Explosive
Summary
The Terminal List: Dark Wolf is a massively entertaining military action show with some spectacular set-pieces and memorable characters. It’s made me want to watch the original Terminal List series again as I’ve forgotten a lot of what happened in it. Taylor Kitsch gives one of his best performances as the conflicted Ben and the cast all round give their all making this damn good television.
Plot: Navy SEAL Ben Edwards’ abrupt discharge from the military lands him a new job working with a mysterious CIA operative. As he delves deeper into the world of covert intelligence he struggles with the moral gray areas of clandestine operations.
Review: I wish I’d revisited The Terminal List before watching this prequel, Dark Wolf starring Taylor Kitsch. It leads up to the events of that series, so it helps to have watched that before viewing this. I’ve long since forgotten what happened so I may revisit it soon just to refresh my memory.
Dark Wolf gives us Ben Edward’s backstory which leads up to The Terminal List; he gets discharged from the military after executing someone in cold blood and he ends up working with a new team for the mysterious Jed Haverford (Robert Wisdom). He hires Ben, Raife (Tom Hopper), Mo (Dar Salim) and several others to take out various “threats” but things are not always what they seem and soon Ben doesn’t know who to trust.
This series focuses on the brotherhood of the military while also exploring the grey areas of covert operations. There are no real good or bad guys, just people following orders with some doing what they think is right even though it really isn’t. I don’t want to go into any more detail or spoil anything, so we’ll leave it at that.
Going for gritty realism, Dark Wolf shows the consequences of violence while still having some incredible action scenes. The season finale has an amazing shoot-out at a farmhouse with guns blazing and real explosions. The violence is at times unflinching with limbs being hacked off and throats being slit so it doesn’t make it look overly “cool”.
I feel like Taylor Kitsch has had some bad luck with his career as I like him as an actor as he has real presence and seems like a nice guy. Sadly, roles like Battleship and John Carter (which I admittedly enjoyed) were box office duds so he didn’t become the star he deserved to be. I’m pleased to see him shine in a role like this as it shows that he has real talent and if Keanu Reeves hadn’t played John Wick, Kitsch could have done a great job too.
Chris Pratt is only in a couple of episodes and it’s really an extended cameo with Ben the main focus. Tom Hopper nearly steals the show as Raife who has a problem doing some of these missions as he’s one of the few people in the series with a conscience.
It is for the most part well-paced and every episode has an action scene, so it’s never boring. There are a few twists preventing it from becoming predictable and the performances all round are outstanding.
Overall, The Terminal List: Dark Wolf feels like genuine research went into how military missions go while exploring the world of covert operations and brotherhood. It has some amazing set-pieces while never losing sight of the characters making this one of the better action shows on television.