Episode 5, Einselheitenplanenmangelhalt: An Elaborate Scheme to Make Your Enemies Pay that takes a Heavy Emotional and Physical Toll on you while Barely Gaining their Notice

"Play me out, boys..."

So, it's sort of hard to muster up some semblance of an explanation for the way that Bryden acted this week and the choices he made. It's not so much that he could have left for home last week but decided it would be fun to toss in two 12 hour plane rides instead (although, more on that later), as it is his immediate decision-making over the course of his exit. Could he really not have spent a single day in Germany? Couldn't he have snagged Des when she was in the midst of one of her many costume changes rather than in the middle of traipsing around the city with Chris? Was he just banking on the fact that there would be no other camera crews in Munich that day? When he asked random German citizens about these camera crew locations, did any of them sassily point to the guys behind him? Did he just want to engage in the local past time of Mengepolkamorderbewauchund (Watching two friends polka like a serial killer laying in wait for his prey in a busy crowd) before he left?

Ultimately, what all these questions come down to is the fact that we don't really know all that much about Bryden.  Sure, he was an Iraq War veteran, but clearly, there must also be something else. I suspect that Bryden and ABC have a past. Maybe he was slated to have his breakout role on One Life to Live when the program was heartlessly slashed from the station's daytime lineup. Maybe he's still grieving for Diane Sawyer's departure from Good Morning America (as if her nightly news anchor-ship can even begin to make amends!).  Maybe he, like everyone else, is still just really upset about what they did to Charlie's Angels. I don't know for sure, because I don't know his life. But I suspect Bryden's curious behavior this week had a little something to do with a misguided revenge plot against this titan of network TV (I know, I'll make them fly me to Germany and then immediately fly me home. That'll show 'em!), and a little less to do with any concerns about his stunted relationship with Des.