User Reviews

The show continues to be strong, this time giving us a twist I did not see coming with the hostages being part of a chemical attack.

This show has maintained focus on a strong premise, and while this episode didn't quite up the ante in terms of action, simply staying the course is what is keeping this show great.

In this penultimate episode, the plot thickens with Suleiman's diabolical plan of terror that is referred to as "black biology." Suleiman has hatched a scheme to spread Ebola to America, and the plotters have already reached as far as the port of Baltimore to offload and apparently set in motion the plan for the airborne release of the virus. The murders in the Paris cathedral set the stage for a much more elaborate and deadly act of terrorism.

The depraved nature of Suleiman is seen on the personal level when he lies to his son, little Samir, that his mother has been killed by "the enemy." In fact, Hanin is in a safe house in Annandale, Virginia, across the Potomac. Unfortunately, the authorities make the fateful error of giving Hanin a cell phone. One of her daughters promptly phones Samir in Syria, telling him about their new life in America. Of course, Suleiman discovers the message on the Samir's phone, which leads him to evacuate the compound at the precise moment of the ground attack of the Kilo Actual team of JSOC. The team leader reports back to the nerve center in Washington, D.C.: "We got a dry hole here."

The only humans remaining in the Al Mnajeer Syrian compound are the twelve doctors and the lone Muslim Al-Radwan. For some odd reason, the strike force decides to kill the unarmed Al-Radwan, who might have provided valuable intel.

In a Georgetown bar, Jack is wearing a J. C. Crew button-down while he is nursing a drink. He is comforted by Greer, who explains that, despite the failure of the ground mission, at least the twelve hostages were retrieved. Jack later meets with Dr. Cathy, and the couple settle in to a drink-fest of Chianti wine and hard liquor at a restaurant. Dr. Cathy is extremely forgiving for Jack's lies.

Suleiman and his agents have set in motion their plan of "black biology," and Suleiman leads a celebration where his minions (along with little Samir) shoot their guns in the air to the cry of "Alahu Akbar!" At this point, Suleiman is approaching the Turkish border with passports for himself and Samir.

At the close of the program, Greer and Jack are watching the television reunion of Dr. Nadler and his old army pal Pickett who is now POTUS. But when the doctor is captured on camera coughing on multiple occasions, it occurs to the perceptive Greer that the "black biology" conceived by Suleiman is even more dastardly than ever imagined: it is the doctors without borders themselves who may be the weapon! Wow!

It is incredible that they give suleiman's daughter a device with internet access, directly it is an argument that is not understood anywhere. also the degree of accuracy with which suleiman infects the hostages, escapes, just watching the video game of his son. what capacity of intuition.

Of course you give the girl in the safe house an internet-connected game boy. Makes absolutely sense.... Otherwise great, but that detail cost 5 stars in my review.

Sulieman lies to his son about his mother. From the emotion by the son he probably believes he killed his mother rather than the enemy though she's alive and well. This episode confirms my suspicion on Mueller's Liberia case. So idiotic, in my opinion. Cuse probably evoking the 'Lost' idea of "everything (and one) is connected". Whatever... Though you can see the other connection of why Sulieman has kept the Westerners (the doctors) alive by testing the Ebola strain on them and them going back to the states to spread the disease. While technically that's the ending of this episode, if you see the connections through the series as I have (and why wouldn't you?) then you should have that figured out before the big reveal.

Slow and uninteresting episode. Nothing really wrong with the episode, it's just too easy to figure out especially since up to this point they're (my presumption) trying so hard to be intelligent. Oh, and how Suleiman found out about the U.S. coming: pathetic. That night, out of the blue, he decides to go through his son's things, finds his video game thingy and sees the message! What a coincidence! Pathetic. And, the fact everyone left the compound but the hostages were left behind unhurt and alive. No one think that was weird? I sure did.

Oh well.

Up to now the series has been well written and even better acted, but maybe because it's coming to the end of the season and they want to build up suspense, but this one felt rushed and forced.

The first are more story development issues; Greer manages to connect a picture of Suleiman at an airport with a briefing that's literally about to happen, and in the process blows Jacks cover with Cathy. They could have missed the briefing, found out who they'd been talking to, and have Jack ask her about it more covertly; instead she storms off having found out his real job and later has dinner with him, having just uncovered the fact that not only was she right about the ebola, but a terrorist likely has it and has probably just weaponized it! Same with Yazid managing to track Suleimans family all the way across Europe, be given an order to kill Hanin and retrieve the girls, and then Suleiman only sending one text a little while later to see what's going on, despite having told Samir his mother is dead. Sure, there's other things going on, but atleast have a scene with Suleiman asking one his colleagues to check up on Yazid or Cathy explaining why two soldiers escorted her from her hospital! Was half expecting Samir to jump out of bed and run to his dad to tell him the good news she was still alive!

