‘Smoke’ Episode 7 Features One Of The Very Best Scenes of the Year

I’m not given to hyperbole as a rule, so know this — there’s a long-ish sequence in Episode 7 of Smoke that I earnestly believe is one of the year’s very best. Nothing happens in it, either, or at least very little. But it’s a profound, nuanced, and brilliant exchange between two actors operating at the very top of their respective games. In the case of Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, in particular, it’s an awards-worthy turn, which is saying something given how brilliant he was in the previous episode.

I’m still not sure “Whitewashed Tombs” tops that, at least not as an overall hour, but the difference is negligible. Besides, it’s a very different kind of episode, because where that was all desperately tense build-up to Dave’s apprehension of Freddy, this is the comedown after that high. The status quo has changed. Dave is riding a newfound wave of celebrity, doing press tours, being serenaded in and out of the office, and being begged by literary agents to sign over the rights to his terrible novel. The ad hoc task force hastily put together to prove that he’s the D&C arsonist, meanwhile, are on the back foot, and have to adapt their strategy to compensate for the attention Dave’s getting. It’s a very effective reversal of the previous episode’s tone.

And, crucially, it doesn’t work. The task force comes up with a master plan, which is to convince Erica Boswell (Nicole Oliver), the literary agent who’s trying to track Dave down, to set Dave up in exchange for the rights to the “real” story behind his book. This involves Special Agent Hudson posing as someone from a publishing company and wining and dining Dave while trying to trick him into giving something meaningful away about his writing process. Dave loves having his ego stroked, of course, but he’s not stupid either. The scheme exposes a motive; he believes that he’s smarter than everyone else and that he hasn’t been commensurately rewarded for it, with society constantly opening doors for people who aren’t worthy. It has a whiff of red pill men’s rights activism to it, but it isn’t too overt about that. Either way, though, Dave senses that something is amiss and clams up.

This is one of the key milestones in a rapid downward spiral. Another comes when Dave assumes that his newfound heroic status entitles him to have Ashley back, and he ends up being thrown out again (you can tell this bothers him, because several characters ask him about Ashley throughout the episode, and he always lies and pretends they’re fine). But perhaps the most meaningful of all comes from Freddy.

Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine and Taron Egerton in Smoke | Image via Apple TV+

Freddy is looking at the death penalty if he doesn’t confess to all of the fires, but the only person he’ll speak to is Dave. Dave, naturally, assumes this is another confirmation of his profound importance, but it’s the furthest thing from that. Freddy sees right through Dave, describing his soul as maggots wriggling through the rotting carcass of a dead bird. He presses Dave about his most deeply-held secrets and traumas, the hole inside him left by his abandonment, the charred edges where he tried to fill that hole with flames. Dave is blindsided, then tries to claw the upper hand back, then gets embarrassed again. It’s a brilliant game of psychological one-upmanship, and while Taron Egerton is brilliant in it, Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine once again proves he’s the real MVP of this show. This is the standout scene of Smoke Episode 7 that I was referencing earlier.

And then there’s Michelle. Still reeling from the news that her mother is due to be released from prison, she seeks some emotional — though notably not physical, much to his annoyance — solace in Burk, but mostly gets on with trying to find something that implicates Dave. For that, she turns to Ashley, who describes a “thing” living inside of him that she’d occasionally catch glimpses of. That version of Dave would, she thinks, be capable of anything, starting fires included. But it hardly constitutes evidence. More meaningful is her description of Dave’s proclivities for rough sex, and his reiteration of a fantasy of forcing himself on her in a burning building. Ashley claims this was always just a fantasy and never came to fruition, but Ashley didn’t know about Dave’s second ex-wife. Luckily, Ezra did.

Not only did Ezra know about Reba, but she, alongside Dave, featured in two of his early amateur home movie efforts. Ezra makes it clear that, as unsavoury as filming Dave’s sexual fantasies was, Reba was totally into them. When Michelle goes to see Reba in person, this is basically confirmed. Michelle parrots Ashley’s description of Dave’s alter-ego, but Reba claims never to have seen any of that in him, which she’s clearly lying about — she was just obviously more into that side of him than she’s willing to let on. As soon as Michelle leaves, Reba calls Dave. We aren’t made privy to the particulars of the call, but we can hazard a good guess. This, the debacle at the publisher meeting, and Burk’s behaviour at the party being thrown in Dave’s honor, all tip him off to the fact that his colleagues are onto him. His unravelling is now inevitable.

But Smoke Episode 7 concludes more somberly, with an extended sequence depicting Freddy taking his own life while the precious few good memories he still holds dear cycle through his eyes. He was a bad guy, of that there can be no doubt, but what a terrible shame it is that we won’t get to see more of him.

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