Summary
Another odd episode lends some credence to the show’s supernaturalism.
This recap of the Nicolas Winding Refn Netflix series Copenhagen Cowboy Season 1 Episode 2, “Vengeance Is My Name”, contains spoilers.
Lonely — that’s the word. That’s what everyone in Copenhagen Cowboy seems to be. Even in group scenes, everyone is quiet, looking at the ground or some distant spot on the horizon. Even if they’re looking at someone else, it’s with a blank expression. Everyone is detached, alone, isolated, just trying to carve out a safe space in their personal reality.
Observe the composition of the shot early in “Vengeance Is My Name” when Andre is interrogating the girls about Cimona‘s disappearance. Look at the girls, all looking away. Look at the guy in the back of the shot, with the axe. Note the suggestion of violence in that. Look at Andre in the middle, his silent associate off to the upper right, observing, immobile. It’s like a still image. You could freeze it and get the point. There are technically two groups in this scene, the girls and the men who own them, but nobody seems on the same page. The girls don’t look at each other. The men look at Andre, but they don’t contribute anything. Even when Andre retrieves the axe, he walks and picks it up himself, like nobody else is there to pass it to him.
Copenhagen Cowboy Season 1 Episode 2 Recap
The girls blame everything on Miu. And Miu continues to be observant. She wanders, watching. The power dynamic has changed somewhat following Rosella’s miscarriage. She no longer believes Miu is lucky, but a demon; she can’t even look at her without the help of thick sunglasses. A local self-styled mystic reinforces the idea, huffing the panties Rosella bled in, as though that reveals some kind of hidden truth. Miu stands there all the while in a blue tracksuit with a popped collar, totally silent, but in complete control of the scene through presence alone. This shouldn’t be funny, but the whole thing’s absolutely hysterical.
What’s not funny is that Rosella decides that Miu should become someone else’s problem, so she leaves Sven to hold her gunpoint while she tries to foist her on Andre, ending up talking him into an 80/20 split on the basis that she’s still a virgin. That kind of thing commands a high price in the circles Andre runs in, so he sends his men to collect her while Rosella whips a naked Sven with a belt while pig squeals once again ring through the air.
Earlier, while Miu was out and about, she spotted Andre’s daughter with one of his men, and while she’s being forced to recite some basic information that’ll serve as her sales pitch to prospective bidders – remember, Andre’s operation has a whole marketing wing – she outs the guy, Dardan, right in front of Andre. He denies it, obviously, but Andre later asks Flora outright and she immediately confesses. Andre does the sensible thing and insists they get married immediately.
Meanwhile, the picture of Miu that Andre is using to advertise her reaches the Cimona Strangler, Nicklas, just as Miu herself escapes the brothel with the help of some of the other girls, taking relative refuge in a Chinese restaurant called Dragon Palace. The proprietor, Mother Hulda, tells her to leave, but in a turn of events that involves involving a pregnant woman that is clearly designed to lend an otherworldly quality to Miu that was never confirmed by Rosella’s “pregnancy” and “miscarriage”, Miu breathes life into a stillborn child.
In exchange, Miu bargains herself a place to stay. In the middle of the night, though, she returns to Rosella, ties her to the bed, and burns the place to the ground around her.
You can stream Copenhagen Cowboy Season 1 Episode 2, “Vengeance Is My Name” exclusively on Netflix.
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