It's all a little bit much, particularly when the men are all tough and loyal and dedicated to their jobs to the point of being superheroes. Aside from a few weak moments, they have each other's backs, stare directly into the face of danger without balking and, when they screw up, work tirelessly to make up for their shortcomings. In the first episode, new recruit Bob Brown (played by Scott Foley) is on a relatively benign mission in Idaho with his boss, Blane, when terrorists seize a plane a few towns over. Without hesitation, Brown sneaks into the darkness and single-handedly and quietly kills two terrorists, while Blane plans a way to bust onto a plane filled with terrorists and civilians. Returning home from this amazing impromptu mission, Blane brings Brown to his new house (across the street from Blane's) and says, "It's not much to look at, but it's ours."
"You kidding?" Brown responds. "You get to shoot guns, jump out of airplanes, come home to your family. It's damn near perfect." Grrrrow! Me man like big shoot'em-up, then come home to me woman in split-level military cave!
But the almost unbearable "Armageddon"-style tough-guy moment doesn't last -- Mamet is always armed with new ways to undercut the sanity and peace of any given situation. In fact, one of the major strengths of "The Unit" is its ability to tackle the blurry ethical lines and confusing behavioral codes of the military during a time of war. Unlike most military shows, "The Unit" doesn't instruct us on exactly how we should feel about any character or situation, and each character tests our patience at one point or another. From the very beginning, when the wives of the base approach Kim with a Stepford Wives intensity, it's not entirely clear whom we should side with, the brainwashed military women or the stubbornly independent Kim. After all, the wives are warm and genuine, whereas Kim, like so many of Mamet's heroines, has a sassy short haircut and a slightly off-putting no-nonsense style. She's cool and independent, we get it, but her new environment brings out the coldness in her at those moments when you're just about to take her side.
Mamet's comfort with ambivalence really suits this context; it's refreshing to see a military drama that toys with the boundaries of our tolerance for the customs of military life. How much are these men -- and more important, their families -- expected to sacrifice to complete their missions?
But just as he pushes our boundaries, the courage and genuine intentions of most of these men are never called into question. Mamet obviously savors the bravado of military culture. When the boys think they're going to participate in a drill where they imprison a military team and attempt to break them, their leader asks if they have the stones to pull it off:
Col. Ryan: Any of you thinking of being lenient? Who you going to save that for?
Keenan William: Pets and babies, sir!
Of course, we now know that going soft on pets and babies constitutes a major risk to national security. Still, Mamet certainly knows how to keep things interesting. In fact, the most promising aspect of "The Unit" may just be that each of the three episodes sent by CBS were entirely different. Most cop, lawyer, doctor and military shows tend to find one formula and stick to it, over and over and over, each episode mirroring the last in terms of plot. In contrast, "The Unit" is all over the map, featuring surprising and inventive stories that haven't already been done to death. Even with this unpredictability, the stakes are always high, the tensions between the characters feel real, and the odd twists and ambivalent perspective cast odd shadows on a military setting that's typically treated with utter reverence.
Next page: Hamas as father figure, the lessons of "Black. White."