Spoilers for Season 1, Episode 5 of The Terminal List: Dark Wolf are ahead. You can stream the series with an Amazon Prime subscription and catch new episodes every Wednesday.
The whole time The Terminal List: Dark Wolf has been airing on the 2025 TV schedule, it’s been intense. However, things on the new streaming show were kicked up a notch in Episode 5 for many reasons, and the whole situation with Raife and the operative in the cabin hit me the hardest. So, I asked Tom Hopper about that torture sequence, and he told me why it was a “massive turning point” for his character.
For context, in Episode 5 of this Terminal List spinoff, Raife Hastings takes a man hostage from the ambush that happened at the end of Episode 4. He thinks this man has information about the attack and who planned it, so he was trying to get information out of him, saying at one point that he wants to know who the man is and how the Khalid Network knew his crew was coming. As Tom Hopper’s character dove into this situation, I felt like Raife really didn’t want to do it. So, I asked the actor what was going through his character’s head during all that, and he said:
I think the problem for Raife in that moment is he foresaw it going down this path when he's convinced by Ben to stay doing this CIA operation. He knows that the moral compass is different here to what it is in the teams.
Ever since leaving the teams, Raife has been the most cautious, worried, and, dare I say, suspicious member of the team. He’s never been fully on board with Ben’s choices; however, he’s been following his friend and teammate because he’s so loyal. During this torture scene, though, his loyalty and moral compass are tested. That’s especially the case when Hopper’s character learns that he’s been torturing a “friendly,” not a foe.
To that point, the Umbrella Academy star told me how that moment solidified all his character’s fears, explaining:
And his fear, everything he's feared happening, happens in that very moment. And it's broken his moral compass, and everything that Raife so strongly lives by has been broken because of something that Ben has pushed him to do. So yeah, that is a massive turning point for Raife.
After that, Luke Hemsworth, who plays Landry, chimed in to say that he loves the “shame that comes” with that scene. Hopper agreed, saying his character is feeling “absolute shame” after this situation, explaining:
Everything he's lived for his entire life and for what he's trained to do, he's like, ‘This is not me.’ You know? ‘We work by a code, and that code is to make a better world,’ and in his life right now, that's just falling apart.
Considering Dark Wolf is meant to explore the choices Taylor Kitsch’s Ben Edwards made that ultimately led to his betrayal of Chris Pratt’s James Reece in The Terminal List, this kind of moment makes sense. While Ben isn't in these intense scenes, the juxtaposition of Raife's shame and Ben's determination to his plan shows that change, and helps illustrate his evolution into the character we meet in the original series.
Now, the question is: How will Raife torturing this man, who ended up being an ally, impact the way he works with Ben and the team? Will he leave Ben? Will they get into a fight about how far they’ve fallen?
It’s unclear. However, what is clear is that Raife Hastings was shaken up by the choices he made that led to this agent’s death, and he feels intense shame about it. I read it as a breaking point of sorts, and Hopper seemed to have a similar perspective, as he said his character felt “absolute shame” over what he did.
So, with all that in mind, make sure to tune into this great Amazon Prime series to see what happens next and how this deeply intense and gruesome storyline impacts Raife and his relationship with Ben as Dark Wolf continues.
