S01.E05: The Icebox

[Trini]

When a party bus cleanup job takes a turn for the worse, and Garrett puts Thony in a threatening position, she must choose between her loyalty to Arman and saving Fiona from deportation. Meanwhile, after all his efforts to secure a new business for Hayak, Arman is blindsided when Hayak chooses his daughter over him.

Airdate: Feb. 7, 2022

 

[AnimeMania]

Guest Cast: 
Navid Negahban as Hayak Barsamian
Eva De Dominici as Nadia
Cosima Cabrera as Gabby
Shiva Negar as Isabel Barsamian
Daniel Peera as Ben Tashjian
Liza Weil as Asac Katherine Russo
Ramona DuBarry as Officer Ruiz
Gabriela C. Ortega as Roxy
Tasos Hernandez as Officer Olea
Karimah Campbell Taylor as Esther
Dolores Deluce as Old Lady
Vega Vargas as Male Ice Agent
Simone Gurule as Female Ice Agent
Ted Taskey as Owen Davis
Jason Potter as Young Ice Agent
Santo Militello as Male Guard
Merritt C. Glover as Intake Officer
Rodney Williams as Agent
Janelle Baptiste as Samentha
Andrea Kepple as Maid #2

[paigow]

Arman has to watch out... Hayak could call Brody to clean things up...

Agent Dickhead signed his own death warrrant... If Thony has a chance to blow him away and make it look like Hayak did it.. Adios Muchachos!

Where was that ICE bus going? Driving Fiona to Manila is impossible. Only an idiot would drive through the desert to McCarran / Harry Reid Airport from North Las Vegas. 

Edited February 8, 2022 by paigow

[phoenics]

What a great episode!

The FBI agent really screwed things up - but it looks like he's going to at least partially get what he wants (the laptop) ... but I REALLY didn't see Arman teaming up with Thony and the FBI so quickly against Hayak, but after thinking about the wedding episode - I get it.  I didn't understand that wedding episode and the messiness it revealed so much when it aired but it was clearly setting this up.

I think it's very clear to Arman now that Hayak doesn't see him as family and he will always prioritize his favored children over Arman - except maybe his son, who he sees as more trouble than he's worth (and why he sent him off to the Armenian army).  But Hayak wouldn't let Arman be with his daughter - because Arman isn't Armenian - and now he's given the hotel and casino to his daughter/SIL over Arman.

I see why Arman turned on him - but not how he and Thony escape this situation alive, much less with Arman on top like he clearly wants to be.  But this really made things super interesting now.  The twist I didn't see coming quite this fast.

I really felt for Fiona and the other girl... and especially the other girl - because she was definitely deported and now her kids are abandoned in the US.  Man - that just sucks.

One thing this show gets really right are the stakes - it doesn't pull out Chekhov's gun without making sure to fire it and that really keeps the stakes high.  I love that.  Roswell, NM (the show) could learn a thing or two about high stakes to be honest - especially since it deals with illegal immigration (both earthly and extra-terrestrial) too.

Anywhoo - the kids' and their panic - whew - I really felt that.

I love this show.  I can't wait for next week. 

[paigow]

26 minutes ago, phoenics said:

But Hayak wouldn't let Arman be with his daughter - because Arman isn't Armenian - and now he's given the hotel and casino to his daughter/SIL over Arman.

Arman gets the FBI to kill Hayak and the gang. Buys out his ex-girlfriend so she leaves Vegas.

[preeya]

1 hour ago, paigow said:

Only an idiot would drive through the desert to McCarran / Harry Reid Airport from North Las Vegas. 

Time-out! I live in North Las Vegas and have made the trip many times. Just not through the desert.

Observation: Although this is very entertaining it is so convoluted, contrived, and unrealistic.

Here are some reasons:  Head of family/Mob working as a mechanic on a truck .  FBI sleaze turns "good guy" and intercepts deportation bus to free one detainee.  Cleaning lady (potential snitch) spills the beans to her mark and doesn't end up with a bullet in her head. Then the mark tells the potential snitch he's going to take down the mob boss (for revenge). 

