'Project Blue Book' Season 2 Episode 8 Review: Hynek and Quinn race against time but is the threat truly gone?
Spoilers for Season 2 Episode 9 'Broken Arrow'
Taking a shift from the regular fictionalized chronicling of real-life aliens and UFOs sightings in America, History's 'Project Blue Book' infuses planes carrying atom bombs going awry after an alleged collision with what locals claim was an alien aircraft.
Planes carrying atom bombs going missing has happened in America before, as the History website will tell one, but trust David O'Leary and Robert Zemeckis to come together once again to give us a dramatized version of incidents, infusing the whole real-life occurrence in British Columbia, Canada, with an air of extraterrestrial mystery.
And as this calls Dr J Allen Hynek and Captain Michael Quinn to travel beyond borders to dabble their expertise in the investigation, Episode 9 of Season 2, titled 'Broken Arrow' after the popular Air Force label for such an incident, is all kinds of gripping!
The episode opens with a tense crash. Two Canadian Air Force pilots are flying towards an airbase when a foreign craft interferes with its signal. It's almost as if the pilots have no control over their plane as the "alien" craft keeps getting closer and closer until it seemingly "attacks" them with blinding blue light and consumes the air force craft up — leaving the airbase with no traces of the flight or the pilots whatsoever.
It's entertaining and teasing in equal parts, making one latch on to the edge of their seats but also knowing the signature pattern that the episodes follow, where right after an extraterrestrial sighting, it goes back to the whole 'Ghostbusters' protocol of "Who you gonna call? Project Blue Book" type situation.
So naturally, the scene shifts to a morose Quinn wallowing in stoic self-pity in the aftermath of Susie's arrest as he gets put on administered leave until further notice. In all of this, his only respite is the older partner in the investigation — Hynek — who comes to offer him some solace with hints of a reality check.
Their usual greetings of comfort and explicit claims of looking up to each other later, Hynek is able to convince Quinn to travel one last time for the task they have undertaken; only this time, it's all the way to Canada.
That doesn't deter our captain and astrophysicist though, even though they are officially supposed to be on leave and a sabbatical, respectively. But off they go to the Canadian airbase and meet with their general, unknown to generals Harding and Valentine back home, who have received less than pleasant information on whatever's happening at Canada revolving planes snapping in half.
When the Blue Book duo arrive at Canada, they are taken through the crash and fall of the plane — the officials there claiming the plane pretty much fell from the sky, while a local eye witness recounts it's not a regular hit and fall, but looked more like the alleged UFO attacked the plane and caused the crash, leading the Canadian craft to snap in half.
It's a cardboard cutout set up for the two rash and sometimes brazen Blue Book members to jump into without thinking twice, but in the end, it's a blessing of sorts for both characters and ardent fans hooked on to the slowly evolving wholesome friendship between the two.
In his own way, Quinn starts coming out of his shell as they two fly over Canadian mountains to seek out the site of the crash, and soon he decides to leave the rails to Hynek, handing him the yoke to fly the plane.
Crisp, impactful, and laden with emotion — this scene becomes another pivotal moment of the season — soaring straight to the leagues of the Hynek and Quinn one-on-ones we have grown to be so fond of.
There's Malarkey's carefully gauged indulgence in doing something risky, rivaled by Gillen's seasoned charm that he pours into the character to exhibit curious skepticism into the kind of work they undertake.
Together, the scenes become yet another reminder of why there couldn't have been a duo better fit to play the roles they do and no amount of Russian spies hijacking a Canadian plan to transfer a nuclear bomb can distract one from allowing this moment between the two to rest in memory.
It all sounds a little rushed, but the episode isn't at all. In their due course of the investigation, Hynek and Quinn are able to spot one half of the aircraft with the pilot still alive, and he insists they need to find his plane and co-pilot as soon as they can.
There's a questionable urgency in the pilot's tone to find the other half of his aircraft and his co-pilot — something that Hynek picks up on way before they spot the other half and rescue the copilot.
And it all starts making sense when he leaves the three of them behind to go look for a first aid kid inside the craft and comes across manuals and instructions on the craft all scripted in Russian. At this point, it's a given that this is a spy plane, which even without the intent to start a war, can do distinctive damage.
However, things only get worse when the fake-Canadian pilots come clean of the act and disclose that there is in fact a nuclear bomb in the craft, which if gone missing, or not retrieved, will definitely start a third world war.
What's worse? The bomb can also go off any time unless one of them diffuses it, but that really never happens, because somehow the plutonium core of the bomb is missing as Hynek is able to discover.
By this time Harding and Valentine have been able to reach Canada and explain everything to the air force officials and soon their troops are able to find Hynek, Quinn and the Russian pilots in the woods, right in the nick of time when the Russians were about to shoot the other two.
All's well at the end of the day, and Hynek and Quinn's act of bravery is labeled heroic even though they went beyond official orders to investigate in Canadian territory.
Their offices and posts get reinstated and even Senator Kennedy arrives to offer them a new mission, but the question that really lingers is who stole the core of the bomb? Was it human or something extraterrestrial, probably more dangerous?
'Project Blue Book' season 2 airs on Tuesdays at 10 pm on History.