Take Three: The Brink

The Brink: Season 1, Episode 3 “Baghdad My Ass” (B-)

This show is firmly dedicated to its absurdity, and I did enjoy the episode despite its consistent stupidity. The behavior of almost all characters is uniformly childish, and that makes for a fun if questionably intelligent setup. The only two people who are actually sensible are loyal assistant Kendra and Walter’s wife Joanne, who seemed much more embarrassed than her husband when he caught her having wild sex with another man and then got furious with him for trying to tell her what to do. The fact that he passed out in the middle of a phone call was certainly worrisome, and heading to India rather than home to D.C. for doctors is predictably ill-advised behavior. I like how he was able to identify Alex as a dependable ally, and that he immediately demanded to speak with him again after the phone call was ended and Alex was threatened with a transfer to Baghdad. The Secretary of Defense’s rivalry with Walter is thoroughly amusing, particularly because the President seems to ignore it, and it’s definitely not good that they’re being played by their supposed Pakistani ally, who is in cahoots with his imperialistic brother-in-law. Z-Pak and Glenn managed to get off easy despite his intended confessing on their parts, all in the name of plausible deniability and what passes for diplomacy on this show. Z-Pak really does deserve the Father of the Year award, too obsessed with the flushing of his stash to even acknowledge the impending birth of his love child.