A 2012 sting nabbed 5 Occupy Wall Street protesters, foiling their plot to blow up an Ohio Bridge. Two separate ISIS-inspired bomb plots have been disrupted in Queens, New York this year alone. So naturally, when CBS’ Limitless needed a terrorist organization to build and detonate a dirty bomb, they chose one of the left’s favorites: an anti-government “militia.”
Although the episode doesn’t explicitly call the group racist, they are a “hate group” named after Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate Civil War general who later “served as the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.
Harris: Getting back to the occupant, Norris Allen, I looked into his criminal records. He did time for arson, and he joined up with the Sons of Nathan Bedford Forrest when he was in jail. He was also thrown into solitary for rigging up a bomb with stuff he stole from a janitor.
Pouran: The Sons of Nathan Bedford Forrest call themselves a militia. These are not drug dealers.
Harris: We don’t think this is a drug deal. The chemicals used to synthesize meth can also be used to make explosives.
Pouran: They’re planning on something in New York.
Boyle: They refer to our city as Sodom on their chat boards, so yeah.
Pouran: I’m looping in the counter-terror SAC so we can check any recent chatter. What does the kid in custody say? Did he say anything?
Boyle: So far, nothing. He won’t talk to us.
Harris: He won’t talk to me or Boyle. There’s only one person he asked to see.
Harper: They say if I don’t want to do a bunch of time, I have to tell them all about my brother.
Finch: What are you going to do?
Harper: I don’t even know what I can tell you. I have no idea where Sam is, but I know that he’s not a terrorist. He goes on websites, pops off about the government. That’s all just noise.
If only it were just noise. As the episode reveals, Sam (Brady Dowad) has been stealing radioactive material from a local hospital to build his bomb. The “anti-government militia” nearly succeeds, only stopped because Sam’s brother Chris (Derek Goh) agrees to work with the FBI, unknowingly sacrificing his own life in the process.
Limitless has already given viewers a corporate CEO who resorts to murder when his government grants are threatened. Last night’s “militia” was just the next clichéd, liberal bogeyman on the writers’ list. I won’t hold my breath for a plot more grounded in reality.
