Mr. Noa, our intrepid director, should be complimented. Having been though an exhausting week and then getting all of 6 hours of sleep in 48, I stayed up until midnight the night before I was supposed to leave for Thanksgiving vacation at 4:30 AM, just so I could catch the Pilot Episode of Hitman, Season 4, hot off the Get File. I was not disappointed. Witty dialogue and a great build-up in tension make this segment one of the better of all four seasons.
This episode brings us up to date with what’s been going on in the lives of our favorite characters in the 3 months since Red Fox deserted his post in pursuit of revenge. Chechnya is now an all-out war zone, threatening to de-stabalize Russian-American relations and drag these two super-powers into conflict (with the shadowy encouragement of a one very pretty, very deadly arms dealer to help them along, of course) . Gina (Kyte Thomson), her puppy-eyed affection for Red Fox still unrequited, has been combing the underbelly of the intelligence world in search of her long-lost love. President Hearst is struggling to keep his country out of war without compromising his principles, all while trying to contain the pangs of his own conscience where Red Fox is concerned. Red Fox himself, it seems, has been running around Chechnya blowing things up (“to avoid being captured by the KGB,” says Director Thorne). We finally catch up with him after one battle too many, as he awakens, wounded, in the hut of an attractive-but-bitter Chechen widow. The episode wraps up with the President deciding to go on a mad-cap mission to find his lost friend.
All this update leads to my one of my two complaints: there seems to be too much exposition, and not enough action. I realize the exposition is necessary, and I also understand the limited time and resources available to Streaming Media Network, but still, “show don’t tell” seems like a better policy overall. It seems very abrupt, for example, after 6 months of waiting for this episode, to see Red Fox for the first time lying on a bed. I would’ve liked to see at least a little bit of the battle in which he was wounded, or at least a bit of Ana finding him. This might help to explain why in the world this hard-bitten Chechen took him in in the first place.
This leads me to my second complaint: this plot calls for very many stretches of the imagination, even by Hitman standards. I am able to accept the fact that the Former CTU-Director, with his commando background, could lead a mission in the middle of a war-zone; but asking me to believe that the President of the United States could put himself into such an utterly dangerous situation, not to mention a very sticky foreign policy mess if he gets caught, without the MAJOR protestations of the Secret Service and every one of his Foreign Policy aids from here to the Potomac is a bit much. I’m not really sure I buy it. What is the Secret Service even doing letting him into
Europe, much less Chechnya, with nobody but one Secret Service Agent, the Director of CTU (what the heck is that all about? One bomb lands in the wrong place and half the agencies on the hill are going to need new employees…), the assistant to the CTA liaison, and some random-bio-terrorism-expert/kitchen-cabinet member? Just one scene showing Jeremiah pulling rank on an extremely-reluctant Dan Burns (a.k.a. Head of the Secret Service) might make this just a little easier to swallow.
Despite my purist complaints, I really enjoyed this episode. The photography, editing, and acting continue to improve. It had great, witty scenes and lines, especially between David Carver’s “CTA Cyber-Ops Agent” and Peter Kamakawiwoole’s Malcolm. I especially appreciated the return of the President's "beatific vision" at that crucial moment. A little like something I've been hoping Mr. Noa would do all along. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the season.
