Oooh! A cold open. Danya and Luke are arguing in a penthouse in Buenos Aires. Snide comments turn to shouts, shouts turn to blows, but before anything is settled (even though Danya comes out on top), police bust in to arrest the two of them.
FEDERALE: Mr. Charles, you will come with us.
(DANYA shoots a glance at LUKE, on the floor)
DANYA: Why does everyone know you?
'Sabotage' by the Beastie Boys kicks off and we get a rapid fire credits montage of highlights from the season:
The catwalk above the shark tank collapses
Mac disarms the bomb with an ice sculpture
Nash slides across the roof of the building into the stolen bus and blows a kiss
Maddie slow motion walking into the Paris club
Nash drops the Sisi Star from his hand on the roof of the Sydney Opera House
Maddie drops the sandbag onto Dawn Montana
Mac hands out a ton of of fake Sisi Stars
Danya directing Nash with her hands on proper tough guy etiquette
Nash and Ninotchka going through the bus window
Mac hands off the dossier out of nowhere to Raphael
Maddie shoves Cormac in the portable fridge
Luke picks up the Scotch as it arrives in the VIP room
Nash getting hit on by Katherine Hanratty while wearing a priest outfit
Maddie gets Raphael's necklace
Luke having a drink with Julia
Danya dances a jig with the archbishop
Nash handcuffed to the bed
Luke punching out the DJ
Nash surrounded by K-Rome's crew
Mac offering a cutting sideways glance
Danya leaning against the doorway before dealing with K-Rome's crew
Maddie admiring K-Rome's obnoxiously overblinged Desert Eagle
Luke on stage with Loretta
The door shuts on Danya and Sterling
We open with Luke, Danya and an armed escort on a cigarette boat speeding down the coast of a tropical island. They are cuffed and we get a chance to see the various locations we'll see during the episode. There's the Bluff near the Uplink Tower, the Beach, the Dingy Village, the Ship Hull and the Impressive Prison.
The boat pulls into a slip at our destination, the Generalissimo's Mansion. It's an old plantation house that's been redone. Just when you think we'll get a tour, they apparently only paid for the external shots, because here comes our Mark via helicopter. Generalissimo Cortez walks out in a full dress uniform, but both Dany and Luke aren't fooled - the medals of service are from a mish-mash of armies, and Cortez is looking spry for a veteran of the Spanish-American War.
Luke turns to one of his guards.
LUKE: What's your name, son?
GUARD: Juan.
LUKE: Juan, I need you to get my keys out of my pocket and tell this guy not to scratch the paint on my car when he parks it.
Luke's usual streak of mouthing off to the Mark gets him into some trouble here. Luke has a Concussion from his fight with Danya and soon enough, Juan is ordered to hit him with the butt of the rifle. In addition, Luke has a Swollen Eye.
Cortez's plan is simple. He wants Danya to infiltrate some filthy rebels that are making life difficult for him and his burgeoning private island prison and lead them into a trap. To make sure she does it quickly, Luke will get to see the inside of the prison and be treated well. And by treated well, I mean entered into a no-holds-barred fight club. The longer Danya takes, the more fights Luke has to survive.
During the speech, Danya realizes The Generalissimo is Not Einstein. The main reason? He keeps calling her Ms. Manchester. That would be Diana Manchester, Luke old flame from his previous Crew. Danya huffs about the confusion and Mac gets in her ear.
MAC: Why are you surprised? I gave you those files three days ago.
As enjoyable as watching Cheech Marin play a banana republic dictator is, it's even more enjoyable with the whole crew being able to chime in on earbuds.
Danya gets sent away on her mission. Which should be pretty easy, since the rest of the Crew is already holed up with the opposition and going through their plan with Lucia, the leader of the rebels. Mr. X wants an individual known as The Doctor freed from the prison. If they get him out, they win. Luke and Danya are going to be on the inside. Mac needs to rig up a transmitter so the earbuds can overcome the prison's radio interference. Maddie will pretend to be Lucia, since the Generalissimo has never actually seen her. Nash needs to secure their ride off the island - Chekov's Helicopter from the opening scene. He has some experience stealing helicopters being a Silver Spoon Rebel and all. Dany lets the Crew know things got a little rough in their staged fight.
LUCIA: Why would you actually hit him if you were faking a fight?
MADDIE: You'd have to know him.
Luke is being escorted through the prison by Juan. They talk for a few moments. Juan reveals he took the job to support his mother, who died recently from an illness. The medicines he had to buy were very expensive and he's still paying them off. Juan is a nice guy, but it soon becomes clear the prison is staffed by Undisciplined Guards.
