‘Smoke’ Gets More Right Than Wrong In Episode 5

I’m not going to lie to you, I had written Smoke off. The previous episode was so deeply awful and misguided that it seemed incomprehensible the show could recover at all, let alone in the space of a single episode. But Episode 5, “Size Matters”, is probably the best single outing of the season thus far. It’s darkly funny, disturbing, introduces John Leguizamo in an extremely fun role, and builds to a totally surprising cliffhanger. The difference in quality is so stark that you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a different show entirely.

Sure, some of the oddities persist, but we seem to be getting a better handle on them as we go. Dave’s novel, for instance, features fairly heavily in “Size Matters”, but it’s rightly used as a source of comedy and plot development and not, crucially, as a rubric for the show itself. And speaking of Dave, he’s still visibly nuts, but in a much more manageable, less cartoonish form than before. His weirdness adds deeper insight into his character instead of rendering him as a ridiculous cliche.

Speaking of Taron, he shoulders a lot of the dramatic weight in this episode, entirely unlike the Michelle-focused chapter he was barely in. This works better, too. Michelle’s still here, and is undeniably important to the overall story, but this feels very much like the Dave Gudsen show. The plot isolates him here by sending him off to that much-talked-about Arson Investigator Conference in Leighton, where we get to see him at his most delusional, but also oddly vulnerable and pathetic.

At the conference, Dave gives the same performative “fire is chaos” presentation as last week, but this time he’s called out by a woman in the audience who embarrasses him about his vacuous approach and the fact that he has failed to apprehend two separate arsonists who are active in his jurisdiction. In the moment, it seems like Dave takes it fairly well, but it comes back to bite him later in an unexpected way.

That way involves Reba, an insurance adjuster Dave meets in a karaoke bar. She’s beautiful, a little older, and married, which doesn’t seem to be much of a deterrent to Dave. Egerton works really well in this mode, and it’s interesting to see him code-switching, shifting his demeanour between the guys he knows, the showman version of himself who gives the presentation, and the charming, mysterious seducer who eventually talks Reba into bed… almost.

Here, Smoke Episode 5 delivers a neat twist. For one thing, Dave can’t get it up because he’s still dwelling on being humiliated by a woman at the presentation. But more importantly, Reba is his ex-wife. This is a role-playing game they must play semi-regularly, despite both being married to other people. And Reba knows Dave well enough to make the connection between his fragile ego and his inability to perform. The dysfunction not only runs deep, it’s collaborative.

The bigger twist comes later. Dave is called away from the conference by Harvey, who informs him that Milk Jug has escalated his crimes by burning up a well-to-do white couple in a much more upscale neighborhood, using six incendiary devices. Dave is visibly excited by this. As he leaves the conference, we see a convenience store burning in the background, and a smile creeps across his lips — whether it’s excitement over going after Milk Jug or alleviating the frustration of his failed tryst with Reba is a little unclear — until he’s suddenly T-boned by a truck at an intersection.

This is totally unexpected and a great place to leave things. I don’t for a moment think Dave’s dead, but that kind of shock value can go a long way, although I’m unsure how the overarching plot will fare if he has to be sidelined for recovery purposes. Speaking of which, I have a new complaint.

Luke Roessler in Smoke | Image via Apple TV+

This is fairly minor, I’ll grant you, but the focus on Dave, the less intriguing of the two active arsonists, even if he’s the most entertaining character overall, leaves Freddy feeling shortchanged. And I really think you can feel that here in “Size Matters”, because the build-up to Freddy’s biggest crime yet is just a couple of brief scenes wherein it becomes clear he didn’t get the manager job. There’s also the small matter of a problem with one of the milk jugs, meaning he has to buy another, with one of the black plastic bags that will surely have a chicken tag attached. It’s the kind of helpful coincidence that I said would happen, but nonetheless wish didn’t. Either way, more about Freddy’s motivation, backstory, and personality would be welcome.

Even Michelle hardly seems interested! She spends all of Smoke Episode 5 trying to track down Dave’s former partner, Ezra Esposito, which she manages to do pretty quickly. He’s now working as a… let’s say “videographer”, but it’s clear that his embarrassing dismissal from the force has cost him a lot. He’s a drunk, he lives in a trailer, and he’s permanently angry, especially when Dave is mentioned.

But thus far, there’s no concrete evidence to prove that Dave is an arsonist, which Michelle patiently reminds him of while they get drunk during the day and into the night. John Leguizamo is brilliant in this. He plays a great drunk, but it’s a much more versatile performance than that, as Ezra has a salesman’s charm but a veteran’s demons, and it’s fascinating how you can sometimes see the latter peeking out of the former. With a bit of explanation, it’s easy to see why. In a chilling moment, Ezra plays Michelle a video of an “initiation” that Dave subjected him to after they’d been working together for a year, tricking him into burning down a trailer Ezra thought was empty but that actually had dogs inside. Ezra plays for laughs a lot, but his trauma is real, as is his desire for Dave to see justice.

Michelle has firmly taken this responsibility on, helped along by the audio version of Dave’s manuscript draft, which is AirDropped to her by Emmett. The fact that she features in the story as a romantic conquest of Dave’s self-insert “hero” turns her stomach, and every time we cut back to her listening to a snippet, Jurnee Smollett’s appalled reaction is great fun. But it’s likely that, as in the real-life case, this manuscript will hold the secrets to Dave’s eventual apprehension. I just hope Freddy doesn’t get left by the wayside in the meantime.

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