Point of Impact (TV Series)

Season 1, Episode 1

## Image Gallery

**Point of Impact** is the first episode of the first season of USA Network's *Shooter*. It premiered on November 15, 2016, at 10/9c.

## Summary

Highly-decorated war hero Bob Lee Swagger is recruited by his former Commander to prevent an assassination of the President. Meanwhile, FBI agent Nadine Memphis investigates potential assassins.

## Plot

Bob Lee Swagger discusses three ways in which a bullet can kill you: a shot to the extremities that bleeds out within 20 minutes, a shot in the torso that fragments and destroys organs, and the "kill shot," a hit to the skull.

In the woods, a deer is within Bob Lee's sights and he is about to take the shot. However, he notices a nearby wolf standing next to a trap. He shoots the trap, then moves on. As he tracks his deer, he hears faint voices in the distance. After a while of moving, he sees another wolf, this one caught inside a trap and growling at him. Bob Lee approaches the wolf and quickly tranquilizes it, allowing him to remove the trap and inject him with an antibiotic.

As he finishes, two hunters come into his view and claim that the wolf is theirs. Bob Lee observes their weapons and explains that their methods of hunting are both illegal and bullshit, telling them, "If you're going to hunt, at least give the animal a chance." One of the hunters aims his handgun and Bob Lee, who feigns defenselessness before disarming him and tranquilizing both of them.

Bob Lee returns to his house, a remote location next to a lake in Washington, where he lives with his wife, Julie, and his daughter, Mary. They come outside and Bob Lee asks Mary to bring dinner up to the house while he puts his guns away, then goes to his shed and begins locking them up. He returns to the house, where Julie is unpacking their dinner of Chinese takeout. Julie asks about his hunt, and he tells her he misses the deer he was tracking, but she knows he's messing with her.

They sit down to eat, where Mary says the "best grace yet" before they pass the food around. She asks if her dad gets bored while hunting, and he wonders how anyone could ever be bored by all the nature. Afterward, he piggybacks Mary up to her room and tells her the story of one of his old war missions, many of which she's heard several times.

The next day, Mary watches Bob Lee cut boards with a saw and asks why he doesn't use his "Kung fu" to break them, but a black SUV pulls into their driveway and he asks her to go into the house. Bob Lee walks over to it, greeting his old Marine friend and commander Isaac Johnson, who is now working for the Secret Service. He asks if there's a place the can talk privately, and Bob Lee takes him to the shed where he is impressed by the collection of guns.

Isaac tells Bob Lee that the conversation they are about to have never happened, and shows him a photo of a CIA agent who was killed from a distance of 1,400 yards by a sniper. Bob Lee tells him the factors that come into play from that distance, and Isaac recites from a note that was found on the body of the agent that the President of the United States will be executed in two weeks in Seattle, and that they believe the note to have been written by T. Solotov, the sniper responsible for ending Bob Lee's career and killing his best friend, Donny Fenn. Isaac asks for Bob Lee's help in planning the assassination in order to help prevent it, which he wants nothing to do with. Isaac leaves a card on Bob Lee's car, then leaves.

At a motel, Isaac is leading a mission for Homeland in order to capture an asset. At the same time, agents from the FBI are working on capturing the same man. They enter simultaneously, from different sides of the building, and meet in the middle where they question each why the other is there. The asset flees from both, but runs straight into a Homeland agent and is taken away. Before he's loaded into their van, he says in Russian, "Diamonds are forever." The lead FBI agent, Nadine Memphis, tells Isaac that they are taking away the result of six months of work, and that the asset, Dimitri Voydian, has time-sensitive intel. Isaac refuses to tell her why they took him, then walks away.

In his kitchen, Bob Lee and Julie wash dishes together. He tells her that he meant to mention that Isaac visited him, but was beaten to it by Mary, and tells him about the sniper's threat against the president. She correctly guesses that it's Solotov, then tells him that Donny's death was not his fault.

In Kandahar, Afghanistan, years ago, Bob Lee approaches Isaac, his commanding officer, and tells him that they are prepared to take out Solotov, who had been brought to Afghanistan in order to kill Bob Lee. Isaac greenlights the mission for he and Donny to move in. They gather their gear for the mission ahead.

