Summary
This is an action-packed but overly brutal episode that’s shock value may overshadow any thrills it offers.
This recap of the Amazon original series The Terminal List season 1, episode 4, “Detachment,” contains spoilers.
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The Terminal List season 1, episode 4 recap
Reece travels to Wyoming to kill Marcus Boykin — he takes him out with his rifle from a mountaintop sniper’s nest. When he reaches the car, he takes out his cell and opens it using Boykin’s facial recognition software. He then downloads the data. He drives back to a desolate airport where Liz is waiting for him. She is watching the Alabama game to pass the time. I love Liz. She turns earnest when Reece tries to let him off the hook because things will get messy. She tells him there is enough shit she could find herself in for not getting payback for killing his daughter.
Liz flies him down to Mexico to see Marco and his family. At the funeral, we discover that he was Reece’s father’s close friend and army buddy. He is there to find the Sicario that pulled the trigger and killed his family. The next morning Ben shows up and has two days off from the CIA. Marco and Liz are also at the breakfast table. They tell him they have located his family’s killer. They devise a plan to take out the killer with a sniper shot with a clear line of sight. Reece nixes that idea, which confuses everyone. Why? He wants to go in, which is the only way it works. Ben pulls him aside and tries to reason with him. Reece tells Ben that his daughter died screaming with her mother, begging him to save her life.
So, there it is. Ben and Reece will go in, except Liz, Marco, and their new Mexican special forces pal, Aaron, said they will go in with him. The new guy even tells him that Reece is doing them a favor by wiping them off the planet. Reece appreciates it, but then he passes out. His tumor is aggressive, possible carcinoma. His friends offer to do the job for him, but Reece insists he must look them in the eyes.
A few moments later, and now it is time to mention Ruth Barrett’s beautiful and evocative score that has set the tone for the series’ most emotional scenes, Paolo (Patricia De Leon) walks in. She tells him that Reece and his girls were like family but condemns him for bringing his friends into this. This is an honest moment, one of the best so far because she is right. Reece is putting her family, including her daughter, in danger here. Paolo then tells him to never come back after their mission. When she leaves, he adds “Navajas” on the back of his daughter’s drawing.
When they arrive at the site, in a stunning action sequence, they infiltrate and take more than a half dozen out. They find a group of children being held prisoner, and Aaron stays with them. Ben and Reece proceed with him, telling everyone to look out for the sicario with the injured left arm. As they chase him without killing him, Ben takes a gunshot to the leg. He is fine, though. It was a clean shot. Reece catches his family’s killer, and he immediately knows it’s the Navy man from America by the look in his eyes.
Reece ties him up, arms over his head, hanging from a steel pipe. He then does something I was not expecting and was incredibly vengeful— he takes out one of the minor axes, guts the man, pulls out the intestine, and hangs it over the sicario’s head. He cuts him down, causing more pain in his stomach. Reece then makes him walk while the intestines keep falling out, and he eventually bleeds to death.
The San Diego FBI office has taken over the case of finding Reese for killing that assassin, but who was in the car with him. The man taking it over is Tony Layun (JD Pardo), head of the task force. He finds Katie’s hideout. Speaking of Katie, the reporter is hiding at her brother’s lakeside home. She is working on the case and texts Reece that she thinks every man in his unit has a tumor in their brain. A little bit later, Tony and his task force locate her. He informs her about the two dead bodies, the NCIS agent and the Agnon. She softens a bit and tells him she doesn’t know where he is, but if she finds out, she will let him know.
Steve Horn attempts to preserve his deals now that Agnon has overdosed. This does not look good to investors, including Mike Tedesco (Paul McCrane), who tells him he is out unless they can procure those government contracts. This pushes Steve into overdrive. He approaches Henry, the Secretary of State’s second in command. (Apparently, that call he made was not to the senator but Steve). He applies pressure on him to keep the budget intact.
The ending
The show ends with a major revelation. Katie gets a call explaining what Steve Horn has to do with all of this. He acquired a controlling share of a pharmaceutical company, Nubellum. And they have issued medications to all six branches of the federal government for years. They are days away from selling the company for 70 billion dollars. This is the explanation for Horn trying to push Henry about the budget and calm the waters with Mike. Katie leaves the cottage, and Tony follows her.
James says goodbye to Marco and his family. Marco has money and leaves him a bag on the plane as a contribution to the cause. Reece gives him his father’s sniper rifle because it did its best work on his ranch.
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