'COBRA' Recap: Season 3 Episode 5

COBRA airs Thursdays at 9:00 pm and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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The government is trying to quickly determine who stole and is now holding for ransom an accurate, long-range, destructive mortar from a weapons expo. It was developed by the Condor weapons group as part of a highly classified weapons deal known as Saladin with the Shirasian government of Prince Samir. It has been tested in fighting sparked by a rebellion on the Shirasian peninsula – which is also a secret that would be damaging to the U.K. government if word got out. Luckily, the mortar needs bespoke shells, and there weren’t munitions stored with it at the expo. But the government suspects military people are behind the heist, given their obvious training.

They’re right. Dan, the father of the late protester Polly, was a member of special forces before working for a private military company in the Shirasian peninsula. His two co-conspirators are the brothers Finn and Rod McQuarrie, who have led a troubled and difficult life since leaving the service. They have brought the mortar to a remote area of Scotland near a military test range, and Dan has called in a favor from a friend to acquire the correct munition.

They send a video to the government showing the mortar firing. The ransom has doubled, Dan says, or they will fire again. He inputs coordinates: 10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister’s residence.

But the explosion from their shot in an unpopulated area allows the government to determine where they fired from, and then use CCTV to find them soon before the launch at a gas station. The government now knows their identities.

While they hunt for the men, Robert debates options in case they cannot be found. The area surrounding 10 Downing Street can be evacuated under the guise of a “gas leak,” but Robert worries that ruse will not last. Nevertheless, he orders the evacuation.

He’s less amenable to an offer by Condor, the weapons company, to pay the ransom itself. Victoria is in support of this option and Eleanor wants to keep it on the table, but Archie thinks it will be taken as a sign of weakness that will lead the ransommers to demand more afterwards. He also doesn’t trust Condor. No one else knows but his press secretary Peter Mott, but the military exercise in which Archie’s son was killed involved Condor equipment that had a design flaw.

Despite the urgency of the evacuation, Robert pours himself and Anna a Scotch first. He now regrets passing the civil disturbance bill that has caused so much trouble, and is considering allowing Condor to pay the ransom, in case. But Anna agrees with Archie that he shouldn’t.

So Robert takes a different option: he holds a press conference revealing the threat to the public and exposing the identities of Dan and the McQuarries. He insists that the government won’t negotiate or pay a ransom.

This spooks Rod, who now wants to abandon the whole project. Dan insists that the government will pay up and points out that there’s nowhere for him and the McQuarries to go now that their identities have been revealed. All they can do is collect the ransom and escape the country on an already arranged, expensive boat.

When they arrive at an abandoned warehouse in London and Dan begins to set up the mortar as the deadline nears with no payment, however, both Rod and Finn object – they didn’t expect him to actually go through with it. They want to turn themselves in. But Dan is committed, on behalf of his daughter. He pulls a gun.

But the deadline is reached without an explosion. The government, sheltering deep below ground, is surprised – until they get a message that the payment was received. Condor paid the ransom without informing the government. Robert is furious. His government’s relationship with Condor might be over.

And their payment hasn’t solved anything. The police responded to reports of gunfire and found the McQuarrie brothers dead, the mortar gone, and traces of Dan’s blood. After receiving payment, Dan told the brothers to get on the boat and leave, but he wasn’t done. He wants to get Robert, whom he blames for Polly’s death, to resign by revealing the highly classified arms deal with the Shirasians, who may have committed war crimes with the weapons. He ended up in a standoff with the McQuarries, shooting and killing them both after Finn shot him in the stomach to try to protect his brother.

The arms deal with the Shirasians could become even more controversial. A thumb drive shows up at the U.K.’s embassy in Shirasia, presumably delivered by the dissident Princess Yadira before her capture and possible killing. Along with a message that she shouldn’t have trusted her brother and neither should the U.K. are classified military files showing plans for an escalation of hostilities to seize a whole territory – despite Samir’s promises not to do so.

Victoria doesn’t want this intel to scuttle the Saladin deal, but Archie warns that it could involve the U.K. in war crimes. It will be Robert’s decision what to do.

Victoria trusts Robert’s decision-making less and less. She immediately goes to the head of Condor to warn him of the Shirasian military files, and tells him that a new prime minister – herself – would be sure to support the profitable Saladin no matter what.

All of this comes as Robert also faces a domestic scandal. A security officer has sold a photo of him intimately holding Anna to the tabloids, fueling speculation that they are in a relationship just after Robert separated from his wife. The officer is reassigned, but then claims he was demoted out of retaliation – and that he saw Anna enter Robert’s flat in the evening and not leave until morning.

Reporters stake out Anna and Robert’s homes, but Robert visits Anna nonetheless. He wants to go public with the relationship. But then he sees that Anna has been applying for jobs. She explains that she had to start working on a plan B once their relationship began, lest the relationship were revealed. She knows how the relationship will read, and doesn’t want to be the one to end his career. Robert leaves in a huff – he wants both of them to keep their jobs and their relationship.

Robert’s daughter Ellie is unsurprisingly furious at him, for many reasons. The photo of him and Anna is just one more reason she can’t trust him. She refuses to involve him when she is asked for help by Nate, the man who posed as an activist with Planet Resistance and planted a bomb at Godley Common to undermine them on behalf of a shadowy security group. Nate, disguised in sunglasses and baseball cap, drops a phone with a message to contact him for Ellie while she’s on a run.

When she later calls him, she accuses him of murdering people with the bomb, but he insists he didn’t mean to kill anyone. He asks her to get her father to help him disappear with immunity and a new identity. In exchange, he can tell the government the truth: that Ellie, Planet Resistance, and its leader Henry were not involved with the bomb. Otherwise, he’ll take Ellie down with him, naming her as a co-conspirator.

Ellie asks her new friend Francine to help. But when Francine shows up to meet Nate, he notices that she has been followed by his handler Ray and another man. Nate flees, and Ray points a gun at Francine. He tells her to close her eyes. After several long moments, she opens them. Everyone is gone.

One final complication? Dan breaks into Archie’s home and takes him hostage.