| Bob Brown | |
|---|---|
| Portrayed by Scott Foley | |
 ' | |
| Biographical information | |
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Name |
Sergeant First Class Robert Davis Brown |
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Also Known As |
Cool Breeze |
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Status |
Alive |
|
Origin |
American |
|
Profession |
U.S. Army Special Forces |
|
Spouse(s) |
|
|
Children |
Serena Brown, Emily Brown, and Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt Brown |
| Behind the scenes | |
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First appearance |
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Sergeant First Class Robert Davis "Bob" Brown (United States Army, callsign: Cool Breeze) is a fictional character on the CBS television series The Unit. He is portrayed by Scott Foley. He was the newest member of The Unit, after first passing selection, Bob was a little shy, not talking if not addressed; however Bob soon proved himself and is now a valuable member of the unit. He is married to Kim Brown and they have 3 children- two daughters, Serena, Emily, and a son, Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt Brown.
Bob's skills, among other things, include proficiency in a number of fixed-wing and rotary aircraft, due to his prior service in the Air Cavalry.
Character Overview[]
Brown is a relatively new member of The Unit. He has a wife, Kim, two daughters, Serena and Emily, and a son, Theodore. He is a licensed pilot in both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters and is one of the more skilled marksmen in The Unit, frequently serving as a sharpshooter and sniper. He is competent in Spanish and a Pashto/Urdu dialect. Before entering the Unit, he served in the Air Cavalry and is also Ranger qualified.
During Season 1, upon Brown's first day after Selection and The Unit's Operator Training Course (referred to as OTC Training), as Staff Sergeant, assisting Sergeant Major Jonas Blane, in laying out a new training course for extended deployment with pack animals. On the same day, terrorists hijack an airplane in the fictional city of Wyndham, Idaho. Brown was a part of the operation to reclaim the airplane, doing his part by eliminating terrorist spotters in the nearby woods.
Brown is responsible for saving the Secretary of State from assassination by radicals in Africa, as well as capturing a U.S. Air Force cryptologist who was selling secrets to the Chinese. He assisted in the capture of a Bosnian war criminal, which came back to haunt him in the Season 1 finale, as the criminal escaped UN custody and tracked The Unit to their headquarters at Fort Griffith, attacking them while they celebrated Colonel Tom Ryan's marriage.
During Season 2, Brown has become more confident in his skills as an military operator, instructing trainees in the art of being a sniper, during the Unit's Operator Training Course. He was responsible for helping to eliminate one of the world's foremost arms dealers.
Brown's membership in The Unit has at times strained his marriage, such as when he was late returning from a mission in Spain, conducted a mission under the guise of taking his wife on a vacation, and became hospitalized during a SERE exercise.
Near the closing of Season 2, Brown was targeted by the Central Intelligence Agency for recruitment. They used the platform of apparent crimes committed by Jonas Blane to try and recruit them, and ironically, Blane signed off on it, saying that the Unit could use a man within the CIA. After returning from a mission in Cyprus, Brown and Alpha Team found that the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division was investigating Alpha Team, and had shut down the 303rd completely. After finding that the CIA was behind the investigation, Brown was given a choice-join the CIA, or go to prison. His wife, Kim, convinced him to join the Agency. Brown's first assignment: find and bring back to custody the disappeared Jonas Blane.
At the beginning of Season 3, Brown was in pursuit of Jonas Blane at the behest of the CIA, but later teamed up with Jonas & other team members to successfully break the CIA conspiracy.
During "Five Brothers" Brown was left no choice but to kill a Lebanese teenager to avoid detection. In the episode "Gone Missing", he started to see visions of people whom he killed during previous missions, involving that boy in particular. When the Unit is tasked with an assassination mission in Eastern Europe, Brown makes an obvious mistake that could've compromised the mission. Jonas begins to question Bob's capability, however Bob was soon able to defeat his emotions by accepting he liked killing and the mission was carried out as planned after Gerhart, Blane and Grey were all unable to take the shot on the target. Afterwards he seems to lose any hesitation and even kills an unarmed couple in cold blood in front of his wife. It is also revealed he was abused by his father when he was young, when Brown and Blane were in their position scouting the target area, Brown witnessed a small boy being beaten with his father. After the mission had been carried out and the unit was regrouping, Brown held back a second and tracked down the abusive father. He broke into their house and beat the father, telling him that he 'Brown' is watching and to never lay another hand on the boy again—leaving with the father a rifle round as a reminder. It is also revealed he was abused by his father when he was young, a trait he shares with Colonel Tom Ryan, many Special Forces soldiers having notably overcome adversity at a young age. Bob develops an addiction to heroin having been forcibly injected with it during a mission but with Kim's help he kicks the habit
During "Side Angle Side," Brown is promoted to the rank of Sergeant First Class.
In "Bad Beat", Bob and Jonas enter into a high stakes poker game in a collaborative mission with their old friend Agent Kern and the CIA in Macau to pursue Chinese General Lau. Bob manages to beat Lau in the first hand, baiting Lau to bet his prized $200,000 Swiss wristwatch in order to call Bob's bet. When he wins, Lau believes Bob cheated and is working with an accomplice to ascertain what his hand was. Lau later requisitions Bob to his hotel room where his associate, Stanley Wu, doses Bob with pure China White heroin. As the mission drew to a close, Bob retrieved the remaining supply of heroin from Wu's case and asked Sullivan to look the other way while he did. Returning home, Bob was saddled with an opiate addiction, having received at least three doses from Wu.
Characteristics[]
Bob is possibly the most level-headed member of the team, persuading Mack to consult the team over Tiffy's affair with Colonel Ryan rather than just immediately shooting him. Bob is also the only Unit member to not have the Purple Heart. Although wounded numerous times during the course of the series members of the Unit are never awarded medals (his decorations including a Bronze Star stem from 2 tours in Iraq with the Air Cavalry). It was stated in two episodes that Bob earned three college degrees before joining the Unit. His areas of study and degree classifications (Bachelor's or Master's ) are never mentioned.
Over the course of the series he kills at least 30 people. The plot of the season three episode "Gone Missing" centers around a crisis of morality that Bob faces when he begins hallucinating a young Lebanese boy he shot and killed in Beirut while preserving Alpha Team's cover. When the crisis of conscience puts a mission at risk, Bob ultimately learns that he enjoys killing enemies. Bob used the callsigns Moreno and Whippoorwill in early operations however they appear to have been compromised so he currently goes by the call sign "Cool Breeze." Bob drives a vintage mustang with just the primer coat which he sells in order to better provide for his family. Before being accepted into the unit Bob and Kim were planning on him attending law school. He is unusual in having a son, most Unit members tend to have only daughters.
5th season storyline[]
According to the writers if the series continued into a fifth season the plan was Bob would have been badly injured in a parachute training jump leaving him with a permanent limp. He would have been aided in his recuperation by wheelchair bound veteran Ron Cheals and Crystal Burn's badly scarred ex-boyfriend Jeremy, allowing the series to tackle the controversy over the army's treatment of injured soldiers. He would eventually leave the army and be recruited by the CIA as an instructor and their official liaison with The Unit, their intention being that he can provide them with inside information on the organization. In fact he is still working for Colonel Ryan and providing them with disinformation, acting as the Unit's man within the CIA. According to an interview executive producer Shawn Ryan gave to The Futon Critic "[David] Mamet and I and our writers, we came up with a lot of great stuff," Ryan said about his pitch to CBS executives for a potential fifth season. "It was going to be a whole new show in the sense that we were going to be training some young people, Bob was going to be training some people for a whole new organization"