S03.E09: Home on the Range

[mledawn]

Quote

Unfinished business haunts Kingstown as the Crips seek revenge at the hospital.

 

[dwmarch]

What an amazing episode this one was!

First and foremost, that scene with Ian and Charlie. Has Charlie been playing him the whole time, Primal Fear-style? When Charlie says "What about the man on the porch?" in a totally normal voice, Ian is not looking at him but we are. Ian takes a look into the car, sees a look on Charlie's face that he does not like and immediately starts shooting. Charlie goes back to his child-voice when asking Ian why he is shooting but since Ian is shooting into a confined space, Charlie is done for. Did Ian hallucinate the voice? Doesn't seem likely on account of the camera angle showing us Charlie completely changing his demeanor while Ian is distracted. Did Charlie just do the voice as an imitation of how the people around him talk? Maybe but we haven't seen him do that before so what we are left with is that Charlie dropped the mask for a second because he was going to try to manipulate Ian. He didn't realize that Ian is just as prepared to kill at a moment's notice as he is.

I thought the scene between Raph and his son was some of the most emotional work this show has done. Very well done scene there and I'm glad Raph encouraged his kid to just be a kid for a while longer.

Also appreciated the scene between Tracy and Kyle. She tries brushing the fender-bender off, Kyle knows she's lying but they don't have a big blowup about it. And Kyle, knowing what he knows about how things work in Kingstown, can't fault his wife for going to Mike for a solution. Tracy just failed to appreciate that Kyle is a little sensitive about his obligation to protect his family after accidentally shooting his own mother. Nice touch that the show hasn't forgotten about that and calls back to it. It makes sense that while Kyle is trying to say that he's fine and everything is good, he's still dealing with his trauma whether he admits it or not.

Iris was really the only low point of the episode although I did enjoy getting a tiny bit of background on Rebecca, who was apparently rescued by Mike. Other than that, the Iris scenes tend to bring the show screeching to a halt as various men bring their own lives to a halt trying to figure out what to do with her. I'm not sure if she was deliberately poking at Constantine by reminding him that he "turned her out" at a young age as some reverse psychology to make him send her away even though she said she didn't want to be sent away. I do not especially care. Iris talks like she wants agency but she doesn't really act like it.

I know there is meant to be a certain poetic justice to Raph being the one to go after Callahan in the hospital but if Mike had been a little quicker about it and let Bunny send more of a crew, Callahan would be dead. Well, I guess we need him around for the finale. I assume he knows Mike has been lying to him the whole time now and he's going to be pissed.

Almost forgot Kareem. After everything that has happened this season, he's got two weeks to resign before he is fired. I like this. He's not being given a chance to fix things, he's just subject to the waiting period that comes along with bureaucracy. But having said that, I don't think he's just going to sit around for two weeks awaiting his fate.

Last but not least, MILO! I knew he was still alive! All that weird stuff that happened over the course of this season along with all the characters who wouldn't stop talking about him made me certain we would be seeing him again and here he is! Again, another character who was doing just fine until Iris came along but I guess that is a particular weakness of men in Kingstown.

This season moved a lot quicker than season 2 and we've got a whole bunch of situations primed to just explode in the finale. We've also got Robert, that guard from the women's prison, the DA, Bunny and probably a few other powder kegs I have forgotten about. Should be an awesome finish!

[MichaelaRae]

Rebecca said Mitch rescued her, not Mike.

[mledawn]

8 hours ago, dwmarch said:

First and foremost, that scene with Ian and Charlie. Has Charlie been playing him the whole time, Primal Fear-style? When Charlie says "What about the man on the porch?" in a totally normal voice, Ian is not looking at him but we are. Ian takes a look into the car, sees a look on Charlie's face that he does not like and immediately starts shooting. Charlie goes back to his child-voice when asking Ian why he is shooting but since Ian is shooting into a confined space, Charlie is done for. Did Ian hallucinate the voice? Doesn't seem likely on account of the camera angle showing us Charlie completely changing his demeanor while Ian is distracted. Did Charlie just do the voice as an imitation of how the people around him talk? Maybe but we haven't seen him do that before so what we are left with is that Charlie dropped the mask for a second because he was going to try to manipulate Ian. He didn't realize that Ian is just as prepared to kill at a moment's notice as he is.

This was a satisfying end to the Charlie storyline. I hadn't fully realised that Stevie didn't know about the man on the porch, but it makes sense, so Ian waiving Stevie off in the field like "don't worry, he (Charlie) is crazy" kind of thing ramped up the tension a bit. I think Charlie was playing Ian to a degree - the change in tone of voice was creepy af and I liked Ian taking immediate action. Ian hadn't ever really let his guard down. I did laugh at Ian telling Stevie to put his positive hat on when they first arrived at the field, and then Stevie later turning to Ian in disgust "THE LEGS".

The prison guard who tried to intimidate Tracy coming back and trying AGAIN to intimidate her was ridiculous. I loved that she took action herself. That was great for her to get her agency back.

Robert is a disaster. It was wise for Mike to get Stevie and Ian to make Raf's arrest. Ian telling Robert to fuck off was a nice touch - they're all a little tired of having to babysit him. Robert is an asset when they want brutal violence but he is unable to handle any finesse. It almost seems like there is foreshadowing with Kyle having to handle Robert in some way later on.

I love Aiden Gillen but Milo can take Iris and walk into the sea. 

[dwmarch]

16 minutes ago, mledawn said:

I did laugh at Ian telling Stevie to put his positive hat on when they first arrived at the field, and then Stevie later turning to Ian in disgust "THE LEGS".

Another thing that occurred to me about this scene is that I don't think they ever specified if they were looking for one set of legs in particular or if this was a spot for Charlie to hide various legs.

Almost forgot my laugh line of the episode, courtesy of Stevie after he's told that he will be on driving duty: "No shit, not getting in your car!"

[Orbert]

Wow, that was a great episode!  Rather than just setting things up for the season finale, some things paid off, some more pieces got moved around, and some things got set up for the season finale.

Sometime during this episode it finally occurred to me that Charlie is probably named for the character Charlie Gordon, from "Flowers for Algernon".

I have nothing to add to dwmarch's excellent recap other than that I agree with pretty much everything they said, and I thought it was all really well done.