‘The Terminal List’ Episode 3 Recap: “Consolidation”

At the conclusion of the The Terminal List Episode 2, Chris Pratt’s James Reece paused briefly after leaving the apartment of the corrupt federal agent he’d just executed. Silhouetted before an American flag as it flapped in the oceanside breeze, it was almost as if Reece, a Navy SEAL like his father before him, would snap to attention and salute. But habit aside, what would be in that for him? His slain platoon, always ready to grind out another deployment, were sacrificed to a wholesale failure of intelligence. And aside from Secretary of Defense Hartley, the ageist military leadership apparatus has at best ignored him, and at worst, straight up accused him of professional and personal negligence. He’s lost his command, his family has been killed, and his suspicions about the system have just been proven by NCIS Agent Holder’s tearful admission of complicity. If anything, it’s time for Reece to salute a new flag. And that flag is vengeance.

At the outset of The Terminal List Episode 3 (“Consolidation”), Reece is burning evidence of his op against Holder and packing his go bag. A shotgun. An M4. A long rifle, complete with scope. Ammo, cash, passports. And he’s doing his own research on Saul Agnon (Sean Gunn), the name Holder spit out. He’s a corporate fixer for something called Capstone Industries, which has a vast investment pool worth billions but a bullshit public portfolio, as Reece later explains to Buranek over lunch. The violence against his family, what’s happening to him – it was never about the Iranians or even his enemies in Syria. “This is something domestic,” he tells the journalist. “Something corporate. And it’s not over.” But neither are Reece’s headaches and disorienting hallucinations, and Buranek knows why. “It’s a tumor,” she says, pointing to a red smudge on his brain scan. “It’s on the node between the hippocampus and the amygdala.” And the Navy seems to have known it was there. Was it negligent to have him leading a platoon? Or did it not matter because he was going to be silenced, anyway?

An intense, bearded individual is running his team through a breach simulator with live weapons and full tactical gear. This is Steve Horn (Jai Courtney), the billionaire boss man at Capstone, and he rides around San Francisco in a convoy featuring two of the Rezvani Tank, an outlandish bulletproof SUV the company calls a “tactical urban vehicle.” Horn runs Saul Agnon. And he wants Saul to close the deal for a wealthy mogul named Elias Ryberg (Carsten Norgaard) to acquire Nubellum, a boutique pharmaceutical company run by Mike Tedesco (Paul McCrane). It was Horn who pushed Tedesco and Nubellum into lucrative military contracts, and now it’s time to cash in. And as Saul greases the wheels of commerce at a swanky pro-am golf tournament, he’s surveilled by Ben Richards.

In Washington, DC, Secretary of Defense Hartley is unveiling what she says will be her legacy. A massive overhaul of military budgeting for special operations, including mandatory retirements and a reduction in lifetime deployments. “As much as we’d like our elite warriors to be machines, they are not,” she tells her staff. Hartley believes the drawdown will make up for how the government has failed the special operations community. But hearing all of this, her advisor, a slithery corporate type called Fontana (Stephen Bishop), places an encrypted phone call to someone unseen. “I thought you should know.” How much do you want to bet that someone is Steve Horn?

In the motel room where Reece is holed up, he and Ben are gearing up for the op against Saul. “Gotta say, you never did like this kind of work downrange.” Reece says that, back when they were in the teams, there were always rules to this kind of wet work. “Yeah,” Ben says. “Too many.” Thus free to wage the war of their choice on the enemy they determine, Reece gets into position outside the country club mansion where Saul is staying. He’s clad in an evidence-cleansing mylar suit. And he carries with him a cordon and a plastic bag.

When Saul awakens from his suffocation, he’s naked and tied to a chair. Reece says he can tell that Saul isn’t ready to die for some cause. And Capstone Industries? That’s definitely not a cause. Saul is too soft, a go-between who fell ass-backward into a world much bigger and more dangerous than any slick corporate joinery. Saul sputters a bit, but also seems resigned to where this is going. He seems genuinely surprised to learn of Reece’s brain tumor. And he gives up Steve’s name. “Horn made his fortune in tech before moving into VC,” Saul tells Reece. “He understands people. Markets. War.” So how does a pushy VC billionaire in San Francisco execute an ambush in Syria? “It’s all about something called Project RD-4895,” Saul says. And it’s worth an untold sum. 

It may have been Steve Horn who orchestrated the ambush on Reece’s platoon in Syria. But did he also have Lauren and Lucy killed? No, not Steve directly. For he’s all about compartmentalization. “Data isolation,” Saul says, just like the SEALs. (Steve, who runs breach simulators on his lunch break and drives around in a bulletproof truck, seems to have a real kink for spec ops stuff.) No, Saul says, it was a shady lawyer who arranged for the killings, Marcus Boykin, who hired sicarios through his contacts in black market Mexican crude oil. And just like that, Reece has two more names for his terminal list. 

Reece talks to Saul in his final moments. “Downrange, we like to say what we do is for freedom, but what it really is…there’s evil in this world, and it’s our job to look it in the eye.” Saul, Steve Horn, Capstone Industries – they wanted in, to be a part of that spear tip action. “Well,” Reece says, “now you’re on the battlefield.” And Saul is dispatched with a methadone cocktail. Cross another name off the list.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges