In the 9th episode of Countdown, it was revealed that Nathan had survived Volchek’s attack, and he made a partial recovery in the time it took for his task force to figure out that their nemesis was doing something shady via a company called Kestrel. The Gallagher freight trucks that Volchek had loaned had been reskinned to look like they were transporting equipment for a film shoot. But in reality, they were filled to the brim with explosives that’d turn The Vine into the epicenter of a massive explosion, which’d then lead to a Chernobyl-like situation in Los Angeles. The task force got there, and they divided themselves into groups. Keyonte and Evan focused on defusing kegs full of explosives, Luke spotted his whole family and tried to get them to safety, and Mark saw Volchek in the crowd, preparing to die for his cause. Did the 10th episode of Countdown reveal the fate of the protagonists and the antagonist? Well, let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Volchek Is Dead
Based on the fact that there are three more episodes left in the show, last week I predicted that the task force would successfully defuse the bomb, Volchek would get away once again, and then the showdown between the task force and Volchek would take place in the finale. Yeah, only that first part happened; I am happy to admit that I was wrong about the rest because I couldn’t imagine a show throwing such a massive curveball after spending so much time on a rivalry. While I am definitely surprised by the way the showrunners have decided to deal with this entire plot, it’s not a pleasant surprise. It’s like saying that you are going to give me chicken biryani, spending several hours on the cooking process, and then handing me a plate of veg pulao at the end. Sure, I’m dumbfounded by this turn of events, but am I glad with the conclusion? No. There are good ways to do an anticlimactic ending, and there are bad ways to do the same. The one that Countdown has opted for is just downright pathetic. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself. In episode 10, we see Keyonte and Evan defusing the bombs by simply pulling out the tabs that’ll receive the detonation signal from Volchek’s phone. This confuses Volchek, and he makes a run for it into the nearest building. Mark and Amber go after him. In the time it takes for Mark or Amber to get to Volchek, he starts shooting the truck with the explosives in it in the hopes of causing a spark big enough to cause an explosion. Although we’ve seen this happen in movies a lot, realistically, that’s not possible. So, while Volchek is doing that, Mark and Amber get the jump on Volchek. Mark shoots Volchek in the head, and he drops dead. While all this is going on, Luke and his family come across Andrej. Luke shoots Andrej in the chest, and he dies. The day is saved. That’s it.
Is that satisfying to you? The show just spent 9 episodes, plus the first 4 minutes of the 10th episode, spreading this elaborate and borderline labyrinthian conspiracy only to end it like this. It’s goddamn dumb. When it was revealed that the reason behind Volchek’s decision to turn LA into the next Chernobyl was because he was caught bribing an official who wanted the municipality to park cars on his private parking lot, I thought that was a joke. I hoped that there was something deeper to it. Now that Volchek is dead, it’s apparent that that was the actual reason that he went to these lengths to bomb LA. Volchek had decoys and teams spread out all across the state. And he got gunned down by a guy who can’t aim straight all the time because of a tumor in his head? Is that supposed to be some commentary on how the true blue American patriotism can (momentarily) negate the effects of brain cancer? Is this a joke? Was this whole thing a joke? Why were so many episodes spent on this? My god.
Mark Goes For An Experimental Cancer Treatment
Anyway, everyone pats each other’s backs. Nathan goes home and is congratulated by his family. Evan and Keyonte go on a date, which is momentarily crashed by her sister, Molly. Luke is promoted to the post of sergeant. Grayson is accused of colluding with Volchek in conducting a potential terrorist attack by Keyonte, and he is arrested by the FBI. At this point, whatever optimism was left in my body caused me to hope that the show was cooking up a revelation that maybe Volchek was the puppet, while Grayson was the puppet master. And the show would pivot towards courtroom drama territory to show us why Grayson did what he did. Yeah, no, nothing of that sort happens. Grayson is just taken away, and we don’t even get a proper confirmation whether Keyonte’s suspicions are right or not. Instead, Countdown decides to spend a major chunk of its runtime on Amber convincing Mark to opt for an experimental cancer treatment, Mark flaunting his machismo to avoid accepting the experimental cancer treatment, Amber one-upping his machismo to take him to the experimental cancer treatment, and then Mark finally agreeing to go for the experimental cancer treatment that’ll be overseen by Amber’s dear friend Julio.
