Shooter season 2 episode 2 review: Things start to blow up

Last week, Shooter season 2 kicked off its story with a pretty incredible, breakneck premiere that revealed many different things. Most notably, it featured an attack on a beautiful gala that made Bob Lee Swagger start to realize that he and some of the other members of his unit were being targeted. He and Julie escaped the crossfire, but that was just the beginning of their story.

Tonight’s episode began by taking a look back to some of Swagger’s time overseas, where he and the rest of the team uncovered a very unexpected operation: A massive drug ring and some very scared people running it behind the scenes. This is the sort of discovery that people would certainly kill over, no? What was so interesting about some of the scenes that were in the past was that Bob Lee was far from the most aggressive person working to investigate the incidents. The more that we saw of these flashbacks, and the more apparent it was that these were tied directly to the present. One of the men involved in the attacks mother taken right in front of him. Who wouldn’t want vengeance after something like that?

One of the reasons why Shooter is effective is because it’s shown so many times before just how nothing is ever black and white. The people behind this operation were mere workers there (it was really the property of the CIA), and with the destruction of the supply went the end of their viability. Also, the unit did not exactly prove themselves to be the pinnacle of honesty.

As the investigation and the manhunt took place back in the present (and really all over the world), it didn’t take too long for the intensity to start to rise. The most dramatic point in all of this came courtesy of the death of Isaac’s wife. We’d go through just how long this is going to impact him and just how deeply profound this passing is, but the reality here is that he may not have all that much time to really even mourn. When you are in his position, how can you?

Also, we feel for Nadine Memphis, who spent most of the episode being put into harm’s way by being fed intentionally-wrong information. The search for answers is rough, and we’re not sure it’s going to be getting all that easier for Bob Lee, Memphis, Isaac, or anyone else soon. (The fact that Bob Lee nearly went kaboom by the end of this was evidence.) They’ve been stonewalled in their search already, and in the end, Isaac puts it best: You don’t destroy that much cocaine without some sort of blowback over it. It’s not hard to figure out that there’s a larger conspiracy at work here of some sort…

The struggle back home

While Bob Lee was trying to still fight the good fight, Julie returned home still recovering from what she went through. She tried her best to put on a good face for the family, but there was only so much that she could do. That was made all the more apparent when she lost her cool briefly with Mary. She understood that she couldn’t do that, and this in turn led to the two going out for waffles — this was sweet, but it also really did make us want to eat some waffles. We needed this sweet scene to balance out the chaos.

Overall

There were clearly some confusing elements to this Shooter episode, and we figure that some of this was a product of moving so much from the past to the present while also not knowing all of the architects beyond the attacks. The biggest takeaway is that whoever did this both wants revenge on Bob Lee’s team, and also feels that they know too much to be left alive. Grade: B.

What’s coming up next on Shooter? 

If you are interested in getting some more discussion on that subject, we suggest that you just head over to the link here right now! (Photo: USA.)