By Kofi Outlaw

Watching the Season 3 premiere of CBS’ The Unit made me wonder why I don’t watch The Unit more often. I’m a fan of 24 and The Unit plays much like an episode of 24—only, you know, when 24 was still in its prime. Plus, both shows star Dennis Haysbert, to whom I will affectionately refer as “President Palmer” pretty much forever. Let’s just say I’m still trying to get caught up with this show.

So naturally my recap of the season 3 opener, entitled “Pandemonium, Part One” may be a bit sketchy when it comes to the details—but hey, that’s what reader rants are for. Tear me a new one. Here goes:

The season picks up soon after The Unit has learned that their…unit is disbanded. To make matters worse each member is facing charges for the very same missions they were once sanctioned to carry out. Team leader Jonas (Dennis Haysbert) is on the run in Panama; Bob is on Jonas’ trail, now working under the direction of the CIA; Grey is watching Jonas’ back; Mack and Hector are both locked up in prison; in Washington Col. Ryan pleads with a Senate committee, trying to clear the Unit’s name; all while the wives try to keep it together on the home front.


The first Ep. offered plenty action and some thrilling twists. After escaping a brazen shootout with a CIA assassin, Jonas flees with lovely CIA operative (and former hook-up) Mariana Ribera (the gorgeous Tia Texada,) who confesses that she is part of the reason the Unit is now in peril. Seems that while on a past job she stumbled across some top-secret documents, and, thinking she’d found her insurance policy for the future, she pocketed the docs and implicated the Unit. Meanwhile Bob and Grey play both sides of the fence, using Bob’s CIA status to gather Intel on who it is that wants the Unit gone. Col Ryan learns out that his (ex?) wife Charlotte is the one that gave the Unit up to the Feds in exchange for a new cushy government job. She tells him that one of them had to show some ambition for advancement, settling the question of who wears the pants in that marriage. Ryan stares on, but does nothing.

Picking up on the leads Mariana left for him, Jonas discovers the secret documents he needs are in a Texas bank. He recruits Bob’s wife Kim (who is back in her native Texas trying to ease her worries about Bob) hush-hush assignment, posing as Mariana to retrieve the documents from the bank, which just so happens to be in the same town. Kim is successful; after reassuring her all will be well, Jonas heads out to rejoin Bob and Grey, to hopefully put an end to this madness. Locked in prison, meanwhile, Hector and Mack try, with great difficulty, to hold their heads up. Hector eventually breaks, cutting a deal to testify against the Unit, believing Jonas to be dead; he and Mack are officially disavowed, as if never having existed at all.

The Ep. ends with Jonas, Bob and Grey following a map found in Mariana’s deposit box to an ocean in El Salvador, where they make the grisly discovery of an underwater graveyard, presumably that place where “the bodies” every government refers to are buried.

Being new to the Unit, I’m not quite attuned to the show’s rhythm and tone. So it was a jarring experience to watch, say, Jonas and Mariana build thirty minutes worth of restrained affection for one another, (cheesy “I believe in you” speeches and all,) only to watch Mariana get abruptly gunned down a minute later. Is this normally the way things go down on The Unit? Kind of frustrating. One upside I can see to it is the possibility of fresh hot-girl faces coming on each week to replace the hot girl form the week before, who got gunned-down, locked up, or just forgotten about. I loved the action scenes though, and the performances by the actors seemed pretty solid (Max Martini as Mack was most definitely convincing.) However, like 24, I feel that the show gets dragged down when it dwells on side stories and peripheral characters. The whole thing with the wives’ domestic interactions seemed to have run out of steam a Season or two ago, and dramatic moments between Unit members and other espionage agents (Jonas and Mariana) also rang untrue. In that respect 24 has The Unit beat: that show’s spies are bonafide badasses. No going soft and gooey every time the dramatic music cues up. But then it is CBS. You get what you get: action for the 4pm crowd at Dennys.


My vote? Watch it on DVD (it would make great rainy day filler) or while House is on commercial. With any luck you’ll be tuned in for the grit, trim the fluff and enjoy those parts of the Unit you’re meant to: the blazing guns; hot girls the world over to ogle; clever twists, mild suspense and how to tell if a man is lying using nothing but his saliva and a mouthful of uncooked rice. The Unit wants YOU.