A Man. And His Blog.

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“American Terror” is the second season of Showtime’s mini series Sleeper Cell, and it deepens our understanding of the religious and philosophical differences between undercover FBI agent Darwyn Al-Sayeed (Michael Ealy) and Faris al-Farik (Oded Fehr), the radical Islamic terrorist who continues to mastermind attacks on American soil. As American Terror begins, Farik is enduring brutal torture at the hands of his American captors while Darwyn, still undercover, is pretending to lead a new sleeper cell consisting of a former Latino gang member (Kevin Alejandro) who became an extremist in prison; a closeted gay Iraqi ex-patriot (Omid Abtahi) raised in London; and a Dutch nanny (Thekla Reuten) with personal reasons for hating America.
While Farik’s former right-hand-man Ilija (Henri Lubatti) struggles in vain to return to a quiet, normal life, American Terror takes all of its characters into darker, more dangerous territory, and heightened realism gives the series even greater emotional impact as unexpected tragedies befall several supporting characters.

Episode 01: Al-Baqara
Interesting season opener, though it was a bit lame in the first half. Almost nothing happened there. But the second half compensate for that.
So, we have three different storylines. The new terrorist cell, Farik’s life in prison and Ilija’s life with Carli (Angela Gots) while on the road. First I was surprised that Ilija told Carli everything about the attack. So she knows about him being a terrorist… Well, interesting that she still is together with him. Farik in prison might be interesting, and the episode showed he still has some contact in the outside world. It would be interesting to know who the mole is. The new terrorist cell is alright. Maybe the story could be a little bit boring, because it repeats all the stories from the first season, but the little twist with their leader knowing about Darwyn and his contacts was really interesting. And the more interesting twist is: Darwyn is now the leader of the terrorist cell – way too surprising and interesting. I just hope the writers don’t use that story for an excuse to just prevent attacks from happening.
Serxner’s (Sonya Walger) death was surprising, too. First Ray, now Patrice. Darwyn doesn’t have it easy with his contact agents. And the scene with Darwyn watching the video on the internet had some goosebumps moments. It is just a shame that I don’t see Sonya Walger again here. And I hope the next contact agent doesn’t die (or I have to call the writer bad things, because they repeat stories). 7,5/10

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The 10-hour miniseries deals about Darwyn Al-Sayeed (Michael Ealy), a 30-year-old African-American undercover FBI agent and a practicing Muslim, who is assigned to infiltrate a terrorist sleeper cell that is planning an attack in the Los Angeles area. The cell is run by a Muslim extremist named Faris al-Farik (Oded Fehr). Darwyn is supervised by FBI senior agent Ray Fuller (James LeGros), also a close friend who worries for Darwyn’s safety.

Episode 01: Al-Faitha
It was a really good introduction to the story and the characters. Some things are definitely a bit over the top, but all in all I liked the series opener. The characters are interesting and had a good introduction, even though the second row characters needed some more screentime. But how surprising would be the scene, when Darwyn went to his parole officer and everything was revealed as an FBI undercover operation. Wouldn’t I know about the series plot, that Darwyn was an FBI agent trying to get into a terrorist cell, this would be a really nice twist.
But the one problem I have about the show is, that it is a bit slow. Despite all the introduction into the characters and story (especially the story about the traitor in the team, which already was finished in this episode), some scenes can be really boring due to the slow telling of the story.
The writers only should concentrate more on the other characters and not only on Darwyn and this could be a very interesting season. And maybe they should try to get Farik more development – he seems like a “goddess” person – knowing about everything, invisible for the rest of the world and invincible; kind of a cliche character, who already gets on my nerves. 7,5/10

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