[possibilities]

I notice they also got rid of Arman's girlfriend, so the chemistry between him and Thony can be allowed to boil higher. 

[Irlandesa]

Nadia wasn't his girlfriend; she was his wife.  I wish/hope she will still be around because I think her dynamic with Arman is fascinating. Here is this alpha male and yet he married someone even more ambitious, and potentially ruthless, than he is.  And I think they've grown more intriguing each time we've seen them.

But yes, she is temporarily out of the way, as is Thony's husband, for Thony and Arman to have even steamier undertones.  The way he was looking at her while they were drinking at the bar....whew.  I had a hard time looking directly at the screen. I can't remember the last time I watched someone with such an intense presence.

This episode was so good.  There was some ridiculousness but so much clicked into place narratively.  I'm glad they didn't drag out the reveal because having Thony stuck in the middle would have gotten tiring.  And there was almost no "sick Luca" which I feel drags the show down. 

Spoiler

I'm bummed that it seems like that is coming back next week.  Blergh.

I did think there were a few things that cracked me up.  For one, why would Arman scrub "most" of the laptop but leave just enough incriminating on him? 

And then having to stop the bus with a big dramatic chase instead of a phone call? Ha. 

But otherwise, such a good ep. 

[Raja]

2 hours ago, paigow said:

 

Where was that ICE bus going? Driving Fiona to Manila is impossible. Only an idiot would drive through the desert to McCarran / Harry Reid Airport from North Las Vegas. 

Why chase down the bus, you know where its going and agents will have to make sure Fiona gets on the proper plane going to the proper country? Just get on the phone and order that she does not get boarded. I guess that is not as cinematic as running a bus off of the road with your Crown Vic.

So does Thony become just a courier between the FBI and their CI who thinks he can win in the end by giving up Hayak? Ozark has a similar type story going on with the one level of mob leadership trying to give up the other while staying free.

I was wondering about Jaz's father so I guess he is still around Vegas.

[magdalene]

Best episode yet with lots of tension all the way through.  I wish I could believe the detention center was over-dramatized but worse happens in reality.

I am glad the show had the balls to just get on with it and put it all on the table between Thony and Arman.  With that scorching chemistry I want them to team up - and bingo! here it is. Hajak is a loathsome toad who doesn't deserve loyality and I am going to enjoy his destruction.

 I agree the bus chase was ridiculous.  Some of us did pay attention  in Geography class.

[paigow]

Thony also did her Captain America impression... Memorizing the map of future ICE raids like it had all the HYDRA labs...

[paigow]

1 hour ago, Irlandesa said:

 

  Reveal spoiler

I'm bummed that it seems like that is coming back next week.  Blergh.

For one, why would Arman scrub "most" of the laptop

Dude only had freeware version of Scrubbodrive

[Raja]

7 hours ago, paigow said:

Thony also did her Captain America impression... Memorizing the map of future ICE raids like it had all the HYDRA labs...

Jason Bourne checking out every kind of map as he walked past was the reference which popped up in my mind

[SonofaBiscuit]

I enjoyed the singing and dancing (and spinning around the pole, ha!) on the party bus, but man did it ever go downhill from there. I will enjoy watching FBI guy blow up his life and career over his obsession with this case.

Hayak's daughter seems very smart and business savvy.  I don't see how she won't figure out pretty quickly that something shady is going on (frankly, I don't know how she hasn't picked up on that over the years??).

Fiona's son is a bit of a turd, but I'm glad he stepped up to take care of Luca, making sure that he received his medicine while Thony was gone.  But Fiona's daughter is definitely the smart, responsible one of the kids.