On that note, the CIA know Suleimans group use computer games to communicate; yet they give the daughter a console - the game she asked for -with that capability and don't monitor her communications? Given how they portrayed the chat in End of Honor, it's a bit annoying that she has unfetted access to communicate from the safe house with anyone, without anyone noticing/monitoring what she's typing. Even if she was doing it innocently, who knows if her father could see if she was online and track her IP like they did with Ali. Suleiman needs to survive, sure, but this is contrived, just like having one broken capsule being left in Baltimore for someone to find and uncover the plot.

And likewise; the 12 Dr's have been held in Suleimans - a known terrorist and the man who carried out a massive chemical weapons attack - compound for a length of time, Suleiman and his men have bugged out and left their hostages in place, yet within days (hours?) of their release they are meeting the President of America? Sure, he and Dr. Nadler go way back (and from this episode we don't know if they are ill or just fatigued), but the surely the authorities would give them even a basic debrief/quarantine to check him for information/he hadn't maybe been brainwashed before a face to face with the President?

Jack makes the point about "The movies get that wrong all the time" in relation to him being a CIA Officer (not a spy or agent). I hope these things are just the movies getting it wrong in these cases and it's just a blip in an otherwise great series.

No spoilers but major plot holes in this episode that still was very exciting (known channel of communication not monitored for any chatter?, target not monitored in last few hours before deployment?, etc) Still love the series and the acting is really good

The first season has been excellent for the most part, I'd say deserving at least 8 stars overall, but this particular episode (The Boy) took a significant dip in storytelling IMHO. This happened a few times in other episodes, 7 just had way too many conveniences to move the plot along for my taste. I don't know if this season originally had more episodes planned, eight does seem like a pretty low number, and the story had to be sped along faster, but the production team would've been well aware of this long before episode 7 of 8 was filmed to adjust the writing in a more logical manner.

For starters, Hanin and daughters are now 'safely' in the US, under the protection of the Agency who always has a presence in the home. Why then are they allowed to have unsupervised internet access so the eldest daughter can contact her brother, using a known way of communicating no less? Also, what are the chances Ali would open his son's video game device, something he probably sees him with often enough to not take notice of, on the very night his compound is to be raided?

Next we see Ali's right hand man retrieving the next piece of their planned attack from the Baltimore docks... in a completely empty, darkened customs warehouse and wearing the wrong type of protective suit. This and the finale also makes it seem like it's completely effortless to sneak through US Customs/Immigration. While it's probably easier than many other countries, there's still fingerprint and facial recognition to contend with, and there's most likely lookouts for all of these people.

Then we have the rescue of the hostages, who are the only people left of the abandoned compound. One line of dialog would've covered how strange that seems, such as they didn't have time/space to take them along, but nope, just get them a shower and a change of clothes and they'll be ready to meet the prez. Don't bother with a debriefing and medical examination; they've only been gone 16 months.

There's more that can be mentioned, such as how Cathy finds out Jack's real job (I didn't mind that one), but when the rest of the season has been so good, it's really noticeable when plot devices feel contrived. As of this writing I have finished season one, and am debating on continuing the series. I like the characters, I like and am familiar with the source material, and I can't stress enough how refreshing it is to have a positive/moral main character in a show; hopefully the dark/depressed character era is coming to an end.

First. Why would someone ask for a casual relationship then lose their temper bc they weren't told the deep secrets of the other's job? Second. Such a high level witness and you allow one of them to get a video game with no cleareance? Third. "The hole is empty". And then JR asks 5 min later after a thorough search "what about the boy?" The dialogue was cheap and silly. They need to make up their minds. Either write for intelligent people or write for the people who watch the Kardashian's. The first 5 episodes were fantastic. Ep 5 was JR out of his league and not sure if that was intentional. Episode 7. Difficult to take seriously at all. Hope it ends better.

Another average episode, let down by more poor uninteresting stuff with dinner dates and the like slowing the pace down to a snail's crawl. Plus, Jack's still not feeling like a very human or likeable character and shots of him lying around shirtless don't really add to that. The raid sequence and the twist ending are both pretty good, but that's about it here.