39th Annual Image Awards or Unit Girls Rule And Boys Drool

Team Mack Daddy doing what they do best...on another secret Op for The Unit.


Tonights target: Infiltrate the unsuspecting NAACP Image Awards.
Operators: Agents Red Head Mama, Roobaby and me, your humble narrator, Angel.
Mission Objective: Cheer on The Unit and try and find a certain Red Headed actor. Failing that, try to get to anyone from The Unit.
Mission Debrief:
Who we saw and what we saw.
Arrived at the front of the Red Carpet area and immediately saw Shawn Ryan (Producer of The Unit) being interviewed. Watched that for a few minutes, trying to hear what he was saying. It was definitely Writer's Strike questions, which confirmed to us, that this tall bald guy, was indeed Shawn. Having a bead on him, made our mission of finding where The Unit section of the Shrine Auditorium was, easier.
Once inside and at our seats, Agent Angel takes out her special forces binocular and immediately begins her surveillance of the front part of the auditorium. It was packed up there, but as suspected, Shawn Ryan sticks out in this crowd and Agent Angel has him in her sights within a few seconds. Two over from Shawn is definitely a beautiful woman in a red dress, which we in the nosebleed section can tell is Regina Taylor. In between the two is a tall, bald African American man, who Angel initially believes to be Dennis Haysbert, but who other agents, believe is not. I leave it to other information, like watching the actual telecast, to confirm that to me (edited to add: telecast confirms, it was not). We could not tell if anyone else was with these people, but at least we knew where the action was going to be. Show begins and during the commercial breaks, they actually run the commercials. So, as one who is used to such stuff, we ignore them, until Agent Angel hears a voice she knows. She screams "Dennis!" and yes, there up on the huge monitors, is Dennis Haysbert, selling Allstate Insurance. :-)

They give out the Vanguard Award to "The Queen of Soul" herself, Aretha Franklin, which makes the Steely Dan fan in this group, so happy. So with the song "Hey 19" running through her head, she cheers on Aretha. Aretha herself, didn't sing, but later on (after we left) I saw on tape that she did a duo with Stevie Wonder and they ran credits over it. What a shame, cause it was a GREAT duo!
Next up: The Drama Awards. Best Actress in a drama: Regina Taylor! The group goes wild! Cheering for her and her speech. She thanked Shawn Ryan, David Mamet and Eric Haney, the Creators and Producers of the show, which I was very glad to hear. She also mentioned her character, Molly Blane: a strong woman, which made me very happy. Molly Rules!

Quickly, they go through the other Two awards that The Unit is up for and we don't win. A real shame, cause Dennis deserved that award! Then Agent Roo decides to leave the Shrine (Regina was on the move at that time and I think that might have been what made her want out). As I found out from my husband, Regina also gave an award shortly after and that might have been why she left her seat for a few. So there we are, outside and we have another hour to kill, so we decide to get something to eat. We do so and return just in time for us to watch the guests leave the Shrine. Several times, Agent Angel got asked to take pictures of people and one of them mentioned to her that the after party was at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Not knowing the secret handshake we decided that driving all the way across town to try to crash that party, was just a bit too much for us. Especially for Roo, who had left Florida at 4AM. So we continued to wait and watch, but we didn't see anyone we wanted to. We walked back to our car and drove over to Agent Roo's hotel for a drink and debrief on the days events. A totally good day and successful op. I hope Regina appreciated someone being in her corner, cheering her on.
We hope that Regina's win, helps us fans in our case for keeping The Unit for another season.

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Photo 1:
The view from the
Nosebleed section
of the Shrine.

Photo 2:
Me, Roo and Mama.

Photo 3:
Regina Taylor