When operators aren’t operating, they’re training... and that’s exactly where “Theory and Methodology” picks up after Bravo Team’s mission to hunt down bomb maker Vadim Tarasov in the previous episode.

After running drills under the watchful eye of Jason, the team is introduced to their new commanding officer, Grayson Lindell, who soon takes Clay aside and lets him subtly know that he needs to stand down on his personal mission of exposing the dangers of traumatic brain injuries and the Navy’s quiet stance on the matter.

Lindell wants to solve the matter in a different way — by bringing in a specialist to work with the team’s operators, and he feels as though Clay’s efforts might get in the way.

Jason spends time with his daughter shopping for things to spruce up his spartan living quarters, and he pulls out the dad questions right away. His daughter, however, isn’t having any of it and she keeps bringing the conversation back to his mental health and her concern for him.

In true Jason form, he brushes off her concerns.

Meanwhile, Bravo’s secret lovebirds — Sonny and Davis — attempt to go on a date far away from the prying eyes of everyone on base, only to be recalled.

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Bravo’s getting spun up.

This time, the team’s heading to Azerbaijan to “support and advise” local forces on retaking a power plant supposedly captured by Armenian forces.

In an interesting turn of events, Ray, anxious to remain with Bravo, finds a workaround to his earlier problem of getting promoted out of the team. While on the team’s J-Alert aircraft, Ray makes known his intention to become a warrant officer to Blackburn. This would keep him with Bravo, but as his wife indicates, it would also make him senior to Jason and that could potentially change the dynamic of their friendship.

The team kits up and Bravo HALO jumps in from the aircraft, linking up with a friendly black ops team in the area. The support-and-advise mission rapidly devolves into “kill everything” when a firefight ensues, and the team is forced to switch to direct action mode.

In a protracted battle, Bravo discovers that they’re up against Iranian mercenaries equipped with night vision, machine guns and a decent amount of training.

When the team recovers and they head back stateside, Davis finds herself extremely frustrated with her inability to anticipate the Iranians popping up, though Blackburn consoles her with the fact that there was no way she could’ve connected dots that nobody could see.

Presumably still upset and conflicted over having to send Bravo into harm’s way with the intelligence she analyzes, she later brushes off a make-up date with Sonny to dive headfirst into some more intel work.

Clay eventually lets his father know about his earlier conversation with Lindell, and in a heartwarming moment, the two realize that the work they’ve been doing together on TBI awareness has made them closer than they’ve ever been before.

Jason ends the episode alone in his apartment, resistant to the small changes his daughter made before she left to go back to school. He fishes a bar of soap out of the trash, plonks himself on a chair near the microwave oven and turns it on so that he has some noise to keep him company.

Christian’s Take

What a sharp departure from the first two episodes of this season (and a tactical disappointment).

Shoot house —

Very cool to see the shoot house scene. It really illustrates how hard these men work to hone their craft as assaulters. Loved the role players ambushing and tackling and full contact on Sonny and Ray and Clay. Also cool camera work with the GoPro on the stock of Trent’s rifle.

But we literally go 14 minutes into the 41 minute show before there’s any mission. I’m sure Ingrid will talk about the Davis/Sonny dumpster fire in her writeup, but dude, what’s with the flirting in the cages? What if someone walked in? WTF?

The mission to Azerbaijan —

There was really only one operation executed by Bravo, and it seemed so far fetched and so hurriedly planned it veered far from (seemingly) reality. We’re going to send a DevGru team into Azerbaijan on a popup mission to secure a power plant? Come on.

“Why the hell are we worried about turf wars between countries that I can’t even spell?” Sonny wonders.

You and me both, brother. And Davis’ explanation? Not believable.

We’re literally planning the mission to secure a gigantic power plant on the plane ride over. With what six guys? I’m just not seeing it.

And am I the only one that thought the city lights below the plane were a bit close for a jump — with oxygen?

Dude, how did we get a “water team?” No one said anything about boats on this one. So random, not seeing the tactical advantage here at all.

Anyway, a big old gunfight ensues with lots of hitting on Bravo’s side, and lotsa missing on the bad guys’ side. And explain to me again why the f%uck these guys are even here? Then we got Iranian Revolutionary Guard mercenaries? Not IRG regulars, but IRG mercenaries…

OK, enough...who wrote this episode? Can we plase have the writer for the first two back? Pleeaassseee?

Rant over. This episode is 100 percent a misser. If this is the kind of mission we’re going to send our best, most highly trained warriors on — to secure an Azerbaijani power fricking plant — I’m gonna flip my sh*t…

Ingrid’s Take

I had to watch this third episode in a hurry in between flights and business trips so maybe it was that time crunch, but it seemed to leave a lot of open ended questions:

-Are Lisa and Sonny just going to keep breaking the rules by continuing their relationship?

-How many episodes will end with Jason in a very lonely spot? It was nice to see Emma trying to help him make his new “house” a home although he wasn’t very enthused.

-Will Ray become a warrant officer and then be over Jason? I don’t think he wants to leave the unit, but he wants to buy his wife a new house. Hmmm...how will he resolve the issue?

-Will Clay’s father continue the effort to raise awareness for injured soldiers needing both physical and mental help? That new CO that ordered Clay to stop his efforts did not seem very sincere, to say the least. It’s a very important issue in real life, so I hope that part continues creating awareness of the need.

It was good at the beginning to see the Team training. There hasn’t been very much of that, which I think is really important to get the real feel of what these guys do to get ready for missions.

One thing I noticed towards the end when the Team was jumping out of the plane...everyone had oxygen masks on, but it looked like the plane was really low because you saw lights of buildings below as they jumped. I don’t think oxygen is needed that low? Just a detail!

Over and out for this week!

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.

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