Summary
Memory of a Killer risks using its premise as a source of cheap drama in “Samurai”, but the core plot remains pretty compelling.
I do like Memory of a Killer, and I think it has a fundamentally great premise, but you can feel it wearing a little bit in Episode 3, “Samurai”. This is partly the fault of Angelo himself, who is rather in denial about his worsening memory issues and keeps neglecting them, making his already complicated situation even worse. His unwillingness to face the facts here could be a bit uncharitably read as him overlooking something really important just to create drama, though I can see why someone his age would be reluctant to admit what was happening to him.
In the broad strokes, things are coming together rather nicely, though, aren’t they? There’s legitimate tension in a lot of the relationship dynamics because we don’t know who to trust. Detective Grant is obviously onto Angelo, but doesn’t yet have the evidence to make any meaningful moves, while Angelo and Dutch’s relationship seems destined to end in ruin. There’s even tension of a different kind between Maria and Dave, with a bit of a romantic connection lurking in the background that I never really noticed before.
This stuff is developing in the background and the margins, though, since the bulk of “Samurai” is about a side quest. Dutch’s cousin, Eddie, shows up at the restaurant to inform him that Marco Garcia, an Internal Affairs detective, is looking a little too deeply into his activities and plans to take evidence to the U.S. Attorney’s office. Since that can’t be allowed to happen, obviously, Angelo and Joe are tasked with taking the guy out and making the whole thing look like an accident, which is easier said than done.
Angelo and Joe get to work on this job, checking out the CCTV around Garcia’s property and rooting through his trash, which yields an important detail – Garcia is diabetic. Angelo plans to kill him by spiking his insulin, with Joe befriending his son, Danny, so as to allow them to get close enough to pull the whole thing off. It’s a nice window into Angelo’s approach, and allows him to bond with Joe a little bit, so there’s no real issue about it occupying the bulk of the episode’s focus.
Other stuff is going on elsewhere, though. Maria is struggling after the attempt on her life, and decides to be proactive by approaching Dave, with whom she obviously shares a bit of a history, and asking him to teach her how to shoot. Angelo also meets with Earl and pushes him for more information about the Ferryman, which is clearly going to be a long-term subplot, and finds a reason to visit Nicky when he discovers her necklace in his apartment. He does his best to explain why he found a gun in his fridge, and I think she buys it, but it also turns out that Nicky is dating a very possessive mobster named Lorenzo. Now seems as good a time as any to mention that I don’t particularly trust Nicky and I think there’s probably more to come from her, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
The big-ish twist of Memory of a Killer Episode 3 is the reveal that it was really McGee, Dutch’s other pet hitman, who was selling him out to Garcia. This means that the plan for Garcia has to be amended to incorporate taking McGee out of play, too. Angelo asks McGee for help taking out Garcia, then kills him and frames a drugged, unconscious Danny for it. Garcia arrives to find the chaos and naturally tries to help Danny cover it up. Angelo catches him in the act, and leverage is secured. But when he calls Dutch to tell him that the job has been done, he accidentally calls Maria instead. Oops.
This is just the latest in a string of dodgy details that Maria is starting to notice about her ostensibly run-of-the-mill dad, and it’s clear that in the back of her mind connections are beginning to form, even if she doesn’t yet know quite what to make of them. She finds herself on a ride-along with Dave, coming face to face with the dead body of Henry Bloch, which triggers some memories. For now, Angelo is able to freestyle some excuses to keep Maria off his tail, but he’s running out of road in that regard. The closer she gets to Dave, the closer she gets to the wreckage her dad is leaving in his wake, and thus, the closer she gets to finding out who her dad really is.
In the cliffhanger ending, after patching things up with Nicky, Angelo heads out to meet Wesley, whom he’s sure works for the Ferryman. He demands to be taken to him, but it can’t be that easy, can it?
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