Review of The Bank

"The Bank" from the second season is a example of Mission:Impossible at its best. This episode is set in East Berlin when the Berlin Wall was still standing (for those of you too young to understand, in those days Berlin was divided into the "free" western zone and "communist" eastern zone, separated by a wall - guards would shoot you if you tried to escape to the West). The director of an East Berlin bank, Belzig, runs a sort of perverse underground railroad. Unsuspecting people would deposit money in the bank to secure passage to the West, only to mysteriously disappear before reaching freedom. Belzig's goal is to resurrect a fascist regime (what, he's not doing it just for the money?), but that's secondary to the story. The team's mission is to stop Belzig's operation and to recover the money. How they do it is not so obvious, and there is plenty of suspense and a few twists. It's unusual in that Jim's character, who impersonates a communist Federal agent, cooperates with the local police in the sting. Also, Cinnamon gets to do some technical stuff that Barney usually does (it seems the writers in the second season made an effort to deglamourize her role). Martin Landau once again demonstrates his fine acting ability in a small role as an older shop owner who becomes Belzig's latest victim. All the characters are well cast and played in this episode. The ending is very satisfying and there's literally a twist in the ending shot! Plus the theme of political refugees escaping to the West is still very relevant today.

I do have one nitpick about "The Bank". At one point, Jim zooms in on a videotape recording with a pocket telescope and views a crystal clear image of the safe deposit number - why do they always show an unrealistic blowup of videotapes? It would have been more realistic to just figure out the location of the safe deposit box by counting the rows and columns.