In the present, Bob Lee tells Julie about Donny's saying, "A bullet is forever." When asked what it meant, Donny would just smile and say, "You'll see." He continues telling her about Kandahar, in which he and Donny are moving into position where they hope to take Solotov. Donny wanted to go south, but Bob Lee felt north was the better option, and they went with his judgement. Seconds later, Bob Lee moves out in front of Donny and is shot in the hip by Solotov, who had misjudged the wind. Donny runs for him, but is shot in the chest, dead before he fell to the ground. Bob Lee tells her that Donny is dead because he went with his gut feeling, but she tells him that it isn't his fault and that Donny is only dead because Solotov shot him. She then tells him that maybe the best way to put it all behind him is to be the one to kill Solotov.

On a rooftop in Seattle, Isaac introduces Bob Lee to Jack Payne, the counter-terrorism expert and Homeland agent who detained Voydian. From there, they observe and discuss the area from which the president will speak, and the safety measures they put in place. Isaac says he will be provided with the tools to plan the shot with, and Payne shows him the only known image of Solotov, taken from a drone by accident. Payne says the rifle from the image has been reconstructed and will be shipped to Bob Lee soon. They leave, and Payne tells Isaac that Bob Lee doesn't look like much. Isaac tells him about a mission in which Bob Lee and Donny guarded a school from 200 Taliban over 48 hours.

Bob Lee receives the rifle, and begins work in adjusting the sights. At the Seattle FBI field office, Nadine is summoned by her boss, Howard Utey, regarding the incident with Voydian. He tells her that he was formerly FSB, that his position was stripped soon after he made contact with her, and that Homeland taking him instead helped them by not implicating them in communicating with a Russian agent. She tells him that he would only tell her the information he had, and that it would get him killed. He orders her not to pursue it any further, and assigns her to combing through threats to the president during his Seattle address, but only the least dangerous group. She returns to her desk and begins arranging the files, and among those threats is Bob Lee Swagger.

Bob Lee enters a gun shop in which he is a regular, and tells the clerk that he's looking for .338 Lapua rounds and powder with which to test the new rifle. He begins his testing at a riverbed, and makes calculations both in his shed and on-site in Seattle. At 1,580 yards, he takes a shot at a pumpkin. It lands, and he contacts Isaac with his findings.

At her house, Nadine is praying when she receives a text message from Isaac confirming a meeting. She provides him information regarding Voydian, though he questions why she chose to tell him rather than keeping it strictly FBI business, assuming that she wants to conduct this investigation without Utey's knowledge. He then tells her he knows of an incident in which she shot a hostage, which she tells him she has more than paid for. He agrees to contact her if he manages to find something out from Voydian that she was unable to find, and she tells him that before he was taken, he left behind articles by a Ukrainian journalist named Karlina Ordenko regarding a village called Graznyole and an upcoming "big" plan by Russia. She leaves the car.

Isaac and Payne meet Bob Lee in order to discuss the plan. Bob Lee proposes the shot to be taken from a position that the others find impossible, and insists that Solotov will be able to take it regardless of their expectations. Isaac tells him that the president would like to thank him personally afterward.

At his house, Bob Lee enters his shed to find a light on and a pin from his board lying on the floor.

Nadine walks into Utey's office to discuss Bob Lee's position in the list of threats, which is dismissed. He assigns her to work security on the day of the address. At the event, Bob Lee and Julie find positions as Isaac and his team move into their own. The president's motorcade approaches, but Bob Lee notices that something should have happened by now. Payne calls him and tells him that neither Solotov nor the rifle are in the position he said, and he realizes that Solotov will take the shot from a position previously thought impossible. He tells Payne, and runs toward the suspected area.

The president emerges from his car, and Isaac notices that something is wrong. Bob Lee closes in on the position and enters to find a rifle and no shooter. The flag obstructing the shooting position drops just before blood and brain matter splatter the surrounding area, causing the crowd to panic. Bob Lee observes the incident on a TV in the room as Payne approaches him, dressed as a police officer, and shoots at him. He jumps from the window and lands on a car before rolling off and being held at gunpoint by Nadine. He tells her, "My name is Bob Lee Swagger, I did not kill the president."

## Deaths

* Donny Fenn (flashback)
* Ukrainian President

## Trivia

* The title of this episode comes from the name of the first novel.
* The Russian village mentioned in Ordenko's articles, **Graznyole**, is a reference to the term **grassy knoll**, a slang term for conspiracy, originating from the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
	+ It also references a line from the film, said by Mr. Rate: "Them boys on the grassy knoll, they were dead within three hours."

 **Season 3** | "Backroads" • "Red Meat" • "Sins of the Father" • "The Importance of Service" • "A Call to Arms" • "Lines Crossed" • "Swing Vote" •"The Red Badge" • "Alpha Dog" • "Orientation Day" • "Family Fire" • "Patron Saint" • "Red Light"