Milo starts, nuclear load, smugglers take it to the road
Cover blown, prison haze, team assembles, bombs explode
Oliveras runs the ops, refuses to give Meachum props
Volchek Junior suicide, Blythe is silent, border crossing drops
Meanwhile Meachum’s tumor grows, in Drew’s button hole, a crimson rose.
Drug addiction rears its head, dead son haunts the team instead.
Finau wife and kids and birthday bed, Evan takes the case ahead.
Investigation’s on a roll, but murder takes a sudden toll
Undercover once again, Meachum takes on another role
Oliveras crosses dodgy lines, and Volchek flees a second time.
No, those aren’t the (admittedly terrible, sorry everyone) lyrics to a sequel of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” but picturing Joel’s mile-a-minute delivery seems the most appropriate way to convey the sheer number of events that took place in Prime Video’s 3-episode premiere of Countdown this week. If you’ve seen those episodes and are now wondering if the rest of the series will carry on in the same rocket-fuelled manner, we can tell you that yes, it will. If you haven’t yet seen the premiere then look away now. Spoilers ahead.
Let’s take a look at some key take aways.
Countdown kicks off with DHS officer Robert Darden — or as we know and love him, film and TV leading Man Milo Ventimiglia (This is Us, The Company You Keep) — leading us on a nail-biting and bone crunching fight and chase scene through the streets of LA.
Darden’s secret investigation into a smuggling ring has turned up some interesting results. Unfortunately, as capable and careful as he is, Darden’s cover has been blown, and he is fatally injured in his line of duty. Goodbye Milo! You made for a wonderful cameo and a great way for the show to set up its action and drama credentials.
Although there are many in the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI who don’t seem particularly interested in who killed Darden — or why — one man is. Meet man-of-few words FBI agent Nathan Blythe (Eric Dane), who alongside Intelligence deputy mission manager Damon Drew (Jonathan Togo) decide to put together a special team for a very special investigation.
Blythe pulls the best and brightest (Read: most difficult) crew together: Agent Keyonte Bell (Elliott Knight) an expert in terrorism threats, tech nerd Evan Shepherd (Violett Beane), guns, gangs, and narcotics expert LAPD officer Luke Finau (Uli Latukefu), and of course our two series leads LAPD Detective Mark Meachum (Jensen Ackles), and DEA Special Agent Amber Oliveras (Jessica Camacho).
When we first meet them, this pair have missed their first team meeting together. Meachum is in prison and deep undercover. But just as he’s about to get the crucial information he needs from his 9-month investigation (or get shivved in the process) he’s pulled from his assignment, sparking a full-on prison riot. This unfortunate escalation will come back to bite the team in the ass a little later when Meachum desperately wants back into prison for other reasons, but is refused access by the warden. Oh Meachum.
Likewise, Oliveras is preoccupied. With her cover blown, she’s strung up in a drug dealer’s den, awaiting further torture and, let’s be honest, likely death. However, Oliveras not only manages to escape, but to deal some rough justice to her captors by means of a baseball bat.
With their loose ends tied up, both Meachum and Oliveras eventually make it to the meet-and-greet. The show avoids any easy story-telling temptation to have either character making googly eyes at the other, but the interest is definitely there. For Meachum, at least. Oliveras however is having none of it. Apparently she knows Meachem’s ex-fiancée Melinda. Small world! She also knows Melinda’s sister Rachel. Wow! What are the odds? And why Melinda is Meachum’s ex-fiancée. Oh, ok. Which has a lot to do with both sisters looking a lot alike at 2:30 in the morning… It must have been very dark.
Burgeoning attraction side, Meachum and Oliveras are clearly two characters cut from the same lone-wolf cloth, and it isn’t long before they are butting heads over who should take the lead in their hunt for Darden’s killer. It’s clear that if there is to be a romantic relationship somewhere down the line on this show, it won’t be rushed, and it won’t happen until these two have come to trust and depend on each other.
However, how long Meachum has left to live is a dubious point. Our rugged series lead is revealed to have glioblastoma multiforme — a deadly brain tumor that will claim his life eventually. Right now it’s debilitating headaches but down the road?
