Summary
“Nikhil” saved the funniest extended gag for a finale that tests loyalties and tees up a second season well.
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Hitmen episode 6, the finale, proves the toughest test of Fran and Jamie’s friendship. This makes thematic sense at least, and also amounts to the funniest extended gag of the season and a great set-up for a potential second season depending on how this one does success-wise.
The catalyst is the titular Nikhil, a terrifying Eastern European assassin sent by Mr. K to work alongside them. He’s terrifyingly efficient and hilariously stereotypical, which is subverted for a funny gag later. Fran, in particular, is impressed with him, while Jamie has fun on April Fools’ day by constantly cooking up pranks to play, not quite realizing that this new dynamic threatens her life.
That’s for a bit later, though. Before that, we have to see how Nikhil’s presence upends the usual dynamics somewhat. When Liz and Charles suggest that Mr. K has sent him as a babysitter, Nikhil gets fed up with Charles’s impressions and chokes him into apologizing to Fran. You can see his appeal as someone who’s going to make them be taken seriously for once.
A classic montage of Nikhil and Fran on-mission helps to put that point of being taken seriously across. All the while, Jamie sits around in the van preparing pranks. As Fran and Nikhil enjoy a cigarette by a burning car, Nikhil tells Fran that he’s going to be working with her from now on. Jamie will be taking a break.
That doesn’t bode well even before we meet Mr. K for the first time, who gives Fran and Nikhil a new assignment — to kill Jamie. Uh-oh. But this is where a great extended sequence kicks in, with Fran, Jamie, and Nikhil all in the van, and Fran trying to tip Jamie off to what’s happening by singing a warning in-tune with the radio while Nikhil has his earphones in. This starts out ridiculous and only becomes stupider and funnier as it goes on, which is way longer than the point at which it becomes absurd. It’s a great moment.
Predictably, Fran can’t shoot Jamie — she instead shoots Nikhil, who’s wearing a bulletproof vest, at which point a typically on-brand shootout in a mannequin warehouse kicks in. But Hitmen season 1, episode 6 still has a couple of funny moments up its sleeve. When Nikhil gets shot, he gives away that he’s really from Doncaster, and that his whole Ukrainian shtick is a put-on to make getting work easier. Even Jamie’s April Fool’s planning gets a payoff when Nikhil tries to shoot her with one of the fake guns, which produces a flag reading “Bang!”. It gives Fran enough time to shoot him in the head.
Fran and Jamie end up on the run, and Liz finally calls to ask Fran if she’s ready for that drink. Obviously, Liz and Charles are tracking them, setting up a fun second-season concept, if people have fun with this outing.
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