plight that he actually stood up for him against Dalton!
In a nice piece of writing, Dalton throws Scott’s support for Kamali back in his face by telling him that Kamali survives by selling whatever version of himself he needs to win someone over. And Dalton is not necessarily wrong. It sounds all too plausible.
Dalton also shows good instincts when she orders Leatherby’s boyfriend to be detained and she manages to turn him against Leatherby. Through the young man, they discover that Leatherby is bringing Al-Zuhari in at a remote air strip.
The action on this show is always top notch and there was no exception here. The opening shootout in Beirut and the closing chase sequence with Scott and Stonebridge in pursuit of “Al-Zuhari” were standout sequences. There was also a nice touch about the way that Stonebridge inadvertently gave away his presence at the air strip.
Despite Section 20’s expectations, the person from the plane is not Al-Zuhari. Instead, Stonebridge finds that a woman named Sophia (Agni Scott) was there instead. Dalton is so convinced that Sophia has deeper ties to Al-Zuhari that she goes too far with her interrogation and Lt. Colonel Philip Locke (Robson Green) relieves her of command before taking over as the new leader of Section 20.
Dalton takes the dismissal as a chance to reassess her life and get the counseling that she needs. Or she could have done that, had she not kidnapped Sophia and stuffed her into the trunk of a car before taking off for parts unknown. I doubt that Dalton’s superiors will be pleased by her actions. Earlier this season, the late Sebastian Gray (Martin Clunes) suggested that going rogue might be in Dalton’s future. I doubt that anyone expected that future to come true so quickly.
The thing is, I don’t believe that Dalton is wrong. If Al-Zuhari arranged for Sophia to be picked up by Leatherby, then Sophia has to have a major role in his organization. Here’s a theory: what if Sophia is really Al-Zuhari? We’ve already been told that no one meets Al-Zuhari, so that might be the perfect way for a woman to lead a radical Islamic terrorist organization. Most of her followers would think that they’re being led by the near mythical Al-Zuhari. It could be a brilliant way of hiding in plain sight.
Episode 3 also put forth the question of what turned Leatherby into the man that he is today. Stonebridge seemed particularly curious as to how Leatherby came to be and he doesn’t seem convinced that Leatherby’s origins are solely due to the fact that he was captured and tortured by Iraqi forces during the first Gulf War.
For his part, Leatherby not only recognizes Stonebridge from the bar, he also seems to instantly suspect that Kamali leaked the intelligence about Sophia’s arrival. Leatherby is only half right, but we’ve already seen him kill for minor offenses. Both Kamali and Leatherby’s lover could be murdered at any time by this madman. But I’ll say this for Leatherby, he’s got style and he is entertaining.