They arrive at what Juan calls solitary confinement. The rest of the prison is clean, modern and Spartan. This set, where the inmate fights occur, is set up like a cockfighting ring writ large. Each inmate sits on one of two benches on opposite sides of the ring. The two fighters at the head go at it and the winner goes to the back of the line. Various guards and prisoners watch and raucously wager on the fights inside.
Luke sits down on the bench and strikes up a conversation with the prisoner next to him. Even though he's covered with blood, sweat and grime, you can still make out Jon Hamm's square jaw and good looks. Wonder if he's The Doctor?
Mac runs into a couple of problems at the uplink tower. The guards patrolling the site are no problem, but the shoddy contractor is. They put the box she needs to get to towards the top of the tower. And, unfortunately, it's a Windy Day at the Uplink Tower. Mac strips down and heads towards the beach to distract the guards, allowing Nash to acrobat his way up the tower.
Luke chats up his prison buddy. He got caught selling tainted medicines to the villagers. But his fake Viagra to the Generalissmo is what got him in trouble. Luke enters the ring, one shots the guy, and sits back down for more chatting.. When he was searched, he had three things in his pockets. Gum, Loose Change, and a Bond Gadget. The Bond gadget activates close to the security room as it waits for Mac's signal.
Back at the beach, Maddie arrives to help Mac keep the guards away from the tower. Unfortunately, Beach Blanket Bingo also seems to be working on Nash.
DANYA: Eyes on the game, boys.
NASH: We're in bewteen plays, coach.
The guards show off their guns to the ladies, showing them how to shoot in that sleazy I'll-show-you-how-to-shoot-pool way. Nash takes one more moment to admire the view.
NASH: You should totally rub suntan lotion each other and...I'm climbing...
Nash cuts the green wire and gets Luke back on-line.
Luke has a little more trouble with his next opponent but is soon back to chatting with his friend. He confirms that The Doctor is their target.
Danya heads into town to see how bad things are. It doesn;t take long for her to stumble on some of the Generalissimo's thugs that he dispatches to keep the townies in line. She wades into break up a fight but gets too cocky. She offers the first shot and gets put on the ground.
Luke, meanwhile, keeps brutally one-shotting his opponents. It's like he's making up for all the episodes where he charges in to talk to the Mark by getting beaten by the Mark's thugs. He even kills ne of his opponents after asking The Doctor what they guy was in for.
Mac's gadget sends her a picture of The Doctor. This turns out to be a little more trouble than it's worth. Maddie recognizes him. She knows him as Eric, the grifter that turned her into the girl she is today. She thought he was dead. Turns out he's just a slimeball. Angel Face is Shaken. She half-fakes a fainting spell to get the guards to get her and Mac to the infirmary.
The thugs bring Danya up to the bluffs to get some info out of her about the resistance. Nash drops down from the tower to save her hide but soon finds himself in a Cliffhanger, Literally. I love how Nash is a ninja, but he only does well in a fight when he sucker punches people. He takes out one of the guys by going over the cliff and has to hang out while Danya clears up the rest. This fight does a great job of highlighting the differences between Luke and Dayna's style. He's brutal and direct. She's graceful and constantly on the move. Nash doesn't even get to finish his call for help before she's handled the thugs.
NASH: Danya, I need...no, we're cool here.
The girls have a tense moment at the infirmary. Maddie asks Mac to bring up The Doctor's file to see just how awful he is. The answer? Very. Mac realizes Maddie has history with their target. She tries to bring up a file of their crimes, but they were good enough to stay clean. She's only able to pull up a picture of them together before Maddie snatches Mac's computer out of her hands.
MAC: If you want this to go smoothly, give that back.
With Eric's identity confirmed it's time to get him out. Danya brings Maddie posing as Lucia to the Generalissimo at the prison. He gets a few moments to gloat before he hears something strange.
Mac's gadget holds a final nasty surprise. The EMP charge knocks out the prison's power and kicks up a riot. Danya takes out the Generalissimo and heads into the prison to find Luke and Eric.
Nash swoops in with the chopper trying to find a place to land.
After rescuing Eric from some inmates, Luke and the target find themselves surrounded by guards. Thanks to Danya being a Master of Disguise, Luke has some back up. But Luke Gets Shot anyway, which is a nice callback to The Bootstraps Job. Danya pushes the shot that shot Luke down the stairs and doesn;t stop beating him until he's over the side onto some barbed wire. They may be miles away from Trusting each other, but there are definitely some kind of feelings there.
They make it to the roof and Nash tells Mac to hold the Chopper steady. Between her Fear of Heights and being Focused, Mac keeps the bird in the air. The crew swoops off the island.
Maddie and Eric have whatever you'd like to call the opposite of a heartwarming reunion. In the background you can see Danya patching up Luke. He tells her something, which I think was his real name. Damn you sound mixer guys!
