Not Bravery, Nor Boldness But #Valor #3weekroundup #recap #review #CW

Not Bravery, Nor Boldness But #Valor #3weekroundup #recap #review #CW

Annnnnndddd we’re back. Welcome ladies and gentlemen to another grand new series three-week roundup review. At this point you know the rules: I wait to give a show three weeks to impress me before I review it because most pilot episodes are clunky and overly hyped anyway, so give a series time to settle in and see how it’s doing. Today, we’re looking at one of the CW’s new offerings Valor, the last of the three major military-themed new series offerings for this year (some might point out that Martha Raddatz’s book The Long Road Home, which I haven’t read, is coming on TV too, but that is just a miniseries and not a full series). We’ve already taken a look at both NBC’s The Brave and CBS’s SEAL Team, so does Valor have the right stuff to measure up or is it not worthy enough to wear its fatigues? Let’s find out together.

CW’s Valor stars Christina Ochoa as Nora Madani, an officer and Black Hawk chopper pilot in the US Army. Score one point for casting a Latina female as the lead for the show (CBS was called out for not having a single female leading a new show, even though they really didn’t have that many new shows this fall). Christina, even though she is a classified missions operator who flies black-ops mission specialists to secret locations to conduct secret missions, seems to be fairly new at her piloting when we first meet her. I say new in that she is simply not as experienced in in-field combat scenarios as her co-pilot is. Her co-pilot Leland Gallo played by Matt Barr, is a free-wheelin’ hotshot who has had tons of in-field experience and loves the ladies. And the ladies love him. He’s about business when he needs to be but doesn’t seem to shy away from fun. And already the show was winning some more points because, unlike on The Brave, we got actual character development for some of our main characters.

Nora and Leland are joined by a slew of other players in this story that quickly gets complicated, but I should first start with the inciting incident of the show and go from there. OK, so we open with Leland and Nora flying a secret mission into somewhere in Somalia. We learn later that the Somalian government knew nothing about this mission and the details are highly classified even within the Army rankings. While the team is technically bifurcated into the flyboys and girls and the ground troops, as a whole, the team is supposed to fly into Somalia and secure an HVT or High-Value Somalian Target who is supposedly some kind of insurgent. Well, they land, the ground crew loads out, they run into some shack where some militants are keeping this supposed Somalian insurgent, take on more enemy fire than they expected to, run back, hop into the copter and try to escape, but something goes terribly wrong when an RPG fires off and hits the tail of the copter. They have to make a daring crash-landing close by in some lake or pond and escape enemy territory. At some point their HVT escapes and everything goes to hell. Nora gets shot through the leg and panics and things go a little blurry for her.

And we zoom to one month later back in the states. Here is where I jump back and possibly confuse you a little by telling you about the people on the helicopter transport. So, rounding out the crew in that transport were Jimmy Kam (who looked like he was a gunner of some sort. I really couldn’t keep up with the ranks and the back and forth chatting about people that weren’t shown was a little confusing to my aging brain) the black guy, Crank Hendrix one of the ground guys, two others, and the actual hooded Somalian. This is important for the overarching season mystery.

OK, back to one month later and we catch up with Nora who is greeted in the morning by her boyfriend and fellow Army officer Lieutenant Ian Porter. He works in Intelligence and is all over Nora in their kitchen. They appear to live on base, though I don’t know if they live together. Anyway, he is concerned that her one month of leg rehab to get over the gunshot was hardly enough time for her to heal mentally from what happened. He thinks she’s still having trouble dealing with the fact that they crash-landed and that only she and Leland returned. Well, she insists she’s fine and can’t wait to start her first day back on the job in months.

We jump over to see Leland in bed with some random white woman who enjoys handcuffs and good times. He charms his way back into his pants as he has to leave quickly to also get back to work after his one-month forced vacation. While he wasn’t injured, his leave was mandated. He, too, seems to live on the base as his girl is also in the Army in some capacity.

We finally jump over to the wife of Jimmy who is getting their son ready for school. There’s some back and forth about him singing and how dad used to sing with him. He then asks about his dad and we get this band-aiding of what’s really going on. She insists that her husband is just not back yet from his mission which happens to be one of the longest that his son can remember (again, they’re special ops, so they don’t do regular tours of deployment like other soldiers). While it’s sorta hinted at here, it isn’t outright said until after Leland and Nora step back into their platoon and are awarded some medals for their valor in the field that Jimmy and Hendrix are not classified as dead, but are MIA and suspected to have been captured as POWs. They’re alive.