With the stakes and tone established, the show takes the tiniest breather to give us some insight into its players. Oliveras might have a previous drug addiction, as evidenced by her purloining of a kilo of heroin from an undercover op. When noticed by Meachum she maintains she’s taking it to personally dispose of it in a symbolic gesture: one less block of heroin on the streets. Meachum seems concerned but says nothing.
We also learn that Drew, who mentions having to leave early to coach his son’s Little League team is actually a bereaved Dad whose son died tragically a year ago.
We also get to meet Countdown’s Big Bad, in the form of Belarusian mechanical engineering expert and humble Defence Ministry employee Borys Volchek (Bogdan Yasinski), and see his villain origin story via a series of flashbacks.
It appears Volchek’s brother Anton got in over his head with an American food industry spy who was forcing the inept young man to spy on his behalf. Nothing terribly critical to the government — just agricultural yield figures from the last harvest. Sensing a good bribery/business opportunity foolish Anton agreed, but deliberately handed over the wrong info, liking to think of himself as a spy, but not a traitor. Now with the substantial bribe gone, and the figures discovered to be fake, Anton is in fear for his life.
Of course, the American spy was not working for the food industry. Nor was Anton his actual target. Anton was just the bait. When big bro Borys tries to intervene he finds himself the new target of intimidation, and forced to provide the American government with all Belarusian-Russian government email communications from the last 4 years. When Anton realizes the enormous implications of what he has done, and the real danger he has inadvertently placed his bother in, he kills himself out of shame and fear, and in a bid to free Borys from coercion.
Meanwhile, back in the present day, the team’s initial investigation bears fruit. Darden was onto something big. As in “fissile material” big. It looks like Volchek paid a lot to have nuclear weapons-grade materials smuggled into LA — enough of it to create a Chernobyl-level nuclear event in the city.
Is Volchek’s past enough of a reason for him to want to commit such an extreme act of terrorism? Keep watching, Countdown fans.
Blythe’s team heads to Mexico to pull off a daring mission for a deadly cartel in exchange for information on the shipment at the port. Of the 10 episodes I reviewed, this was one of my favorites. It was a nicely done series of scenes that showed the individual strengths of each team member under pressure, in addition to just how well they could come together in a crisis. However in a snatching defeat from the jaws of victory moment, Lopez, Oliveras’ Cartel contact, is killed via fiery explosion before he can provide much detail on the whereabouts of the nuclear materials.
Javi Lopez dies with the words “Volchek” on his lips, and regret in his eyes.
The third hour finds the team grasping at straws. A little research into “Volchek” yields results that the name is Belarusian in origin. Meachum recalls sharing a cell block with a Timur Novikov, also from Belarus. With Timor’s crime connections, might be know who Volcheck is?
Meachum offers to go back to prison, but the warden refuses to host him. The team puts together a sting operation instead, throwing Meachum and Novikov into prison van together during a staged routine prisoner exchange. There they catch up and reminisce, until a carefully orchestrated escape throws the pair together on the run, and searching for a safe landing.
Young trusting Timur leads Meachum straight to his uncle, who has been providing sanctuary and a base of operations for Volchek’s operations in LA. However when Meachum gets caught eyeballing a room full of incriminating evidence he is summarily brought outside to be executed. But not without getting a first fleeting look at Volchek himself. With Meachum outside, Volchek quickly sets fire to the building, burning both his plans, and Timur’s Uncle’s business to the ground. Because he is a very thorough guy.
Tipped off by Meachum, the gang sweeps in for the rescue. In the confusion Volchek makes good on his escape. A shootout ensues, and for a brief moment we fear that Finau (whose birthday it just happens to be, and who promised his wife and kids only this morning that he’d be home to celebrate with them and definitely definitely not get killed in action) has been shot.
But wait! Phew! it’s ok, it was a false alarm. The bullet didn’t hit Finau. He’s ok. Yes! It hit bereaved Dad and Little League coach Damon Drew instead. What? Noooo!
As an ambulance rushes Drew to the hospital the team holds their breath and the audience remembers how to breathe.
Countdown returns on Wednesday, July 2nd with “Bit ’em Down” in which, still reeling from the events Drew’s shooting, the team tracks down Timur Novikov’s uncle Mikhail and hatches a plan to lure Volchek out into the open.
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