Maddie blames him for ruining her life. Eric shoots back that without him, she'd be a minivan-driving unhappy mom by now. Maddie calls Eric a terrible person for all the people he's hurt and killed. Eric asks her why she's judge and jury when she's still stealing things for a living. Luke breaks up the argument with a question to the pilot.
LUKE: Are we in international waters yet?
NASH: Give me twenty seconds.
Luke pulls out a revolver taken from one of the guard. Everyone in the chopper tenses.
LUKE: When pirates turned on each other in a mutiny, one side always lost. Pirates didn't have a lot of rules, but when someone managed to break one...something had to be done. The leader of the losing side, if he survived, was marooned. That means that he was left on an island with a weapon, usually a gun.
Nash banks the chopper toward the sandbar
LUKE: The leader was given a single bullet. It was to use on himself to end his life before he died of thirst, starvation, or any one of a dozen nasty ways to go.
Luke opens the revolver, empties out the bullets out of the side of the chopper but keeps one in his palm. He puts it in Eric's pocket.
LUKE: Mr. X told us we had to get you out, but he never said anything about getting you back. If he's as good as he claims to be, there's a good chance he'll find you here before you have to use this.
Luke slaps the gun into Eric's hand and pushes him out of the helicopter. As he falls in slow motion into the ocean, we get peppered with the Wrap-up flashbacks.
During the riots, Maddie uses Help on the Inside to rile up the rebels to take back their island. Lucia notes she could learn something from her about stirring speeches.
Mac has been broadcasting the whole affair to the countries that have been using the Generalissimo's services. As the Generalissimo comes to, he sees an inbox full of cancellation emails.
Danya has been keeping an eye on Luke all along. She helped him as a guard inside the prison and even broke a fighter's wrist when she saw he was going to shiv him during a battle. He wasn't aware of it until Mac showed him the security feeds later.
Nash took a few moments to fly Juan back to the mainland and land near the Generalissmo's Cadillac SUV. He tosses Juan the keys and tells him to make sure all the medicine in the back is distributed for free. He also decided to empty all the gas tanks for the cigarette boats the Generalissimo tried to use to escape. Oops.
Luke performed a simple palm...he never put the bullet in Eric's pocket. I'm not sure what's worse. Eric can't use the gun to end his suffering or that he might think that somwhere between falling out of a helicopter, swimming to shore and pulling himself onto the beach, that he lost the bullet.
We cut back to the penthouse in Buenos Aires. Luke is watching the fallout from their breakout. The Generalissimo is ruined and Lucia is working to bring the island back to a proper state. The team wins again but not without some effort. There's a long cut of Maddie on the beach looking at a photo of her and Eric in happier times. They are kissing in front of Madrid's Neptune's Fountain. She looks out over the water, unsure once again if Eric is dead or alive.
Cut back to Luke as he leaves his room and gets stopped by Nash in the hall. For once, Nash is serious.
NASH: Stop trying to get yourself killed.
Luke stares back and for a moment. He almost looks like he's going to say something. But then he continues on. He stops at a door, bends down and knocks. He walks away. The door opens. Danya peeks out and picks up the package. So many emotions play across her face as she recognizes the case Luke left at her door. The last time she saw it was in Malta...
Credits.
Fixer's Commentary:
I knew going in this was going to be the dark episode this season. There was a lovely moment of tension between Maddie and Mac when the revelation if Eric's identity came out. They both rolled to see who would win and Maddie squeaked out by one point.
We knew we wanted to do a prison break episode and a fight club episode so we decided to combine two great tastes that go great together. The story broke when I decided to make the target Maddie's old mentor. I took a risk in making him an unrepentant bastard. Maddie rolled with it. She emailed me after the game and told me how it really hit home for her. It showed how different our heroes are from the rest of the people in Crime World. I also think it galvanized the Crew to Luke's idea that win or lose, they are going to be taking down Mr. X.
People have started spending Jobs and I'm a bit surprised everyone is taking Trust. I liked the idea but figured people would be way more interested in buying Signature Assets or Specialties. But the players love using Trust as well as discussing with each other who they trust in the crew and why. I hope that the supplements look at expanding the trust mechanic because it's the most popular in the game. Luke and Dany's players have expressed a desire for a Sexual Tension version of the mechanic to play up their dynamic.
Assets:
The Generalissimo's Chopper
The Generalissimo is Not Einstein
Help on the Inside
Luke's Pockets Contain: Gum, Loose Change, Bond Gadget
Undisciplined Guards
Complications:
Luke has a Concussion
Luke has a Swollen Eye
Cliffhanger, Literally
Windy Day at the Uplink Tower
Beach Blanket Bingo
Luke Got Hit
Angel Face is Shaken
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