Strike Back: Shadow Warfare sees Philip Winchester and Sullivan Stapleton return as Sgt Michael Stonebridge and Sgt Damien Scott, joined by Robson Green
(Mount Pleasant), Dougray Scott (Mission: Impossible II) and Martin Clunes (Doc Martin).
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Episode 1
Monday 28 October 2013, 9pm
Scott and Stonebridge’s personal leave is cut short as they rejoin Section 20 in Colombia. A few things have changed around the Crib, though, most notably the presence of ex-Special Forces legend Lt Colonel Philip Locke (Robson Green), who briefs the boys on their latest threat: Al-Zuhari, an Iranian terrorist hatching devastating plans for the West.
Their first lead arrives in the form of money launderer Leo Kamali (Zubin Varla), but getting to him is another thing, with obstacles including drug cartels and rocket-launched missiles.
Episode 2
Monday 4 November 2013, 9pm
The good news is that Scott, Stonebridge and the rest of the motley crew are alive and well (just about) managing to untangle themselves from the wreckage of the missile-hit ship and swim to safety.
However, the bad is that Leo Kamali, their only link to Al-Zuhari, escaped amid all the drama. It’s back to the drawing board, but Mossad agent Rebecca has a plan, orchestrating the heist of a Colombian Stock Exchange to pinpoint the location of their man’s safe house. The move is a successful one – though it isn’t without consequences – as the boys gain some crucial intel on Kamali.
In Beirut, meanwhile, Dalton, who is fast becoming the series’ biggest bad-ass, finally tracks down Sebastian Gray. The former MI6 agent has his ear close to the ground and he’s heard disturbing rumblings about Al-Zuhari’s deadly plot, details he shares with Dalton.
Episode 3
Monday 11 November 2013, 9pm
Dougray Scott is added to the mix in this latest episode and, boy, does he know how to make an entrance. Sporting a mean moustache almost at twirling length, Scott is on scene-chewing form as the sadistic Leatherby, a former SAS soldier who, for some reason, switched sides. The Scotsman is now in cahoots with Al-Zuhari and pops up on the team’s radar when a short-lived contact reveals he’s bringing the terrorist over from Syria.
Dalton, meanwhile, seems to be losing her grip. Addicted to morphine tablets and refusing to let what happened to Baxter go, she is having a hard time trusting Kamali, so much so that she forces the double agent to wear a wire during a parley with Leatherby. It’s a dangerous move that leads Locke to question Dalton’s position at Section 20. Scott’s bedroom activities could come back to bite him, too.
Episode 4
Monday 18 November 2013, 9pm
Leatherby races up our Most Villainy Villain chart this week when he attacks Kamali’s home. As well as redecorating the once-lovely abode with bullet holes and blasting a granny (albeit a shotgun-toting one), he kidnaps the agent’s teenage daughter, Esther. Stonebridge, Scott and the team are on the case, though, and, tracking the sneery Scot down, find a soft spot to exploit, well, something slightly squishy at least.
In the meantime, Locke knows just the thing to take Kamali’s mind off the fact his child is being held hostage by a bona fide madman: a mission to find Dalton. The off-the-grid and seemingly unhinged Major is convinced Sophia is hiding something, and she’ll do whatever it takes to prize the information out of her. Shocks are in store by the episode’s end as well when unexpected players enter the fray.
Episode 5
Monday 25 November 2013, 9pm
The action shifts to Budapest, Hungary, where a contact points the team in the direction of an arms shipment that Mairead McKenna is planning on ambushing. Realising that the Real IRA are working with Al-Zuhari, Locke hammers home just how serious the threat they’re dealing with is: “This isn’t just a terrorist attack. What we’re looking at here has been every operative’s nightmare for the last decade: the old enemy are joining hands with the new.”
Stonebridge, Scott and the gang successfully intervene and bring Mairead in, but, when the British consulate gets out the red tape, they’re told to fly the terrorist back to Britain to continue their enquiries. Rarely has an airport experience been this annoying as the tables suddenly turn and Section 20 lose the upper hand, with Stonebridge questioning his shot-making abilities at a critical time.
Episode 6
Monday 2 December 2013, 9pm
Time is of the essence as the team try to pre-empt Al-Zuhari’s attack and they’re definitely on the back foot. Mairead still has Locke and she’s relishing her role as captor as details from the Major’s painful past come to light. They can’t kill him off just yet, though, because the former SAS legend has information they require.
At the Crib, Stonebridge, Scott and the girls are doing all they can to find their boss, tracing a suspect call to a car dealer-cum-terrorist fixer. It should be a simple operation, however it turns out to be anything given that the boys have managed to get on the wrong side of some powerful and mightily peed-off Russians. Kamali continues to act shadily, too.
Episode 7
Monday 9 December 2013, 9pm
Picking up another stamp on their passports, Stonebridge and Scott make their way to Moscow and, following a drug deal gone wrong, get a taste of life behind bars. Don’t panic because it’s all part of the plan, albeit a typically crazy one. It’s been 48 hours since Al-Zuhari’s terrorists attacked the British embassy in Budapest and cloned the NATO hard drive, and fresh intel leads the team to Black Bear, one of Russia’s most notorious, mafia-run prisons.
The boys go undercover to find Erik Anderson, a computer hacker recently transferred to Black Bear and one of the few people capable of diffusing the hard drive’s firewalls. Anderson doesn’t want to help Al-Zuhari but, with his family and friends being held hostage, his back is against the wall. Extra pressure is ladled on when Stonebridge’s test results come in, not to mention the arrival of a new addition to Section 20.
Episode 8
Monday 16 December 2013, 9pm
Stonebridge is living on borrowed time and, with the deadly neurotoxin tightening its grip, his health is fast deteriorating. The good news is that Section 20 has the cure, but getting it to him is the problem. Along with computer hacker Anderson, Stonebridge has been taken to a mysterious research facility just north of Black Bear prison as the nature of Al-Zuhari’s threat continues to crystalise.
The team will stop at nothing to save their comrade, none more so than Scott. First, though, he has to squeeze out of his tight spot, handcuffed to Pirogova and en route to meet Russian mobster Arkady, whose son he and Stonebridge killed.
Kamali has been a difficult character to root for and trust this series, having made so many dubious decisions, but his true colours shine through at the episode’s end.
Episode 9
Monday 23 December 2013, 9pm
Stonebridge and Scott race to Berlin, Germany to find Kamali’s daughter, Esther, before Al-Zuhari and his men do. Locke and the girls, meanwhile, scramble for information on how and when the virus is going to be released; with no vaccine or cure, the consequences would be catastrophic.
Things look up when the team track down right-hand man Rezza Hassan and retrieve a hard drive that, once decrypted, sheds more light on the terrorist’s planned attack. The episode culminates with a Bond-esque sequence on a train – one of the series’ best stunts to date – and yet another rug-yanking, oh-no-they-didn’t revelation that changes everything.
Episode 10
Monday 30 December 2013, 10pm
Stonebridge, Scott and the team are reeling from last week’s big reveal, but all finger-pointing is postponed until after the deadly plot is defused, one that is gathering apace as the enemy (avoiding all things spoiler-y) heads to Ramstein Air Base, hellbent on infecting the servicemen and women making their way back to America.
Extra incentive is added when an injured Martinez is infected, leading to a typically bombastic course of action involving a plane, a car and some missiles. The terrorist is temporarily derailed, however if Strike Back has taught us anything, it’s that the bad guy always has a plan B. Amid all the drama, the makers squeeze in a steamy session between Scott and someone surprising.
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