I was confused by the bus chase scene because Agent Paris Geller said that she had made some calls and "the good news is they found one of your girls. But the other one was deported." I took it backwards and thought that the FBI intercepted the other lady and Fiona was the one who had been deported (obviously not out of the US yet but on her way out).  But no, in the meantime, the FBI didn't even bother to send anyone for Fiona after "receiving the good news that they found her," WTF?  She just got extremely lucky that douchey FBI guy was able to chase down her bus and pull her off.  Like a heads up from the FBI to the bus driver might have even been helpful in the situation 🤷‍♀️

Next week looks intense, and I'm pretty sure that it's the episode that Arman and Thony

Spoiler

kiss or almost kiss.

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by SonofaBiscuit

[possibilities]

I thought he scrubbed his own involvement and left stuff that would take down Hayak.

 

[paigow]

2 hours ago, possibilities said:

I thought he scrubbed his own involvement and left stuff that would take down Hayak.

He had the laptop well before hearing the bad career news... so this was either a long simmering plan to create insurance or his laziness in not immediately incinerating it was extremely fortuitous....

[Irlandesa]

6 hours ago, possibilities said:

I thought he scrubbed his own involvement and left stuff that would take down Hayak.

 

 

4 hours ago, paigow said:

He had the laptop well before hearing the bad career news... so this was either a long simmering plan to create insurance or his laziness in not immediately incinerating it was extremely fortuitous....

Exactly.  It's the half-wayness of it all that made me go hmmm.  Unless it was some sort of plan because he knew he'd be screwed, it makes no sense that he'd only have things that incriminate him scrubbed from the computer.  It's much easier to just erase the whole damn thing than it is to pick and choose.

[possibilities]

It's easier to scrub the whole thing, but he wanted to use it to help Thony and hurt Hayak. So he keft just enough on there to get that done, and got rid of the rest. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

Why he didn't do it immediately upon taking possession, I don't know. Maybe he was busy. Or he thought he might need the info later.

[Trini]

I know the threat isn't completely gone, but I hopefully deportation for Thony and her family is off the table for now.

Arman really is one of the most interesting characters here. I'm not sure how backstabbing Hayak and trying to trick the FBI is going to work out for him, but I want to see how things play out.

23 hours ago, possibilities said:

I notice they also got rid of Arman's girlfriend, so the chemistry between him and Thony can be allowed to boil higher. 

I'm not convinced she's totally gone yet; and I would hope she isn't gone so easily, since she's starting to be more interesting, too. But yes, I think they're starting to set up a Thony/Arman pairing.

 

12 hours ago, SonofaBiscuit said:

...

Fiona's son is a bit of a turd, but I'm glad he stepped up to take care of Luca, making sure that he received his medicine while Thony was gone.  But Fiona's daughter is definitely the smart, responsible one of the kids.

...

I'm glad they showed him stepping up a bit in this episode; hopefully he's less of a typical tv teen brat going forward.

[Jax7917]

My guess is the finale will end with Thony and Arman having sex and then the husband showing up, but I don't know because it's not a romantic drama. It's a crime show. To be honest, that's the type of thing i'm looking forward to though lol . 

I really like the show, I just can't stand the "Thony helps everyone" narrative. Every episode consists of her saving someone in some way or multiple people in an episode, with even something so simple as the FBI agent getting his kid a walkie talkie in order to stay in his life. Then there was the "Thony is the person to change the nasty, angry donor who doesn't want to be a donor anymore." By the end of the episode, the guy was a saint while in the beginning and middle he was a narcissist. Then she saves her SIL from being deported. She got the FBI to protect the pregnant woman and her baby despite them first not giving a shit. It's just too much of being a savior for me.

But the thing that was pretty unrealistic to me in this episode was the cleaning ladies having to clean that entire extremely dirty and messy party bus, yet they are popping champagne and confetti and making the bus an even bigger mess. Who would want to create extra work for themselves? Is it just me? lol

[slowpoked]

17 hours ago, possibilities said:

It's easier to scrub the whole thing, but he wanted to use it to help Thony and hurt Hayak. So he keft just enough on there to get that done, and got rid of the rest. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

Yes, that was my interpretation too. He left just enough for the FBI to help Thony keep her end of the bargain and get her SIL released. 

