SEALed With a Miss

I get it. The drumbeat of bad news these days is so mind-hammering that you’re driven to deploy every free minute watching Netflix and Hulu limited series to take your mind off what’s happening in the headlines. You’re not alone. There’s a reason I’m able to recommend new shows to watch every week. But every now and then, a news story comes along that actually reads a lot more like a dramatic series—albeit with a less happy ending than most of them, and one that is probably a little better suited to be a Taylor Sheridan vehicle on Paramount Plus. Here’s the setup: “A group of Navy SEALs emerged from the ink-black ocean on a winter night in early 2019 and crept to a rocky shore in North Korea. They were on a top secret mission so complex and consequential that everything had to go exactly right. The objective was to plant an electronic device that would let the United States intercept the communications of North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un, amid high-level nuclear talks with President Trump.” Some incredible reporting from the NYT (Gift Article): How a Top Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission Into North Korea Fell Apart. “The shore team swam to the boat to make sure that all of the North Koreans were dead. They found no guns or uniforms. Evidence suggested that the crew, which people briefed on the mission said numbered two or three people, had been civilians diving for shellfish. All were dead, including the man in the water.”