Jonas Blane

Sergeant Major Jonas Blane (United States Army, callsign: "Snake Doctor") is a fictional character on the CBS television series "The Unit". He is portrayed by Dennis Haysbert.

Blane is a former Army Ranger, Green Beret and Senior Unit Operator, leading Alpha Team of the 1st Special Actions Group (official cover as the "303rd Logistical Studies Group"). He and his wife, Molly, have one daughter. He is competent in Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Persian.

Jonas is Alpha Team's Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge. He is frequently referred to as Top by his team, and many members of his team try to do what he would do in any given situation.

During the series pilot of "The Unit", Blane single-handedly takes down a private jet with five terrorists on board, incurring the wrath of the FBI for violating the Posse Comitatus Act. However, Blane and his team are let off the hook. At the end of the 1st episode, when a mechanical speaking toy repeats an Arabic phrase, he pivots around and fires 2 rounds from his handgun into his bedroom mirror, a reaction presumably caused by stress. When the incident is uncovered, his wife states that she fired the rounds in an attempt to eliminate a rat.

In other episodes, Blane and his team recover a radioactive component of a Chinese satellite, rescue American missionaries in Indonesia, rescue the drug minister of Mexico, assassinate a terrorist financier in Spain, bug an Iranian official's car at their embassy in Beirut, recover seven Stinger missiles from Brazilian arms dealers, and the apprehend a Serbian war criminal in the Balkans.

Blane's wife, Molly, becomes the victim of con artists and loses the money of several other Army wives. She recovers some of the money and pays back the victims. She is unable to recover her own money though, and this causes tension between herself and Jonas. Molly urges Jonas to join a private military company in order to help their financial situation, but he states that he is not interested in a job as a mercenary.

While in the Balkans, the war criminal that Blane's team apprehends gets a good look at Blane. When the criminal escapes from UN custody, he tracks Blane back to Fort Griffith, the 303rd's headquarters. When Alpha Team leaves post to celebrate the marriage of unit commander Colonel Tom Ryan, the war criminal kills a few workers and injures Mrs. Ryan and Blane.

A few months later (during the second season), after being assigned to active duty once again, while in Pakistan, Blane and his team prevent the spread of weaponized smallpox by members of al-Qaeda. His team is also responsible for the downfall of the world's foremost illegal weapons dealer.

Temporary Dismantling of The Unit

At the end of season 2, Blane is targeted by the Central Intelligence Agency due to unnamed crimes that he may have committed. These are mentioned to Bob Brown by a CIA handler who wishes to recruit Brown to the Agency. After returning from a mission in Cyprus, Blane and his team find that the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division is investigating Alpha Team, and has shut down the 303rd completely. After finding that the CIA is behind the investigation, Blane fakes his abduction and disappears to Panama City. His official duty status is "Missing" though in reality he is AWOL.

The Season 3 premier has him changing his appearance by shaving his head and growing a goatee (similar to Dennis Haysbert's famous character in the "Major League" series, Pedro Cerrano). Blane is found out by Brown who has him in sight through the scope of a sniper rifle. Brown is then surprised by a gun to his head by Charles Grey, who himself had gone AWOL upon the Unit being shut down. Grey brought Brown to Blane's boat where Brown insisted he was not trying to kill Blane, despite being caught by Grey in the compromising position he was in. Blane tests Brown by asking him to put a spoonful of rice cereal into his mouth and spit it out if he was not trying to kill him. Brown did this successfully and Jonas believed him, citing that when humans lie, saliva is not produced in enough quantity to spit out rice.

Blane, through his networked contacts, learned about how the Oil Minister of Venezuela was assassinated. Earlier in Season 2, Blane was ordered to kill the oil minister until Colonel Ryan had a change of heart after talking to a Congressman of another political party and realized it was a conspiracy by the big oil lobby to get rid of an actor in the oil market they could not control. Blane and his local CIA contact (whom he actually slept with to preserve his cover) were eventually found out and Blane barely got out of there alive. It was this contact that Blane sought to find out to figure out what happened to the Oil Minister, whom a Congressional Review panel believed was killed by Blane after watching some doctored security footage.

Shortly after Blane found the contact in her apartment, they were visited by a CIA assassin. They barely escaped and decided to link up with a CIA agent who was her contact. On the drive over to the agent's house, she revealed to Blane that there was a thermal imaging map she was supposed to obtain for the CIA. She told Blane that she informed the CIA that he was the one with the map so that they wouldn't kill her for knowing about it. She explained that she used him as the scapegoat because she felt the Unit was secure enough to not have the government go after it and told him that the location of the map was in a secure safe deposit box in Dallas. When they reached the agent's house, the CIA agent shot her and was then subsequently killed by Blane. Blane, assuming the agent's identity, doctored his passport and returned to the United States with the coffins of both bodies.

After returning Stateside, Blane knew he had to use a woman to pose as the girl to retrieve the map. He correctly deduced that Bob Brown's wife Kim was going to be in Texas staying with her parents and contacted her. As Kim went to retrieve the document while Blane waited outside, he was approached by a local police officer who suspected him of being a jewel thief. Blane gave the officer the doctored passport of the CIA agent he had killed as Kim was returning with the documents. When the officer found out the passport was a fake, he tried to take Blane into custody. Blane eventually struggled free before taking the document from Kim and driving off in Kim's car, making it look like he and Kim didn't know each other.

Blane later met up with Grey and Brown and figured out the map was of a location in the ocean off the coast of South America. When the three got there, Blane uncovered a CIA dump site of human bodies.

The Unit later found out that the bodies were of prisoners at the terrorist detention camp at Guantánamo Bay. A rogue group of CIA agents whom had ties to the military-industrial complex had been illegally killing the terrorist prisoners and dumping them at this location. The Oil Minister had found out about the grave and thus the rogue group had put in motion the orders that eventually instructed The Unit to do its dirty work by assassinating the Oil Minister originally.

After rescuing Hector Williams and linking up with Colonel Tom Ryan, Blane and the rest of the Unit (without Mack Gerhardt, who was being tortured by the rogue CIA officers) devised a plan to get Mack returned safely. Ryan's wife, Charlotte Ryan, had links to important people in the military industrial complex who wanted to give Tom Ryan a good job and they used the opportunity to meet the man in person at a public dinner where he and the Unit ambushed the man. The two parties struck a deal, allowing the Unit to be reinstated and Mack Gerhardt returned safely in return for the Unit's silence about the grave.

ee also

* List of "The Unit" episodes
* Delta Force
* [http://theunit.wetpaint.com/ The Unit Wiki - for The Unit fans!]