Hey look everyone, the IMF is going after the mob (again). This time out, there are a couple of complications for the team as their mission takes them to the Islands (supposedly Hawaii), in Double Dead.

Written by Jackson Gillis and Laurence Heath from a story by Gillis, this episode debuted on 12 February, 1972. The Syndicate/mob plans to expand their business into the islands, and Phelps (Peter Graves) and his team are planning to stop them.

Unfortunately in the opening stages of the plan Willy (Peter Lupus) is captured, drugged, and interrogated. How long can he hold out before he reveals the truth of what is going on?

Meanwhile, Phelps, Casey (Lynda Day George), and Barney (Greg Morris) have to concoct a plan to take down this arm of the mob and rescue Willy. It involves turning members of the mob against one another, specifically Ollie (Paul Koslo) Casey’s target, and Rudy Blake (Lou Antonio) who Phelps is taking on.

There are lots of great aloha shirts, a big cat, and lots of props to suggest the flavor of the islands.

Can the team pull the wool over the mob’s eyes and have them tear themselves apart (not to mention rescue Willy, who is working angles of his own) or will it all fall apart?

This is a really well-written episode and is actually a lot of fun. It’s just at this point the going after the mob story feels like it has been beaten senseless. Let’s go save ‘democracy’ again!

The penultimate episode of season six is Casino. Written by Walter Brough and Howard Berk, this story first hit screens on 19 February, 1972.

This time Phelps’ IMF team is going after… the mob. Surprise.

Their target is a corrupt casino boss. Phelps and the rest plan to expose his mob connections, trapping him between a rock and a hard place. Orin Kerr (Jack Cassidy), as the casino boss, has also ordered a number of murders to keep his competition, and exposure, to a minimum.

Phelps is working on the frame, while Willy comes aboard the casino as a dealer, a crooked one at that, and fosters the image of both Phelps and Casey are gambling addicts, drawing Kerr in further. Behind the scenes Barney is working on a number of gadgets that will help cement the frame job on Kerr, and make the mob think that he’s screwing them over.

This kind of mission, honestly, seems too easy for the team, and I hope that when the seventh season gets underway we’ll have a little more global intrigue (even if it does all look like Southern California).

There will be more assignments with the IMF to come as I take on more of Paramount Canada’s Mission: Impossible – The Complete Series on blu-ray.