Part 2 kicks off with Bravo Team regrouping inside the diplomatic residence compound in Yemen after their planned egress goes to hell in a handbasket thanks to mortar fire.
Running out of options, the team secures their civilian protectees in the basement before taking up positions on the roof to repel another attack. Bullets start to fly and Bravo hits back, forcing the enemy militia to retreat... at least for the time being.
While Sonny and Clay set up shop on the roof, keeping an eye out for another potential attack, the former opens up to the latter about the end of his relationship, albeit keeping the name of his now-ex under wraps.
Back in the residence’s security shack, Jason catches up with Mandy briefly before the two realize there are hostiles inside the wire. The team engages and Ray gets into a particularly brutal scuffle before Jason intervenes and puts down the bad guy with an M4 stock to the face and a strategically-placed bullet.
Meanwhile at the TOC — Havoc Base — Davis and Blackburn order in an extract for their beleaguered SEALs in the form of a group of Polish helicopters before having to wave off the inbound aircraft after discovering the Yemeni militia amassing for another attack.
Mortar fire marks the start of the next assault wave, and Clay rises to the occasion by fighting through the onslaught and taking charge of a dual DShK machine gun mounted on a technical (truck) to mow down militants and end the attack.
The ambassador, still attempting to bring peace to the region by negotiating a ceasefire between the warring tribal leaders who necessitated her trip to the volatile region, begs Jason for more time while she tries to reach a phone line in the compound that would help her with her mission.
Though Jason is hesitant, Clay and Ray volunteer to go up with the ambassador while the rest of the team puts together a new exfil plan using an old school bus parked outside the compound and a small SUV that’s somehow still functional throughout the entire ordeal.
After some heated discussion, the ambassador manages to broker a peace deal and profusely thanks the SEALs with her for buying her time to do so.
While Jason and Sonny prep for their egress outside, a rocket slams into the top floor of the building — presumably right where the ambassador, Ray, and Clay are parked while trying to hail the Yemini militia chiefs on the phone.
On the top floor, the situation doesn’t look good. While the two SEALs are fine, the ambassador is torn up by the rocket and her prognosis is dire. Getting her outside, Ray and Clay link up with the rest of Bravo for the exfil.
After distracting the bad guys with smoke canisters, Bravo begins suppressing the militia with a wall of fire while the civilians make it to the bus. A tense chase ensues with Jason, Sonny, and Lopez (Bravo’s newest member) blocking for the bus in the aforementioned SUV a-la Smokey and the Bandit.
Upon dispatching a pesky technical hot on their tail in a sneaky ambush using Jason as bait, the team realizes the ambassador has succumbed to her wounds while they head to the airfield where their C-17 awaits.
Back stateside, Jason — sporting a limp during and after the mission — contemplates the fact that he might really be as physically broken down as the team’s new physiologist, Natalie, hints.
Christian’s Take
Obviously Part 1 left Bravo in a bit of a pickle when the bad guys perfectly mortared the vehicles in the motor pool. Who are these guys, Russian trained Iranian Revolutionary Guards with Marine mortarmen stroking the tubes? The accuracy of the hits are a bit hard to believe, but hey, things were going too well for Jason and his fellow frogmen.
And one little niggly detail that’s bothering me...how do the QRF SEALs all of the sudden have helmets? They just carried the flaks they came in on, and I sure as hell didn’t see any sustainment packs on them or anything.
No matter…
Love the part where Trent tells Ray he sees the terrorists loading up a GTB-7S rocket.
“You do realize that you can tell that from here is a bit freakish, right?” Ray responds.
“I like freakish,” Trent says. (He must be a GearScout reader...we’d probably get that too)
Hilarious!
DishKa
I do have a major problem with the scene involving the DishKa machine gun.
The idea that that thing spitting 12.7mm ammo — with two barrels — didn’t make short work of the wall protecting the SEALs on the roof, is a joke. Those Soviet-era anti-aircraft guns are pretty close to the effect of an M2 .50cal machine gun and can freaking destroy cinder block walls and mud-brick like it was paper.
But Clay waxes the gunner pretty good with his 14.5-inch rifle (like that extra barrel length!)...
And are Clay and Vic becoming pals?
Basement
And I love the whiny state department guy who’s just begging to get killed by “leaving now!” Can we please dispense with this overused trope?
And the cool as a cucumber ambassador who’s just ingratiating herself to the operators around her. Come on.
Mandy continues her badassery tour by getting into the mix and keeping the boys out of trouble. I’m just begging for a love connection between her and Jason.