We then switch over to Jimmy and Hendrix and pause for a minute when we finally realize what the writers did with the names there, and we aren’t quite sure how to react. Seriously, how should we react to those two being together like that? What’s the point of the music reference? I digress. We find Jimmy and Hendrix sitting in some dirt cell still somewhere in Somalia, supposedly being held captive by a local warlord. And here we finally get a feel for the show’s language. It should be noted that the show not only jumps between what’s happening on the base back in America and the jail cell in Somalia, but it also jumps back and forth in time, constantly going back to reference the night of the crash similar to the show Lost. The boys look a little beaten, but fair considering they’ve been there for a month. This pretty much sums up every jump to their storyline. Oh, and they’re constantly plotting to escape.

Back on the base, after receiving the commendation in front of her other officers, Nora is told by her CO that she is being pulled from actual flights and given a desk position for the next few months because some of the higher-up men are worried about having women in combat positions like hers. She stands up for herself and says she’s fine physically and mentally and should be in a helicopter just like Leland because they both went down in that crash. Leland had more combat experience is the excuse given. But when orders for a possible mission to go back in and rescue Jimmy and Hendrix come from OGA, Nora fights to be one of the pilots to fly it, along with Leland. Now she must prove herself in a local below-the-tree-line field test.

Meanwhile, her boyfriend, who recommended that she not be put back into a chopper too soon, is dealing with his own bit of sexual harassment as the new OGA liaison comes in hot for him. This woman off-bat says that he is cute before she starts directing how things will go concerning the entirety of this case. See, OGA is an acronym/nickname that the Army uses for the CIA. The CIA only gets deeply involved with a military exercise when the case or whatever is happening is quite big and important. That coupled with what happened out in the field puts both Nora and Leland on high-alert to watch their backs because something super-sketch is going on here.

What happened in the field, you ask? Well, upon getting the HVT into the copter and being blasted with the RPG, they ripped the sack off the target’s head only to realize that he wasn’t some African or Middle-Eastern brown man but a white Army guy. They were lied to, but why? And why would this Army guy be out in the middle of nowhere, Somalia? The mystery only thickens when, after forcing Jimmy, Hendrix and the rest of the squad off the helicopter early before having to crash-land with the target still on board, Nora and Leland are confronted by some all-black special ops/CIA guy who orders them to hand over the rescued Army dude. The Army dude says that the guy in black is the enemy and is the reason he was in Somalia and we’re all just as confused as our two leads. Well, the guy in black threatens to kill both Nora and Leland but Nora fires first. In the hubbub, the other Army guy escapes.

Back one month later, Nora confronts her man about recommending her grounding, practices to pass this flight test with Leland, nearly crashes the helicopter with Leland in it, quite quizzically almost jumps Leland’s bones after they have a few hours of trying to figure out the mystery behind the rescue mission, then passes her flight test. I know, that explanation for just one episode was hell-a long, but there was a lot going on. Oh, and we learned at the very end that Nora is apparently snorting her crushed-up pain pills like they’re cut coke.

Episode two starts with the squad being told that they must somehow impress some higher-up politicians who are supposed to find the funds for and determine if they can officially go on this rescue mission to save Jimmy and Hendrix. But as I said earlier, the Somalian government just found out about their little mission the first time and is pissed. They shut down any air traffic to Americans, making the mission all the more difficult. Meanwhile, the CIA woman not only keeps sexually harassing the hell out of Nora’s boyfriend (she is totally jealous of Nora so it seems, and Ian has no idea that his girlfriend nearly cheated on him with Leland), she also keeps lying about the target.

Meanwhile, Leland and Nora continue their investigation into who the HVT was, as well as who the guy in black that tried to shoot them was. They find that the guy in black was listed as KIA because he supposedly died during a HALO jump years ago, but has now assumed an off-books blacklisted identity. But he was supposedly an officer. It’s quite confusing. We discover that back in the field they had decided to keep the secret about the HVT and the man in black.

Across the pond, the POWs stage their getaway but are confronted by the warlord and his minions. He unceremoniously executes one of his own men and recaptures the prisoners.