At this point, although my optimism had evaporated, I expected the episode to turn into a sappy cancer-survivor drama in order to contrast all the heroics that the task force had portrayed. Since the entire task force showed up to usher Mark into a new chapter of his life, I thought that the series wanted to depict a side of law enforcement that’s not seen very often, i.e., how they deal with an enemy that can’t be defeated with brute force. Given how I am a fan of Jensen Ackles, I felt that this would be a good opportunity for him to flex his dramatic acting chops. No; nothing of that sort happened. The show just jumped forward in time by 10 goddamn months to introduce a completely new case! If you have seen the show, you know I am not kidding. For anyone else who, for some reason, is reading this recap without watching the episode, I want to assure you that I am not kidding.
A Massive Time Jump
A new character called Ryan Fitzgerald, who works at the United States Secret Service, is introduced. He receives a distress call from a woman named Patricia Perez who works at Hammerhead Cabins in Sugarloaf. She alleges that there’s a man who has guns, maps, and strange drawings in his room. She thinks that the guy wants to assassinate the President of the United States of America, which is why she has contacted the Secret Service. Fitzgerald goes through the audio recording of the call several times and notices something odd. There’s a beeping sound right at the end of the call, which makes it seem like someone was playing the audio via a device. As in, someone got Patricia to say the message, recorded it, and then played it on the phone. If that’s the case, then this is a trap. Since Fitzgerald has nothing better to do, he drives all the way to Sugarloaf and inspects the cabin in question. As soon as he enters the establishment, he finds a dead body, which is supposedly that of Patricia, and that kind of confirms that the killer made her say the aforementioned words before murdering her.
Fitzgerald makes sure that there’s nobody else in the cabin, other than him and the dead body, and then makes a call to the investigative department to start combing through the crime scene. In the meantime, Fitzgerald finds some shredded documents, a burnt photograph, and a diary in a secret compartment in the cupboard. I have to mention two things here: firstly, the editing in this scene is abysmal, and secondly, I think this scene and the character reek of the savant syndrome trope (don’t worry, it gets worse). This is where Nathan and the task force show up again, with the exception of Amber, who is essentially replaced by Fitzgerald. Nathan says that the DEA is too overworked to spare manpower for this mission, and if that’s the excuse they are using to write Amber out of the first season of the show, I don’t know what to say. The only thing that’s weirder than that is that Mark is apparently fine and fit enough to be a part of this mission. If you want me to explain how that’s possible, I can’t because the show kind of brushes over it. You just have to accept the fact that Julio’s experimental cancer treatment worked. Amazing stuff.
A New Case
The task force gets a basic rundown of Fitzgerald’s findings. Some of the things worth noting are that the defaced photo wasn’t of the President of the United States, as assumed by Patricia, but of the Governor of California, Mr. Shelby; the shredded document is a blueprint of the governor’s house in Sacramento; and the scribblings in the diary can either be a homage to the Zodiac killer, a secret form of communication, or directions to open a portal to Hell. Although there’s no evidence of a threat to the POTUS, Nathan wants the team to keep that in mind while primarily focusing on the link between everything that’s available at Hammerhead Cabins. Before heading out to inspect the site, Keyonte tells Evan that he has something to tell her about Molly, but he never gets around to actually conveying that information to her. I suppose this is supposed to keep me at the edge of the seat because I am so invested in Evan’s personal life and her relationship with her sister. Well, spoiler alert, I’m not, and these cheap tactics don’t work on me anymore.
After getting to Hammerhead Cabins at the end of Countdown episode 10, it doesn’t take too long for Mark to discover a secret chamber underneath the establishment, which houses a firing range and a sniper rifle. Mark looks at it menacingly, and then the episode ends. The teaser for the next episode that’s in the mid-credits doesn’t really offer anything substantial. There is a killer with a sniper rifle. Governor Shelby is wheelchair-bound. There’s someone on a bike that Mark probably goes after. Yeah, that’s it. I don’t want to predict anything based on that. Because after all the build-up that Volchek had, if he turned out to be some guy who wanted to nuke LA because of the failure of his parking lot business, the sniper might end up being a guy who wants to kill the governor because he didn’t buy his cupcakes or something like that. I mean, that’s the level of stupidity that we are working with here in this show. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on Countdown episode 10. What are your opinions on the same? Feel free to share them in the comments section below.
