Scott Foley stars in The Unit
© N/A

Mania Grade: A
Episode: In Loco Parentis
Stars: Dennis Haysbert, Robert Patrick, Regina Taylor, Demore Barnes, Abby Brammell
Created By: David Mamet

Related Links

0

"The Unit: In Loco Parentis"

OK, I hadn’t intended on making a habit of reviewing The Unit, and I still don’t plan to, but I had to revisit it this week because this episode was one of the best of the series.  This episode thematically is set around children.  The Unit is sent in to take the lead on a hostage situation at a local school.  The students are all the children of government officials so even the President has a say in how this situation is handled.  The Unit works with local SWAT to put together a plan to infiltrate the school and after no demands are given and it’s discovered that the hostage takers are on a suicide mission The Unit is given the go-ahead to do what they must to save the children. 

They gain a lot of intel about where explosives are set and where within the school all of the students are being held when one of the Unit slips into the school and gets himself captured pretending to be a math teacher.  He gets help from one of the student’s who knows who he is (well sort of) when she makes herself throw up in order to get out of the library where she is being held to go to the bathroom.  She falls convincing the kidnappers that her math teacher must help her to the bathroom.  He’s wearing some very Clark Kent looking glasses that have hidden cameras on them allowing the rest of the Unit to see inside the school. 

Meanwhile Molly’s excessively belated wedding anniversary romp was abruptly ended by the school kidnapping so she ahs found herself missing her husband even more than usual.  When Tiffy’s daughter is told she can’t have a relationship with a boy she likes because they are both the offspring of military officers Tiffy toes the military line but Molly feels bad for her, and relates to her because she is missing her own husband.  Molly projects a bit on Tiffy’s daughter her own unhappiness and allows Tiffy’s daughter to bring the boy over while she is there.  Problem is they do what teenagers do; they came back when Molly wasn’t home.  Of course Molly returns home early to catch them together in her bed.  They apparently did nothing other than taking off their shirts so Molly reluctantly keeps it a secret.  All hell breaks lose though when the boy shows a camera phone picture around school of Tiffy’s daughter in her bra with him touching her breast.  Tiffy turns into a bad ass and rips the mom of the boy a new one, but the interesting part really comes in the confrontation between Tiffy and Molly. 

Tiffy is rightfully upset that Molly kept the incident a secret from her but Molly is dealing with her own emotions plus she still feels bad for Tiffy’s daughter from her discovery of her mother cheating with another officer last year.  Molly even throws this in Tiffy’s face blaming her for teaching her daughter how to be loose sexually.  It’s a pretty dramatic fight that apparently leads to the end of their friendship.  It should be interesting to see how this plays out over upcoming episodes. 

The creators of The Unit have tied the wives’ story and the mission of the Unit together thematically before but I think this episode is one of the best attempts at that so far for the series.  The acting on both stories was top notch and the kids in both did excellent jobs too.  While my hope that a mission would some time play a larger role in the overall series hasn’t come to fruition yet it looks like that the events within the story of the wives will affect everything in a major way.  As I said last week, this isn’t a series I anticipate each week but I’m usually glad I watch it once it’s on.