Infiltrators
The bad guys inside the wire is a good touch. Reminds us of the training Bravo did when they rehearsed the ship takedown mission.
Ray fighting his way through a terrorist who’s ambushed him...pretty scary action for our aging hero. But super excellent camera work on this one. Great motion without being so jerky it makes you sick.
Then of course we have a helo coming — during broad daylight — and the ambassador has to make one more call for peace.
The parking lot shootout is awesome, and more great camera work. I love the integration of the FPV footage.
And, guys, if you look really closely you can see that Clay is wearing a MOHOC camera on his helmet. Those guys are super cool, make an awesome product and support operators all over the world.
And oh God does Clay have fun with that DishKa!
OK, so lots of operational badassery ensues, the ambassador gets killed and the boys extract via commandeered vehicles in a pretty slick way (Jason playing possum and letting his bois flank the enemy vehicle in the dark? Very sneaky).
But again, no use of night vision? If you guys are never going to use it, then don’t wear it!
And I thought it was pretty touching that the whole team was deeply bummed out by the death of the ambassador. They were there to protect her, and that aspect of the mission failed. Are they going to catch heat from Capt. Lindell when they return to Dam Neck?
One last thing. Our boy Ian (the man who writes the summary here) has a lot of hours in C-17s. Bottom line, the “C-17” interior portrayed here on ‘SEAL Team’ is way too small. He says it looks more like a C-141 interior.
Just a minor nitpick from our boy Ian.
Ingrid’s Take
The goal in Part Two of All Along the Watchtower was to get the ambassador and her team, as well as the Seal Team, out of Dodge – and did they ever get out. Wow. The fighting in a couple of parts of the show was so fast moving and truly badass (in a good way) that I had a hard time keeping track of what was really going on…except for the fact that I knew they’d get out. As always, those scenes gave me even greater respect for our elite warriors who keep their wits about them when in these situations.
Seal Team always comes through with great camera work and this episode will definitely not disappoint.
Parts I liked:
-When the hand-to-hand combat was going on between Victor and the Tango and Ray couldn’t quite get the shot to help, Jason walked out the door, popped the bad guy and then told Ray that he owed him one. Ray replied that he had him. I thought that was a funny scene in a not-so-funny situation.
-I loved the diversion when Jason and Sonny were driving the truck around the inside wall where the bad guys couldn’t see them, throwing a grenade over the wall so it would look like everyone was there when in actuality, they were boarding the bus in a different part of the compound. Great action-packed scene.
-I also liked the scene when the bus trying to get people to the airport was “hiding” from the bad guys. Great camera work showing the intensity on Jason’s face as he was waiting for exactly the right moment to give his guys the call to take the bad guys out. And take them out they did.
-On the plane headed home, I’m glad that Clay told Victor that he had done a good job – hopefully Clay is past the whiney stage.
- I felt everyone’s pain when the ambassador died, but they gave her such respect and admiration. That was cool. As Clay said, she was a door kicker in a good way, not like the kind of politicians we’re suffering through right now.
Things I wonder about:
-When Clay and Ray accompanied the ambassador to the one room that had a phone so she could call warlord #2, why did they have the lights on? A perfect and easy opportunity for the bad guys to aim a rocket right into the room, which is exactly what they did. Clay and Ray were standing right beside the ambassador, but she was the only one injured?
-Who would call the shots in real life if the Ambassador and Bravo 1 disagreed?
-In the fight between Ray and the Tango, I wondered if that that kind of hand-to-hand combat happens often in warfare these days?
-How much ammunition do these guys have on their backs at any one time – they sure shoot for a long time???
-I always ask myself how it is that the Team guys spend so much time in the open, taking out so many of bad guys but never get shot themselves? It seems to a normal person like me that they’d take aim behind cover rather than being out in wide-open spaces so much of the time.
-When Clay ran out on his own and turned the table on the bad guys as he took control of their two-barreled machine gun, was it realistic that he could take down all of them without getting shot himself? Great cinematography in this scene.
-Re: Jason’s knee. Will he seek Natalie’s help and, among other issues, get his knee fixed so that he can then become the Tom Brady of Seal Team and keep going as he gets older? I hope so. I love his character. He’s definitely thinking about it.
Ian D’Costa is a correspondent with Gear Scout whose work has been featured with We Are The Mighty, The Aviationist, and Business Insider. An avid outdoorsman, Ian is also a guns and gear enthusiast.
