Official synopsis: It's a race against time as Martin searches for Kate in Paris. He's convinced the peaceful protest she's attending may turn violent at the hands of her friend Ifti, a boy with radical beliefs. In 2001 Prague, Dmitry discovers that the key to getting close to Doku Zakayev (Visar Vishka) may not be his brother Tamir (Nikola Djuricko), but instead Doku's wife, Ilyana. In 1991 Lithuania, a younger Ballard is involved in an incident that will affect the rest of his life.
http://www.tntdrama.com/shows/legends/season-2/episode-3/the-legend-of-curtis-ballard.html
SPOILERS AHEAD!!
Because of the unplanned delay of this episode due to the nature of its content in relation to the real tragedy of terrorist attacks in Paris, it's been 2 weeks since episode 2, so let's recap what is happening with Martin in the present time. He has discovered he had a relationship with a young woman, Kate Crawford, that began years ago when Martin, an MI6 agent posing as Russian mobster Dmitry Petrovich, was in pursuit of a war criminal general, believed to have ties to Chechen gangster Doku Zakayev. Martin had decided to befriend Kate's mother Ilyana in order to get inside Doku's organisation. After getting nowhere with Ilyana in the present, he connected with Kate, and in the process, found her mixed up with young Muslim students planning to do violence at a peaceful protest in Paris. Martin feared she could get hurt so he asked his former partner Tony Rice for help getting into France. However, Tony's MI6 & CIA contacts aren't happy about that, especially when the tip he gave them about a terrorist didn't pan out.
Episode 3 opens with Martin & Tony successfully getting into France and are on the way to Paris when they are intercepted by French police. They ditch one car for another, do some fancy driving and avoid capture. But then Tony decides to split up, let Martin get to Paris alone while Tony draws attention.
In Paris, Martin quickly finds the address he found in Ifti's apartment and tells Ifti's parents that he is her stepfather and that Ifti plans some kind of violence, to call police. Ifti's father goes with Martin to the square where the protest is taking place, but they are too late. Just as Martin reaches Kate, Ifti opens fire on the crowd, people are hit, and he is killed by return fire from police. Kate is wounded and Martin hastens to get her away from the terrible scene before the police can act.
Other flashbacks depict how "Dmitry" and his MI6 handler Graves made more surveillance plans and how Dmitry acted to befriend Ilyana and her little girl Katya, who is present day Kate.
The remainder of this episode focused on the origins of titular Curtis Ballard, the FBI agent that chased Dmitry and is now chasing Martin. Curtis was shown as a teen employed in Lithuania as a Mormon missionary, and not too happy about it. One rebellious act after another led to a tragedy: his friend was killed in a dispute over paying whores. It was that act that decided Curtis on a path to law enforcement & the FBI, He wanted to make a difference now, in this life.
The depiction of shooting violence on a peaceful crowd was very graphic, and I fully understand why TNT chose to delay the broadcast of this episode. My deepest condolences to terrorist victims' families.
But I also think it's important for people to see how such violence can happen, why one must be vigilant of surroundings. I continue to enjoy Sean's depth of character with Dmitry and Martin, and now I see why sticking with just 2 legends in Series 2 was a good idea. I've seen some dissatisfaction with the rapid jumping of timelines, but I've been able to track all the people and Martin's just fine so far. For example, Gabi's current husband was her superior in the past, and is also in with Doku's mob.
#DONTKILLSEANBEAN off of TV!!
Written by Donna DeBoer (
@DRLDeBoer
on Twitter)
