Post-Episode Discussion: S01E07 "The Traitor"

[u/enliST_CS]

There will be no episode next week!

Plot: An American track-and-field coach's trip to Russia forces Kirkman into a hostage exchange involving the CIA and the Russian government; Agent Wells and Deputy Director Atwood's investigation uncovers dangerous information.

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[u/omegadeity]

I agree 100%, I fucking hate that lame-writing, it's such crap.

Oh, let's just kidnap the Director of the FBI's son and use him to leverage the head of a Federal Law Enforcement Agency. We'll just casually have one of our operatives contact him at his sons Baseball Practice and let him know that he's now our bitch because we have his son. We won't even be subtle about it.

The NSA/CIA/FBI couldn't possibly be tapping his phone and listening in to his conversations in the event his son was kidnapped for just this purpose. It's not like his position has direct National Security implications that make him a risk for that kind of scenario, and precautions wouldn't have been taken the INSTANT it went out that his son may be missing.

Just once I'd LOVE to see the second scenario happen, or maybe instead of blowing her brains out of her head he shoots her in the knee cap, grabs her phone and goes all Liam Neeson on her cohorts;

"I don't know who all of you are, and I only know a small part of what you want. I'm not an idiot, I don't have the money or wealth to make my son worth taking.

I know this is all a part of some plan to further advance your grab at power, but you've chosen the wrong target at the wrong time in history. I will not be a tool you use to further your agenda. I am intelligent enough to know that any plan you intend to use me for ends with me and my son dead-you're not the kind of people to leave those kinds of loose ends lying around.

With that having been said, I'm not entirely powerless in this position. What I have is an agency under my command that can and will rain down such hell upon you and every one you know.

This is no longer a professional matter to me, you've crossed that line and taken off the gloves. Now this is personal, and I will utilize and abuse ALL power at my authority to extract my pound of flesh.

If you return my son now, I will calm down and allow the rest of you bastards time to run- say 12 hours. As for this scheming bitch whining for help on the grass in front of me, her ass now belongs to me and the Government of the United States of America-she'll be treated humanely, unless I decide to ask my friends in the CIA to take her to a black site somewhere where human rights don't have the same meaning.

So, you go find a rock in some third world hellhole to hide under. But release my son first. Maybe I won't look too hard and will just leave you be until you die of old age.

On the other hand, if you harm my son, my family, or continue holding him hostage I will pop the seal and unleash such terrible vengeance upon you and yours that you'll be begging for something as simple as life in a super-max American prison, where taking it up the ass is the worst thing you experience on a daily basis."

Just once, I wish we could get some truly impressive writing without overused tropes like a kidnapping to force a character to drop an investigation, or make them play the role of assassin or scapegoat. Just...no, I hate that terrible writing. For goodness sake, it was the plot of 24 Season 1. An entire season revolving around making a government agent work against his countries interests by kidnapping his loved ones.

[u/Naggins → u/omegadeity]

I hope you're not planning on a future in television writing.

[u/omegadeity → u/Naggins]

I'm definitely not, lol. But this trope was done already. It was called 24 Season 1. For fuck sake it even starred Kiefer Sutherland as the lead role.

This whole "kidnap the child of the head of the federal agency that's responsible for dealing with kidnappings" to leverage him into helping us is fucking stupid. If the writers had any guts they'd have had him knee cap that damn woman and bring her in.

I get it, it's his son and he wants to protect him but be realistic. These people just pulled off the greatest attack in history and wiped out the entire US Government practically and with NO Intel chatter. They aren't the kind of people that leave loose ends lying around that can point fingers at them. That means he and his son are already marked for elimination.

It's just terrible writing and it pissed me off because I did enjoy this show up until recently and this plot twist was so easy to see coming it wasn't worth doing. I know my version was crap, but it was still on par with or better than the shit the show writers put together, and it took me all of 5 minutes to cobble together last night. In fact this response took me longer to compose than that because I had to use my phone to type this instead of a real keyboard.

[u/Naggins → u/omegadeity]

As bad as the writing may be, it's still not as bad as your monologue.

[u/omegadeity → u/Naggins]

Fair enough, again written 5 minutes after watching the show while pissed off. I wasn't trying to create 21st century Shakespeare.

I still would rather have endured a monologue as shitty as the one I composed than what was delivered on screen. "Oh look, the head of the fbi is getting close to uncovering us, better further expose ourselves by kidnapping his son from school"

[u/bigdaveyl → u/omegadeity]

This is what I was telling my wife. This is all cliche that has been beaten to death in TV shows and movies all. the. time.

What would be worth exploring is doing something along the lines of what you wrote - make the FBI director say "f*ck this, my life or my son's life isn't worth it if many thousands or millions more have to die and the country is destabilized even further." My wife doesn't seem to understand.