FUBAR – Season 1 Episode 2 “Stole Train” Recap & Review

Stole Train

Episode 2 of FUBAR starts where we left off. Boro and his men show up and demand to know who Luke and Emma are working with. With William’s daughter threatened with a gun, Luke buys them precious time by discussing Boro’s father’s last moments.

A helicopter flies overhead, with bullets raining down on the foes. However, Boro manages to get away unscathed, while Emma saves Luke’s life by killing one of the goons herself, smugly retorting that she has the highest scores in marksmanship.

24 hours later, CIA director Dot decides that Emma and Luke are going to have to work together for the future case to bring in Boro given they’ve both been working on this. Dot points out that Emma’s hot-headed nature and cockiness could have resulted in officers being killed. Remember Panda’s comms going down? Well, Dot tells Luke in confidence that Emma actually chose to turn it off herself, given she was close to getting the nuke back.

Emma and Luke naturally come to blows, with the former telling her father not to screw up this case like he screwed up their family. It leaves him with no choice but to head back to Barry and hack into Donnie’s laptop to learn more about the man trying to date his ex wife. After Luke amusingly misuses the word cuckold, he also learns that Donnie is investing in his son’s MyAisle app too.

A briefing at work is called, and after being introduced to an analyst on loan from the NSA, Tina Mukerji, Boro’s daddy issues mirror that of Emma and Luke. The group soon learn that Boro is still alive after trying to fake his death, and appears to be en-route to somewhere in eastern Europe or Asia. His auction is still on so it seems like he’s going to create another nuke briefcase.

The group later learn that Boro is off in Kazakhstan, where he intends to move a tanker-worth of Cesium 137 which is being transported in a Maglev train. The only play is to try and stop the train, suck the waste into a tanker truck and take off. Everyone is heading in undercover.

As for Luke and Emma, they’re forced to attend mandatory therapy sessions with the operational psychologist, Dr Louis Pfeffer. He’s the in-house analyst, and it causes even more drama between the daddy/daughter duo when Luke is the one who’s in charge of this case.

There’s a hilarious family dinner that night, ending with Luke leaving in disappointment and Barry’s Ice cream cupcakes, brought in by Donnie, is thrown into the bushes. This is followed up by therapy, which similarly doesn’t go entirely to plan!

9pm hits and the group prepare to head out. Luke gives a rare compliment to Emma for spotting an inconsistency with his gear, while Emma feels the strain of lying to her boyfriend about being on another mission.

Given Luke is supposed to be a professional, in a busy train carriage he touches his ear, speaks to Barry and talks about Operation Don. I mean, could he be any more obvious? Anyway, Emma shows up and points out inconsistencies with the different passengers, including someone eating pork. However, Luke decides she needs to stand down and wait for now.

Before the chokepoint, Luke jumps in all guns blazing when a helicopter arrives and begins to take the Celsium 137 from the air. Emma though is more annoyed that the BLT guy in the corner happens to be a plant, something she alluded to earlier in the episode.

Luke and Emma decide to speed up the train in order to stop Boro, who’s in a helicopter above. Unfortunately, Barry ends up miscommunicating with him given he’s still spying on Donnie. This misunderstanding leads Luke to speed up the train way too much, with the pair en-route to disaster.


The Episode Review

We continue to be told about how amazing Emma is by everyone, but finally this episode we get some glimmers that all is not right in her world. The fact that her trajectory is running parallel to her father’s, as she struggles to juggle work and family life, is a nice way of giving her character more depth and actually makes her more likable in the process.

The recurring ice cream cake gag is funny, while the balance of comedy and drama here is surprisingly good. It would appear that the overarching story is going to center on trying to get Boro and apprehend him, and while the narrative does seem a bit obvious at times, there’s enough enjoyment to be had with this to see how things play out further down the line.

Previous Episode

Next Episode

You can read our full season review for FUBAR here!

  • Episode Rating
    (3.5)
3.5

Leave a comment