Say It With Bullets (S02, E16)
In which the team’s client has a mission of her own.
We begin with an illicit weapons deal between an army officer, Lieutenant Harnett and some shady looking chaps. Harnett leaves while the buyers consider his price, but his driver tells him that he doesn’t want to be part of the deals anymore.
Cut to a Natural History Museum, where Corporal Brown walks past an old man drawing a dinosaur skeleton. Of course, it’s Hannibal in disguise – he’s taking extra precautions dealing with the military. The Corporal is Harnett’s driver’s sister and we learn he’s been killed. His sister wants the A-Team to help as she says she doesn’t know who to trust in the army.
The team gather and search the Lieutenant’s house, finding out he has a beach house and a lockup too. Even more helpfully, there’s an answerphone message from Harnett’s buyers saying they will meet him to buy guns at 12.
We head to the lockup to intercept the deal, with Face picking the lock. Behind the door, the place is packed with crates and crates of guns. The buyers turn up at this point and start shooting at Face and Hannibal. BA drives past in the van to rescue them just in time.
In a shocking twist, Corporal Brown takes Decker to the lock-up but the weapons are gone. Decker thinks the team are keeping them, but Brown isn’t sure. Turns out the two have made a deal – Decker will bust Harnett if Brown helps him trap the A-Team.
While Murdock and Tawnia head off to bug Harnett to learn more about him, Hannibal, Face and BA dress in uniform and head to the army base. “Colonel Harrison Swift” is there to audit the base, gaining him entrance to Harnett’s office with Corporal Brown and sending him away.
Tawnia chases after the Lieutenant in the Corvette, flirting with him as she drives alongside his car. After a bit of alternate overtaking, the two pull over to the side and agree to head to Harnett’s place.
Back at the base, the team have all the evidence they need to convict Harnett. Decker is waiting for them outside though and has the team surrounded after turning off his sirens for once. Hannibal soon realises they’ve been played by Corporal Brown but thankfully Decker gives them 30 seconds to give up.
That’s plenty of time, as the office happens to back onto a special weapons warehouse. The team tool up and burst outside firing grenades and bullets at Decker’s men. With the Corporal as their hostage, Decker orders a ceasefire and is forced to watch his enemies escape into the huge lands surrounding the base.
Some stock footage of a military convoy plays, including many jeeps and even a few tanks! Decker has seconded every soldier on the base in his search, while the team are hiding out at the visiting officers’ quarters – Decker’s lodgings.
While the Corporal explains she sided with Decker as she though the team stole the weapons from the deal, Hannibal realises that means the customers must now have the guns and they need to be stopped.
Over at Harnett’s house, Tawnia takes one for the team by smooching the Lieutenant and planting a big under his collar. He takes a call from the customers, learning they are camped out in his beach house with the guns and want a discount for their troubles. Murdock records the conversation from the van outside but has to run in when the bug falls to the flaw and Harnett realises he’s been fooled. The Captian saves Tawnia and ties up Harnett, who had a gun pointed at her.
Back at the base, Decker is on his way to the officers’ quarters after a cheeky phone call from Hannibal. The team prepare the house by rigging up guns in the windows and finding a record called ‘The Sounds of War’ to play. Decker closes in with stock footage of three tanks but the team sneak out the back and start the recording, which plays gunfire. Decker has his men fire out the house, ripping it apart with bullets and destroying the inside of the quarters.
For their next move, the team steal a tank and shoot one of the army jeeps. Decker and his right-hand man Captain Crane jump in the next jeep and give chase, with Hannibal turning the turret on them and firing back. The first shot sends Crane flying out of the car but the second manages to flip the car and Decker into the air – he’s ok though, don’t worry.
At Harnett’s beach house, the customers debate whether they should just split or kill Harnett to get rid of loose ends. The team have reconvened and left Corporal Brown with a tied-up Harnett on the roadside. As they arrive at the beach house, half of the gun buyers try to escape in a van but they’re run off the road by Face and Murdock in the Corvette.
Hannibal and BA jump through the windows to surprise the remaining bad guys, most of whom put their hands up but one tries to take on BA and gets knocked out with one punch: “some people never learn”. Murdock confirms the house is clear, noting that he “checked for Invisibles but they didn’t have any with them”.
Decker’s sirens start to blare in the distance. meaning it’s time for the team to make their exit – leaving the gun buyers tied up for the Colonel.
Let’s wrap up with a few key questions.
Does Hannibal wear a disguise?
Yes. First, he’s an artist to meet Corporal Brown and later Colonel Harrison Swift.
Does BA get on a plane?
Nope.
Should someone be dead?
Yes – sadly Decker should have gone from the car flip.
Say It With Bullets is a more complicated episode of The A-Team than usual, with three plots to follow and three enemies to defeat. As ever, one is their nemesis Colonel Decker, but this time he has a woman on the inside after striking a deal with Corporal Brown to arrest her brother’s killer if she helps him catch the A-Team.
It’s a shame there’s only a short period where we know the Corporal’s secret and the team don’t, as it’s an interesting dynamic. Alongside this, there’s the killer/gun dealer Lieutenant Harnett and his gun-buying customers who both threaten the team. It’s great to see a different type of story, but within a single episode, there’s not enough time for everything to play out as well as it could have.