Back at home, Leland learns that Ian is the son of a politician. Even more, his politician mother then asks to fly with Nora and Leland in the copter to be impressed on a tactical chopper-attack exercise. She’s impressed but their CO, who is also riding along, is pissed because they disobeyed the rules. But even still, they get on the rescue mission officially. Leland opens up about a past love to Nora and they start to believe that the CIA is watching their every move. They talk about this domino that the Army guy dropped while escaping in the woods. Funny enough, the warlord who has Jimmy and Hendrix sends a video in which he demands a ransom and also holds a domino and they are like, that can’t be a coincidence, right? Strange from a guy who was supposed to be a Somalian insurgent but ended up being a reported KIA white American.

Episode three starts with them planning the rescue effort. Nora is getting close with Jimmy’s wife Jess but still can’t tell her that she’s going on the mission to go and get Jimmy. And Nora keeps having flashbacks to the previous mission while continuing to do more detective work about who they picked up. She also finally opens up to her bf about the doubts she’s having about flying. She goes and finds the sister of the HVT and tries to talk to her but first gets nothing. But she does realize that she is actively being followed by someone, she just doesn’t know who.

Back a month prior, Nora and Leland walk through the jungle and circle back around to the tiny hut where they supposedly rescued the Army guy/Somalia insurgent. They learn that not only was the entire firefight/threat staged from that night, but that this was a complete CIA setup from jump. There probably never was anyone in that shack, just Americans shooting other Americans. They then have to move out when they realize that their own rescue is coming soon.

We finally get to a mission in which they must first get medicine to a small village. This is like some sorta precursor mission before the rescue mission and Nora freezes up on this mission before making her second kill in the field when the copter lands and is ambushed. They succeed and escape but Nora confides in Leland again about her struggles to get back whole mentally. The good news is that they’ve decided to go forward with a hostage exchange to get back Jimmy and Hendrix. But that’s nothing because that sister-woman that Nora talked to earlier calls Nora back and tells her that the Army-guy/HVT they let escape in the first mission may have been radicalized at some point. He might’ve been a bad guy after all. Oh, and that sexually harassing CIA woman is, apparently, gay.

Jimmy's wife on the right

What’s my grade? I give it a C. Look, I read some of the reviews of Valor and all of the military-themed shows before ever reviewing them. Out of all of not just the military shows this year, but all new series, Valor topped the list as the worst rated or second worst rated behind only Marvel’s Inhumans. Regardless of what my rating says as compared to the other shows, I don’t understand this critic’s rating. First, even though I rated it a C, I actually liked this show slightly better than The Brave. So why did I rate it lower? I took a full grade off and not just a plus or minus strictly because of the show’s apparent inauthenticity, which is something that I know was burning the uniformed britches of tons of past and active military personnel. Yes, there are uniform goofs, rules and regulations flaunting (they continue to let Leland keep his facial hair), and there are a few age discrepancies here because most of these operators and people would be slightly older in real life, however, those inaccuracies do not and should not scuttle the show completely. I get it, plenty of fans and people out there love to nitpick but I think that there is something to also be said for plot, storytelling, intrigue, et cetera. And as far as that goes, if you can get through the inaccuracies of costume and what have you during the first episode, then you might be able to enjoy the show.

Again, I don’t get the hate for this show. I guess I have to chalk some of it up to the fact that the networks and even the streaming services have all scaled back on new series this year while they continue to figure out the new landscape of TV-viewing in this country, and how to adjust for the future. Fox only had three new high-profile shows, ABC had four (Ten Days in the Valley is more of a miniseries that wasn’t supposed to have a second season, so I’m not counting that), NBC had two big new adds and one shouldn’t even count because it’s another Law and Order and CBS had/will have the most with four current ones and two additions in Young Sheldon and SWAT coming soon (Star Trek isn’t counted because its on their streaming service). With the CW’s two new shows, that barely scratches a baker’s dozen of new shows for all the major networks. Even Netflix has scaled down and canceled some of its recurring shows in order to eliminate that huge debt they have. So I guess some show has to be low-rated but I would say that given a normal season in which we get most new shows all at once and get near two dozen, this show would probably be in the middle of the pack as far as ratings. It’s just not bad enough for me to trash it. But then again I also liked last season’s No Tomorrow for its cheery disposition in the face of impending doom, something which the critics absolutely hated. So what do I know?

