Skull Rain (War of Games)

Skull Rain is the third episode in the first season of War of Games and the third entry to the installment. Following Sam and Sully's escape from the Brazilian militia, Nathan is revealed to have been captured by the hitmen in yet another favela. Held hostage for ransom, Ricardo Diaz speaks for himself as he threatens to kill the adventurer personally if Sam can't pay for what he did to his brother's business. While Sam and Sully is rendered helpless, a surprising third party steps in to save Drake. This episode airs on the 21st of July, 2017 and is succeeded by the Rook's Face.

Main Story
After Sam and Sully escaped the Brazilian militia, the duo apparently is seen walking around a motel in another unspecified city in Brazil. Sully has a brief argument with Sam on whether or not they should tell Elena about this and that they should come back and go for him. Sam goes on to call Elena, but suddenly an e-mail is sent to his phone. When he sees it, a video of the militia taking hostage of Nathan is seen, with a small television shown. In the small television, Ricardo Diaz's face comes up with an angry look, threatening Sam that if he's not "compensating" for what he did to his strongest business branch, he'll send his brother's body parts back to his family and send "people" to them. After the video ends, the two become more agitated and panicked, with Sully nearly freaking out. Sam, left without any options, calls Elena who apparently at the same time gets the same video mail. Enraged at Sam, Elena lashes out at her while Cassie listens. After done getting angry, she sees at the concerned Cassie who asks her if father's alright. After responding that he'll be fine, a doorbell ring is heard by the two, accompanied by a male voice asking if Ms. Fisher's home.

Back in Brazil, the two men have now become depressed, not knowing what to do. They did face mercenaries and other things alike, but those were with Drake on scene. Both of them know how to fight, but not against such many men simultaneously. After several exchanges of words, suddenly another e-mail finds its way towards Sam's phone. Now, the e-mail comes from an anonymous source telling the two to come back to Rio. There, they'll settle things down. Seeing this mail, the two then make their way back to Rio.

In the favelas where Nathan is held hostage, the explorer of the uncharted is seen waking up after being knocked out. He sees himself restrained and asks the nearby thugs of where he is and what's happening. After a few mockeries, spits, curses, and a good explanation, Nathan tries to escape only to get shot in both of his legs, crippling him. Bleeding from the bullet holes, one of the thugs tells him that it shouldn't be too deadly for him because he has gone "places". Right after that, another thug enters the room in which Nate's being held captive, telling the lead thug (the one who crippled Drake) that it's eerily quiet outside the favelas and nobody's out there. The lead thug then tells him to just keep on his guard duty, telling him that they'll release the gringo if his brother comes with money and kill him if he doesn't come with anything. The other thug then complies.

Going to Sam and Sully's perspective, they are seen driving their way on to Rio. While driving, Sam gets another call from Elena that tells him that somebody's at the door. Sam gets surprised and tells her to stay calm and not to open the door. While in the Drake household, Elena is seen holding her daughter's hand with a gun held on her other hand. There, Elena said that she's scared but doubts if it's one of Diaz's men as he sounds "local". Sully asks Sam of what's wrong there. After knowing that, Sully curses to himself and says that he should've been there to protect them and Sam should have never taken the job at the first place.

After ending the phone line, Elena orders Cassie to go to her room. Elena slowly creeps up the door and takes a peek, seeing that the visitor is a man of seemingly military origins. While her doubts of him being one of Diaz's men fades out a bit, she remembers that Nate did make enemies with some military men. Gathering her strength together, she then quickly opens the door and aims her gun at the man, nearly pulling the trigger if it's not for the man to tell her to calm down. The man identifies himself as Logan Keller of the "Six Initiative", and that she and her daughter can stop worrying about Nathan Drake's safety. After asking him of his intentions coming here, Logan tells her that his "boss" wants something to do with Nathan and she wishes to discuss it with him. But with Nathan's captivity, maybe the discussion can be done somewhere and somewhen else. After saying that, Logan reaches for his communicator and says that "Team Rainbow" is clear to go. Confused, Elena tries to ask him and Logan responds by telling her that everything will be clear once Nate's freed.

Several blocks away from the favelas where Nathan is taken hostage, a helicopter is seen landing on the rooftop of a medium-rise building. A group of soldiers then touch down from the helicopter. A female in civilian attire then follows the soldiers' exit. Karen Bowman, the one clothed in civilian attire, acting as their commander for the mission, tells them that the person of interest is in the favelas four blocks away from this location. Civilians have been evacuated, and the team's ordered to kill any of those gunmen. She also says that it's not going to be much of a problem, as they're not White Masks. After that, the team moves on to the objective location, the thugs not knowing what'll hit them.

The Rainbow Team begins to approach the favelas, and after several scoutings through drones, the team bursts through the thugs' fortification, overwhelming the unsuspecting thugs. When the team reached the room where Nathan's being held, the lead thug immediately threatens to shoot him but is quickly eliminated when one of them, Twitch, electrifies him with a shock drone and another operator, Blackbeard, shoots the stunned thug down. Blackbeard then escorts the crippled Nate out, guarded by the other operators. They successfully saved him from the thugs' clutch, and is given some first aid for his leg wounds. While so, Sam and Sully arrive at the same time and are surprised by the view. When they try to approach him, Karen stops them and asks them if they're Samuel Drake and Victor Sullivan, in which they confirm so. After telling them that Nathan's gonna be fine and his wife and child are informed of his rescue, Sam asked her of who they are. Karen only responds that only Nathan will know of that.

Epilogue
Time-skipping several days later, Nate is seen with his family once again alongside Sully and Sam. They're seen conversing with each other, mainly discussing of why Sam took the job the first place. Sam explained that he befriended with Ricardo Diaz's brother for quite some time after the events in Libertalia. And it's not too long before the two of them began doing favors for each other. Sam himself needed a job, and he became his delivery man, only to quit the first day he started his job. After several more exchanges, the doorbell rings again and Logan Keller is there again with Karen Bowman accompanying him. Nathan opens the door and immediately responds to their appearances by telling them that if they want to discuss of things now, they better do it quickly.

Appearances

 * Nathan Drake
 * Samuel Drake
 * Victor Sullivan
 * Elena Fisher
 * Cassie Drake
 * Ricardo Diaz (video)
 * Karen Bowman
 * Blackbeard/Craig Jenson (uncredited) (Rainbow Six Siege)
 * Ash/Eliza Cohen (Patricia Summersett)
 * Capitão/Vicente Souza (uncredited)
 * Montagne/Gilles Touré (uncredited)
 * Twitch/Emmanuelle Pichon (Brigitte Bourdeau)
 * White Masks (mentioned)
 * Logan Keller (Andrew Pifko)
 * Brazilian militia
 * Eddy Gordo (mentioned)
 * Christie Monteiro (mentioned)

Trivia

 * The episode's name is a reference towards the third DLC of the video game Rainbow Six Siege with the same name. It is also a nod towards the first time the operators from the said game debut in a major role in the series. The previous episode foreshadows their appearance with Capitão's appearance.
 * The favela in which Nathan is kept hostage is similar to those of the Favelas map in Rainbow Six Siege.

Poll
What do you think of the episode? Cool! OK! Meh. Mediocre. Stop making episodes, dammit!