‘The Terminal List’ Episode 6 Recap: “Transience”

James Reece visited his mother- and father-in-law in the weeks after his wife and daughter were murdered. “Lauren and Lucy are my light,” he told them. “They’re my everything. I would never do anything to harm them. But somebody did. And it might come down to me to make it right.” Back then, Lauren’s mom just looked at him gravely. “You do what you need to do, James” And by now, we know exactly what he did, which was to acquire his targets, thoroughly surveil them, and conduct operations to end those peoples’ lives. Holder, the NCIS agent. Saul Agnon, the corporate lackey. Marcus Boykin, the corrupt lawyer. Navajas, the sicario. And Steve Horn, the morally vacant greed hound. But while his terminal list grew exponentially with the revelations about Admiral Pillar and other WARCOM officers’ involvement in the RD-4895 cover up, Reece’s dramatic engagement on the streets of San Francisco has sent him north in a stolen vehicle with a bunch of cops and the FBI in close pursuit. Road spikes, a crash, and suddenly he has evaded hundreds of bullets and fled on foot into a state forest. 

“Transience” is The Terminal List’s bottle episode. Breaking from its find-observe-kill format, and free of breakaways to the action in Washington, DC, it confines Reece to the protected wilds and puts him in exclusive communication with Special Agent Layun over a stolen radio. Other elements of law enforcement exist on the margins. But it’s Layun on the ground leading the heavy response team tasked with bringing in Reece. Yeah, good luck with that. “HRT,” Reece scoffs as he hears the radio call in the DNR aid station he’s ransacking. He rigs up a dressing for the bullet wound where Layun winged him, and double times it to high ground. There’s a storm coming, and Liz wonders to Ben how their friend will fare, alone and under-equipped. The harsh weather is “frogman’s luck,” he assures her. “More rain means less ISR for Reece to deal with,” and without observation from drones and other eyes in the sky, Reece is free to roam, free to make his way to Liz’s aircraft in San Rafael. Unless they catch him. Or a migraine knocks him out. Because Reece’s biggest problem isn’t his pursuers. It’s the fact that he dropped his pills during the escape from San Francisco. 

In the dry riverbeds and steep ridges of the state forest, Reece is haunted by hallucinations. Lauren and Lucy are there, of course. But so too is SEAL Commander Cox, his BUD/S instructor and one of the brass complicit in the 4895 coverup and ambush of Alpha Team. “I guarantee I never quit on my men.” His words are like poison in Reece’s memory. He’s nearly delirious, running on fumes, losing blood, hardly sleeping, and lacking food and water. But Reece still has the presence of mind to not fire on Layun or the team tracking him. They want to nab him. But they’re essentially bystanders to his personal quest for vengeance. On the ridgeline, Reece leaves a single bullet for them to find. Later, Layun reaches him on the radio. “You could have shot me today but you didn’t. I know you’re going through something out here, but I think you still know I’m not your enemy. None of us are. We’re just guys doing a job. But chance, fate, whatever you want to call it, it gets a vote. This can’t go on forever, Reece.” 

It’s a prescient observation. From Layun’s perspective, the hunt for Reece will inevitably end. There are too many resources committed. But assuming he evades capture, what does fate have in store for after Reece’s terminal list? He’s smeared his own blood across Steve Horn’s name. He’s scrawled those of the WARCOM brass at the bottom. But what then? Is he consumed by his tumor? By his own grief? He’s a man who dedicated his life to perfecting violence. But if he wins his personal war, there’s no medal ceremony. There’s no honor. And he’s without his family forever.

With Layun and his team nearing his position, and the borders of the park and San Rafael in sight, Reece is boxed in by another group led by US Marshal Mac Wilson. Setting off a string of explosives, Reece triggers a massive mudslide, which pushes him free of the pursuit but also consumes Wilson. She is a bystander in this, too. He pulls her from the mud, check her vitals, and performs CPR until she comes around in a disoriented splutter of dirt-fueled coughs. Layun and the rest of the team arrive. But Reece is long gone. 

His frogman’s luck is intact. At the airplane hangar, Liz turns to find her friend, disheveled and bloody but in one piece. He shares with her how Lauren and Lucy appeared to him in the woods, how they seemed to move with him throughout the ordeal of both the escape and continued migraines and hallucinations. Liz understands. It’s not just about the tumor, she says. It’s about dealing with loss. And that brings it all back to chance, fate, and what comes next. What is Reece’s emotional and material endgame? “Because no matter how many people you kill, man, even after you get ‘em all, ain’t nothin’ gonna bring them back.” 

Maybe Reece has a plan for that. A place to go with his thoughts. But for now, he has Liz fly him to a drop zone. Leaping from the aircraft with SEAL swim fins at the ready, Reece emerges on a California beach where Ben Richards sits, surfboard and Sprinter van nearby. Those WARCOM names aren’t gonna scratch off themselves.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges