Summary
The balance of power within the prison shifts as the inmates begin to literally run the asylum.
This recap of The Longest Night season 1, episode 3 contains spoilers.
You’ll recall that the emergency services arrived at the end of the previous episode, and those ill-fated first responders are dealt with pretty much immediately at the start of this one. Ruso and his team aren’t keen on the idea of killing everyone they encounter, but they also can’t have their identities exposed, and the firemen saw their faces. So, they have to go, and the body count increases a little further.
The Longest Night season 1, episode 3 recap
A pattern beings to emerge. Just like how in the previous episode we got some snippets of Manuela’s backstory, here we get a little bit of insight into Cherokee, a lifelong criminal striving to emulate his similarly lawless father. But he’s also somewhat protective of Manuela, who is being bullied and manipulated by other prisoners because of a debt that she owes, and he’s clearly intelligent enough to have engineered — and almost completed — a jailbreak. When he hears that Guille and Alicia have been taken by a pedophile, he’s immediately appalled and endeavors and get them back, even if it is to use as leverage, them being the warden’s children and all.
Speaking of Hugo’s children, he and Montes are also on the hunt for them, and during their search, they happen across one of Ruso’s men — or women, more accurately. At gunpoint, she reveals that Ruso and co. want Simon to prevent him from testifying, though exactly what he’d have to say she hasn’t been made privy to. The bad news is that Simon is missing. The worse news is that Cherokee manages to take control of a good chunk of the prison and retrieve Guille and Alicia from their babysitter, Rey. So, he holds all the cards.
Changing the balance of power like this creates some interesting new dynamics as we reach the midpoint of the season. Cherokee has essentially been promoted to the role of primary antagonist, at least temporarily — Simon remains a much more real threat, especially since he doesn’t have an obvious weakness in the way Cherokee’s fondness for Manuela threatens to unseat him. But we do get some tense sequences like Cherokee threatening to drive a hammer through Guille’s skull, and some new interpersonal conflicts to navigate. As the situation in the prison becomes more and more untenable, Hugo’s insistence on not handing Simon over becomes a less defensible position, and in due course, those who he perceives to be his allies are likely to become his enemies.
You can stream The Longest Night season 1, episode 3 exclusively on Netflix.
