‘The Asset’ Episode 3 Recap – Okay, I Didn’t Expect That

The morning after the night before is never easy. If you’re a recovering drug addict who just had a few bumps of Class A narcotics, and if your friendship with your new bestie is liable to get her killed by her dangerous mobster boyfriend, the morning after is a whole new nightmare. This is the position that Tea finds herself in when she wakes up to flashes of strobe lights and coke boogers in Episode 3 of The Asset. And the hangover fog is only going to get worse, trust me.

After the terrible beating we heard Ashley receive at the end of the previous episode, she isn’t too keen on the idea of maintaining a relationship with Tea, which seems fair enough to me. According to Folke, that means a new angle needs to be taken — Tea has to go through Miran, whom he’d initially assured her she wouldn’t have to get involved with. If he’s already moving the goalposts at this stage, it’s pretty obvious that Folke doesn’t exactly have Tea’s best interests at heart.

And thus we’re introduced to the main vein of tension in “Blood and Balloons”. Tea contrives a reason to visit Miran at home — returning the dress she borrowed from Ashley’s friend, Ibi — and ends up taking him to the store, where he purchases Ashley a “gift”. This is classic abuser stuff, being all apologetic and sensitive after lashing out. Cynically, this is what Tea uses to her advantage. Miran, feeling like he overreacted, allows Tea to get back in touch with Ashley; he even encourages Ashley to take Tea out on his dime as a goodwill gesture. But is it a goodwill gesture, or is he playing a long game?

He’s playing a long game, obviously. He wants Ashley to ask Tea if she can help her invest in stones — he’s smelling a business opportunity. Folke sees this as a major potential coup, since they can just follow the stones to Miran and his suppliers and take the whole operation down in one fell swoop. Tea has to tease Ashley that there’s an opening; nothing more, nothing less. This entails a date to a spa facility that looks to me like something hacked out of an old asylum, which leads to another date at Sofia’s upcoming eighth birthday party, but Ashley doesn’t ask about the potential investment, which Miran intuits immediately. There’s a terrible vibe to all this. Ashley just thinks she has made a friend and doesn’t want to pressure her, but she has to because Miran will abuse her if she doesn’t, and her friend is manipulating her anyway. How awful.

Tea senses this and goes off-script for the first time in The Asset Episode 3. Tea, Folke, and Yasin are listening in on Miran pressuring Ashley to call Tea to prove she’s lying about refusing the investment, and Tea, knowing that she’ll endanger Ashley by playing dumb, plays along. This spares Ashley from Miran’s wrath, but it lands Tea in hot water with Folke, since she can’t do whatever she likes with information she isn’t supposed to know. Folke’s mask slips a bit here, and he openly threatens Tea with ruining her career prospects if she doesn’t toe the line.

Because of this, Sofia’s birthday party becomes a chance for Tea to redeem herself and smooth everything over between all parties. It’s a fascinating setting, this, because it requires Miran to cosplay a doting family man more theatrically than ever, all while trying to strongarm Tea into accepting the deal. But it also brings Tea into close proximity with Bambi, who clearly has the hots for her but whom she also seems oddly interested in. She’s sneaking a smoke with him outside when a man turns up and shoots him to death right in front of her, which is easily the most dramatic cliffhanger of the series thus far.

Things are heating up, folks, morally and narratively.

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