 

17 hours ago, possibilities said:

Why he didn't do it immediately upon taking possession, I don't know. Maybe he was busy. Or he thought he might need the info later.

 Some reasons I see - One, he was banking that he and Hayak would be partners on the hotel, and therefore he would be finally in with Hayak's inner of inner circles, and not just be "the help". Second, he might need the info later, like you said. Third, he has no idea what the info is on there in the first place, just that the councilman told him to make sure the FBI doesn't get its hands on the laptop.

[Irlandesa]

19 hours ago, possibilities said:

It's easier to scrub the whole thing, but he wanted to use it to help Thony and hurt Hayak. So he keft just enough on there to get that done, and got rid of the rest. I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

But it is complicated.  That's the issue I have.  He had that laptop ready to go for her rather quickly.  Curating what to scrub and what to leave and make it look natural would take some a good bit of time, especially when even a non-careful wholesale wipe could take hours to have it done well.

[paigow]

11 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

especially when even a non-careful wholesale wipe could take hours to have it done well.

Jack Bauer: Dammit Chloe! What is taking so long? You think I have all day????

[possibilities]

Sure, and if the dude had it backed up to the cloud, it can all come back. I just handwave it as TV magic.

You can hope he was smart enough not to back it up that way, but people are stupid, and the guy didn't seem all that careful, so I figure one plot hole is as good as another.

[Raja]

2 minutes ago, possibilities said:

Sure, and if the dude had it backed up to the cloud, it can all come back. I just handwave it as TV magic.

You can hope he was smart enough not to back it up that way, but people are stupid, and the guy didn't seem all that careful, so I figure one plot hole is as good as another.

In a show where we are using recorder pens instead of transmitters I think that there would not be a cloud.

[phoenics]

On 2/8/2022 at 12:22 AM, possibilities said:

I notice they also got rid of Arman's girlfriend, so the chemistry between him and Thony can be allowed to boil higher. 

She's not gone?  And that's his wife.

[phoenics]

On 2/9/2022 at 9:12 AM, Jax7917 said:

My guess is the finale will end with Thony and Arman having sex and then the husband showing up, but I don't know because it's not a romantic drama. It's a crime show.

I think it's a suspense drama - but romance is a huge part of it - at least in the sense that a lot of what is driving people is love, family and power.  Arman's actions regarding Thony don't make sense unless you consider his feelings for her, and Arman's anger at Hayak makes sense when you consider that he thought he was like family to Hayak, but Hayak keeps proving he's not - which is also driving Arman's behavior.

So I do think romance and some aspect of relationships will definitely be part of this show, just like Luca's illness, immigration issues, and the mafia like crime part with the FBI too.

I love it all.

[paigow]

On 2/9/2022 at 9:12 AM, Jax7917 said:

My guess is the finale will end with Thony and Arman having sex...

on a party bus while her crew cleans up around them...

[possibilities]

8 hours ago, phoenics said:

She's not gone? 

I thought she said: "I'm leaving!" 

She was angry that Arman "let" Hayak fail to promote him/them. He told her he has a plan, but she huffed out anyway.

[paigow]

31 minutes ago, possibilities said:

I thought she said: "I'm leaving!" 

She was angry that Arman "let" Hayak fail to promote him/them. He told her he has a plan, but she huffed out anyway.

She did say that... Kind of ambiguous if she meant to add "forever" / "until you grow a pair" / "with my girlfriends for a week in Cabo"

[phoenics]

On 2/12/2022 at 11:25 PM, possibilities said:

I thought she said: "I'm leaving!" 

She was angry that Arman "let" Hayak fail to promote him/them. He told her he has a plan, but she huffed out anyway.

I took that as leaving the room or leaving for a break - not gone forever.