TVSquad

Let me start this off by saying I don't hate this show. I think most of us are finding that you have to mentally prepare yourself to sit through it based on pretty much every episode so far, which is probably why it's taken me a few days to get around to this review. This was "the Christmas episode" so you'd expect it be all gimmicky and even worse than a regular installment. Oddly enough, this one wasn't that bad. Don't kick yourself if you missed it, but it was especially important to the series because it did something that few episodes have done so far. Backstory! Love interests! JT and his cohorts might actually be real people after all.

Years ago, a village in Afghanistan helped out JT and his buddies when they were stationed in the area. He promised he'd make it up to them and that was the intent of Operation Payback. Fly a few choppers over the village and drop in a ton of supplies. Problem is, the choppers got near and Taliban insurgents opened fire so the op was shut down and the choppers rerouted. JT makes it his personal mission to get them those supplies. A snowstorm (I had no idea it snowed in Afghanistan) is moving in, so what if a plane flew above the storm to drop the supplies where the insurgents wouldn't see them? At this point I thought the episode could have ended, problem solved - villagers get their blue jeans and automatic rifles. But as is the case with E-Ring, every five minutes is a new obstacle which JT can fix by sweet-talking some guy with a higher paygrade. What plane? Get the Secretary of Defense to loan us his. How do we know the supplies will drop in the right place? Commandeer some new laser pinpoint system. But what if the insurgents take cover from the storm in the village? There's only one bridge into the village, so blow it up. After all the problems are solved, the mission is saved and the government has a nice story to push on the media.

While not horrible, the main story line was overshadowed by the secondary plot, not because the backstory was good, but because it was backstory period. Other than the two-part episode arc from a month ago that shed light on JT's past, we don't know much about him. We meet his father. JT Sr. is a complete jerk and it partly explains why JT is quite the nice gent, not wanting to be like dad and all. But the man has Hep-C and Sonny helps him get the documentation he needs to prove it was service related. She even skipped her flight home to help out the guy. A romance is certainly starting to develop between her and JT Jr., but it might take time because Angie's death is still pretty fresh. Plus there's a new Master Sergeant in the office. Meeks is a single guy who's got eyes for Pierce, so it'll be interesting to see where that goes. But knowing this show, there will probably be obstacles... Meeks has 4 other wives, or he's actually a woman. Thoughts?