Sunday, August 19, 2012

XIII - Costa Verde


Picking up where XIII: The Conspiracy left off, the XIII television series has continued the adventures of the deadly amnesiac soldier in search for answers about his past. Based on the Franco-Belgian comics by Jean Van Hamme and William Vance the show recasts Stuart Townsend in the role of XIII and returns several of the supporting actors of the original mini-series.

In the latest episode XIII and Special Agent Lauren Jones (Aisha Tyler), with the help of a genius computer hacker (Aaron Ashmore), travel to Costa Verde under the radar of the CIA and Secret Service in search for information about what mission XIII performed in the country five-years ago under the name Seamus O'Neill. Following the death of Sam (Caterina Murino), XIII is even more obsessed with uncovering the truth about his past. Equally interested are the Director of National Intelligence (Greg Bryk), the Director of the CIA (Paulino Nunes), and the former President of the United States (Ted Atherton), each with a personal interest in XIII's search.


XIII's search takes him to the offices of the leader of the opposition party and former rebel, Maria Cardenes (Athena Karkanis), who it turns out was also Sheamus' wife. Sadly, their reunion will not be a happy one despite Maria's fervent wish to have her husband back. The search also takes XIII to the ruins of a technology company whose top-secret work was stolen and the company bombed, killing 250 workers, five years ago.

As XIII gets to know the woman who was his wife Jones reconnects with an old friend, an agent of the CIA (Anthony Lemke) stationed in Costa Verde, who helps her break into the Presidential Palace and steal state secrets about the Renalco, the tech company which was destroyed. Through Maria, XIII finds an old friend, a priest (Jean-Marc Barr) who is able to confirm his fears that he was involved in the disaster that left so many dead five years ago. The priest also gives him the names of the two men who survived the attack with him, and with whom he split up parts the mysterious code between, as well as the name of the man who hired them for the mission - Rainer Garehart (Tom Berenger).

"Costa Verde" gives us far more answers than most episodes of the purposely enigmatic series. By the end of the episode XIII at least has an idea of what led him down the path towards his current circumstances and a pair of solid leads to continue the search.

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