With all of that said, Valor, for me, lays somewhere between The Brave and SEAL Team. Again, this show plays into the expected groove of other CW shows. It focuses on character development of young (they are all over thirty just for military people who were complaining about seeing twenty-somethings in high ranks), hot leads, is super diverse, helps to ably empower women, and focuses on the personal lives of the characters and not just what they do. As I said in my review of The Brave, that show focused too much on the mission and not enough on the characters. It took four or five episodes before I truly felt anything for Heche’s character who had lost her son in action. There was no emotional connection with the characters and they played like cardboard. SEAL Team went more personal with it and exposed us to the lives of the SEALs when not on a mission, giving the soldiers depth and multidimensional sides that deal with family and regular life.

Valor doesn’t focus so much on the mission, which might be missed by some die-hard military fans still lingering around after the inaccuracies. In the first three episodes, you only get two missions. It also isn’t a military procedural where you get one goal/mission a week and that mission is solved by the end of the episode. They do stuff, sure. But there aren’t big accomplishments each episode.

However, where Valor shines above both SEAL Team and The Brave is in the overarching story for the full season. The Brave didn’t have a secondary story at all to latch on to when the team was not in an active mission. SEAL Team had the training of Clay, whether the main guy and his wife would get back together, and if the dead team member cheated on his wife or not as overarching stories. While those are all nice, Valor’s intrigue about inter-agency malfeasance and missions gone wrong or governmental bodies/agencies lying is far more intriguing, and speaks to the heart of one of the four archetypes of soldiers.

OK, this might be offensive to some, but from what I’ve seen in soldiers that return from active duty in war-torn places, you have four types: soldiers more committed to loving their country than ever before, the ones who did their job and are glad to be out now because their service was just a job, the ones who are mentally scarred with PTSD or some other form of mental or physical disability, and finally, the ones who are disillusioned with patriotism and this country as a whole. While the last two often overlap, many soldiers don’t have to be mentally or physically disabled to be disillusioned. The Brave deals with almost none of these archetypes, which is why it felt hollow. SEAL Team at least tries to deal with the PTSD thing as well as the just-a-job sentiment. Valor deals with the disillusioned soldier idea, which is probably most prevalent in reality. The idea that the government or mass media lies constantly either to soldiers or the people, or both about what is going on overseas is a sentiment shared on the show and discussed in a meaningful way. It drives the main plot of the show and has you wondering what kind of danger these men and women are really in. There are lies, and spies and people looking behind their back and all sorts of possible twists to be played here. It could get very intriguing

Ultimately, the thing that pulls the show down the most, outside of the military protocol inaccuracies, are the acting and the writing. While the plotting is good, the written dialogue is rather bad. It sometimes tries to overfeed you the plot and thoughts of the characters and rings as clunky as that “training” line at the beginning of Wonder Woman (if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about). The acting is also not exceptional but that is partially because of the bad dialogue. But I’d say that ABC’s The Mayor has worse dialogue. And so does Dynasty and Inhumans. But I digress. To me, the show is not bad, it’s just not exceptional.

Should you be watching? Shrug! If you were in the military and/or you have family in the military, chances are that you will be irked by the inaccuracies of things like ponytails in uniform and whatnot, so this might not be for you. If you are older and don’t usually watch CW shows like Riverdale, or any of the superhero shows, then this also isn’t for you. But if you want to see something that will be plot-intriguing similar to last year’s Frequency, or you enjoy spy thrillers where you and the characters must constantly question who you can trust, then you might like this. A big disclaimer, though, because this is not 24-level spy stuff. This is like spy-lite, hold the mayo. I’d choose to watch this over The Brave but not over SEAL Team, if that helps. Valor airs on CW Mondays at 9pm. Catch up with past episodes on theCW.com.

What do you think? Have you heard of Valor? If not, do you think you’ll tune in now? If you have heard of it, have you seen it? Do you like it? Was I too rough or too lenient on it? Does the plot intrigue you? And what do you think is really going on with the CIA? Do you think the Army guy really is a terrorist? And will Nora and Leland hookup at some point in the season? Let me know in the comments below. 

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “Be all that you can be in the army of one that always stays faithful. Oohrah!”

P.S. Let’s be fair here and say that all military shows will have some stuff that just isn’t by-the-book exactly the way that military branch does it. And yes having good consultants will quail some of the inaccuracies, but that shouldn’t disqualify the show for you off bat. Surprise, surprise, all shows have something like this, whether they be law shows, cop shows, hospital/doctor shows or anything job-related. They take liberties with rules and regulations to make the series look appealing and playful. If you were pissed by these inaccuracies in all three shows, I’d say calm down and give each show another chance and you might like it. Good plot and great characters go a long way in healing TV transgressions. I’ll come up with a better sign-off next time.

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