Strike Back overhauls Section 20 again, and this time it’s personal

Strike Back returned to Cinemax this week, and Strike Back Season 6 has revamped the series yet again with inspired new casting and intriguing plots.

Strike Back is a lot like the unit it depicts. The Cinemax series never goes anywhere quietly and it usually does everything the hard way.

But Strike Back season 6, which began Friday, feels different—and not because it’s the second season since the network decided to resurrect the show. The difference between this and last season is leaps and bounds as the series turns the page on its history yet again.

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What’s interesting about this particular show is that, thanks to behind the scenes happenings, it’s had to reinvent itself twice now. The program originated with Richard Armitage and a pre-Walking Dead Andrew Lincoln, before gaining popularity when Cinemax picked it up and recast it with Philip Winchester and Sullivan Stapleton.

And now it’s onto its third cast, and this doesn’t feel anything like it used to. It looks the same and it sounds the same, with plenty of gunfire and explosions and witty lines, but now it feels like the newest incarnation has found its stride.

The Strike Back season premiere picks up six months after Season 5 ended, with three of the four Section 20 operators suspended and working mundane jobs in Nairobi.

(Roxanne McKee, who played Natalie Reynolds, doesn’t return; Reynolds is said to have taken the fall for what happened last season.)

But it’s no spoiler to say they’re called back into the line of duty, and soon they’re in Malaysia chasing a stolen nuclear warhead taken from the Russians that the Triads have nefarious plans for.

This is all typical Strike Back stuff, but what makes Season 6 worth watching is everything underneath that. The season premiere delivers the action, but more importantly, it makes great strides regarding character development and adds some excellent new actors to the mix to push the show to the next level.

Warren Brown, Daniel MacPherson and Alin Sumarwata all return, and their performances have gone up a notch since fans last saw them. They put in tremendous effort last season, but all of them just seem like they’re more comfortable in their roles the second time around.

Just as their characters have gone from total strangers to becoming a cohesive unit, they’ve also settled into the show, and the chemistry between them is as effortless as ever. There’s a genuine bond between the actors that comes across on screen, and that makes the partnership between their characters feel more real and honest.

Last season the writing felt like it was trying to make them gel too quickly; now there’s no doubt this trio works well together, and give that credit to the actors for really putting the work in both as a team, and continuing to sharpen their individual performances.

But speaking of the writing, Strike Back has figured out what it was missing. What made those previous Winchester and Stapleton seasons so great was that the audience was invested into the characters and their stories, regardless of what they blew up or where they were. There wasn’t enough of that last season, and what we did get played with some familiar tropes (like the boss with a big secret to hide).

Strike Back Season 6 comes with plenty of character development, most of it in the form of some wonderful new characters. Jamie Bamber is an immediate standout as Colonel Alexander Coltrane, the new boss of Section 20; he’s one of the most underrated actors on TV anyway, but this role is just perfect for him while also presenting him in a new light as well.

Coltrane is one of the most fleshed-out supervisors in the history of the show. He has a different dynamic with the team, a sort of “I don’t like you and you don’t like me either” tension. He doesn’t behave like any of his predecessors, and the pilot sets up (albeit briefly) his own separate and truly interesting character arc. We want to know more about him, not just that he’s the new boss.

And Strike Back makes excellent use of Bamber, making sure that Coltrane has personality and that he doesn’t just sit on the sidelines. He has his own little mini-moral arc that he goes through in this first episode alone.

Likewise, Yasemin Kay Allen joins the crew as Russian agent Katrina Zarkova, who’s forced into an alliance with the British against the Triads. Zarkova, too, is given screen time to establish her own point of view and personal history (though she also gets a totally unnecessary sex scene). What’s up with her? Who knows, but we want to find out.

Of course, this doesn’t feel quite like the Winchester and Stapleton era, but this is an episode that gives the audience a lot to get excited about. It gives this iteration of the show its own clearly defined identity, and each character a personal arc that’s well worth investing into. If you liked last season or even if you didn’t, this is the season you’ve been waiting for.

Strike Back delivers all the thrills—fistfights, gunfights, chases and an explosion all happen in the season premiere. But if you come for all that, stay for what’s underneath. Bamber and Allen light a new fire under the series, and Brown, MacPherson and Sumarwata are even better than they were last year. If the writing keeps their momentum going, they’ll be carving out their own great chapter in Strike Back history.

Strike Back airs Fridays at 10 p.m. on Cinemax. For more on this and other Cinemax series, visit the Cinemax category at Hidden Remote.