I watch entirely too much television. I understand that I ought to hate the television, and nearly all of the non-educational crap that is broadcast over the airwaves, yet I’m drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Mostly, I watch sports or Simpsons reruns, but I’ll admit I have somewhat of a penchant for crime dramas — although that’s been waning for a number of reasons for quite some time now. With increasing frequency, the protagonists resort to downright criminal tactics, circumventing any notion of law or basic human decency. The caveat of course, is that they’re TV actors on TV shows, and despite the means to their ends, the “good guys” are usually right in the end (which is predetermined because it’s fake…), so who cares if they have to resort to extralegal tactics to achieve justice. I presume this could be very desensitizing for many people, encouraging tolerance of vigilantism, but I digress.
Anyways, despite its statolatry, I’ve watched CBS’s The Unit with more or less regularity, by which I mean, “when I’m home on Tuesday nights and remember that it’s on and don’t have anything better to do.”
In tonight’s episode, Bob Brown (played by Scott Foley) is plagued by visions of some of the people he’s killed in the past, compromising his ability to do his job, and conflicting him morally. He seeks the advice of the military base’s Chaplain who counsels him on the difference between “murder” and “killing,” but he is still conflicted by a LeFevre-esque notion that perhaps there is no justification for killing anyone, ever.
His hesitation is noticed by his superior, Jonas (Dennis Haysbert) during one of their missions, which leads to Bob questioning the moral justifications for their actions (and I paraphrase to the best of my ability):
We came here to kill a man… We have premeditated his death! If I had come here on my own to kill this man out of anger, or for profit, or for revenge, people would hunt me down as a murderer. How is what we’re doing any different? Because our Government says so?
Not really sure where I’m going with this, but the exchange between Bob and Jonas struck me as a surprising and welcome dynamic. I imagine that in real life, the people who do these things, and their family members, when faced with the dilemma, can only come to one of two conclusions. Either they admit and understand that what they’re doing or supporting is wrong, per se, or they tell themselves lie upon sugarcoated lie in order to convince themselves that their existence and mission in life thus far has not been in vain. They complete the mission, and the episode concludes in typicaly TV drama cliffhanger fashion, leaving the audience questioning the dubious implication that Bob has really overcome his dilemma and remains loyal to his orders in spite of their necessarily immoral nature.
