The A-Team

About the series

Contains story spoilers.

The A-Team puts four former soldiers in an awkward position: they can help people whom the authorities have failed, but turning to those same authorities could send them back to prison. Created by Stephen J. Cannell and Frank Lupo, the original series began in 1983 and follows Vietnam veterans wrongly convicted of a crime, now working as fugitives and hired problem-solvers. Hannibal leads with confidence and a taste for elaborate schemes; Face supplies the persuasive cover stories; B.A. brings strength and mechanical ingenuity; Murdock brings flying skills and an unpredictable manner. Their world is full of armed bullies, improvised equipment and vehicles that become something quite different after a hurried workshop session. The action has a deliberately exaggerated quality, making a dangerous predicament the starting point for an audacious practical answer.

The opening adventure, Mexican Slayride, gives that arrangement a civilian point of entry. Journalist Amy Allen needs someone to rescue a fellow reporter kidnapped in Mexico, and her search also attracts Colonel Lynch, who wants the fugitives captured. Preparing the mission is already a small operation: Face gets Murdock out of a psychiatric hospital and obtains a plane, while B.A.'s fear of flying requires another workaround. In Mexico, the team faces Malavita Valdez, whose gang controls marijuana fields and intimidates a village. They attack the crop with a plane carrying ammonia and turn a bus into an armoured vehicle. Even that does not finish the job: an ambush leaves part of the group captive, and escaping means combining Hannibal's initiative with help from Face, Murdock and local villagers. Amy subsequently uses the prospect of favourable newspaper coverage to secure a place alongside them. She can describe their exploits, but knowing their methods also brings her inside the danger.

Children of Jamestown begins with a narrower request that grows into a confrontation with an entire coercive community. Sheila Rodgers has been kept apart from her father by Martin James, a cult leader whose followers censor correspondence and enforce obedience through intimidation. A staged public quarrel distracts her guards long enough for the team to extract her, and Murdock flies Sheila and her father to safety. The rescuers are less fortunate: surrounded by armed followers, they surrender. James then sends them into the countryside to be hunted, calling it a religious test. A nearby farmer is also trapped by his demands, surrendering crops because he fears for his daughter. His workshop provides the materials the fugitives need to change their odds. Rather than simply escape the area, Hannibal returns to confront James at the compound. The episode makes the client's rescue only the first step; the machinery keeping other young people frightened and isolated still has to be challenged.

Pros and Cons turns that same idea towards a prison whose own administration runs the abuse. Jase Tataro has been forced into fights organised by Warden Beale, who sells recordings and treats the prisoners as disposable entertainment. A promised chance at freedom proves a trick, and an escape to see Jase's brother Joey ends with his recapture. B.A. knows Joey through his work with children and insists that the team help even though this is hardly a lucrative commission. Their infiltration places B.A. inside the prison, where he is scheduled to fight the man they came to rescue. When the contest moves to a remote barn, Amy has to locate it before the others can intervene. The eventual victory includes evidence as well as extraction: the team records the spectators, and Beale's scheme becomes a matter for state officials. Jase's fabricated charges are dropped. Helping Joey thus means undoing an institution's manufactured justification for keeping his brother locked up.

In A Small and Deadly War, Inspector Edward Maloney has a different reason for distrusting an official investigation. He believes Captain Stark and other members of a police tactical unit are paid killers, but he lacks proof and fears for his family. Hiring wanted men is an extraordinary choice for a police officer, and B.A. initially worries that the client could be a trap. The case develops into a contest over evidence: concealed microphones threaten to expose the killers, until they discover and destroy them. Hannibal then isolates Collins by making association with the team look like a betrayal of Stark. Under pressure, Collins explains how the murder weapons were borrowed from police evidence and returned before investigators could establish the connection. A confession and those weapons offer Maloney a route to action, although Stark tries to intercept the handover. The resolution gives the honest inspector the evidence he needs, and the team returns the part of his savings it has not spent.

Black Day at Bad Rock temporarily reverses the usual hiring arrangement: the team arrives needing help itself. B.A. has been shot, and Dr Sullivan's treatment cannot solve his need for a rare blood type without Murdock's donation. Meanwhile, the local sheriff suspects the visitors of being connected with a motorcycle gang whose jailed leader is about to be rescued by force. The approaching attack leaves the town cut off, with its telephone lines severed and radio communications obstructed by the mountains. Hannibal negotiates an uneasy agreement with the sheriff and prepares a defence rather than leave the residents to face the gang alone. An empty real-estate office becomes a false jail, while speakers and carefully chosen firing positions guide the attackers into a trap. The gang is contained, and the sheriff lets the fugitives depart. Their survival depends on an official recognising what they have done, even when their wanted status says he should arrest them instead.