Summary
In “Make ‘Em Dance”, Lucky benefits from a more even focus and a bit more moral complexity, though it still isn’t quite as engaging as I’d perhaps like.
The good news is that Lucky is improved in Episode 2, “Make ‘Em Dance”. It divides its focus more evenly, spends more time with characters who were only obliquely mentioned in the premiere, and, perhaps most importantly, develops a bit of moral complexity that makes us think and feel differently about our eponymous protagonist. Sure, you’re still rooting for Anya Taylor-Joy to do cool conwoman stuff, but you have to at least second-guess the cynicism with which she can portray herself as an abuse victim, and the fact that she keeps setting people on fire.
I don’t love that brief, hazy flashbacks continue to be the primary means of communicating important character dynamics. They threaten to feel a bit wedged in, artlessly. This episode opens with one, for instance, which shows Lucky and Cary picking up the money that the latter would eventually abscond with at the former’s expense. I’m not sure we needed to see it, since it doesn’t offer anything especially illuminating that we didn’t already know.
Quickly enough, though, we catch up with Lucky as she staggers through the Nevada desert and stumbles onto a property in the middle of nowhere, where she spends basically the entire episode. And I’ll give the show credit, since almost everything that happens here is solid. After stoving in the head of a rattlesnake with a rock so she can steal water from a hose, Lucky is invited in by a woman, Sylvia, and her curious grandchildren, so that they can treat her wounds and give her a proper drink. And she’s in her element.
There’s a lot to pick up on here if you’re looking for it. We see Lucky’s easy charisma with the kids and the way she feeds Sylvia another made-up story about being a domestic violence survivor. The fact that she makes her fake abusive husband a cop is a nice touch, since she’s worried about the FBI catching up with her, and when they do, she can imply that they’re colleagues of her crazy spouse. It shows a real amount of forethought in her manipulations. She knows exactly how to make the kids like her, and exactly how to make Sylvia feel sympathetic towards her. And, when the time comes, she uses this to manipulate and exploit them, uncharacteristically for a point-of-view character.
Lucky really does stab Sylvia in the back, too. It isn’t a reluctant thing. When Rand arrives and figures out that Sylvia is harboring Lucky, she immediately puts a plan into action, slipping out of the property and stealing Sylvia’s truck. But she’d already nabbed the keys earlier. She was always planning to bounce at Sylvia’s expense. Another flashback briefly clarifies Lucky’s callous attitude. Her father raised her that way. “Everybody has a rhythm,” he tells her, “Learn to play it, and you can make ’em dance”. That line forces us to reconsider how Lucky interacts with everyone she meets.
This is part of an expansive survival toolset. We see some of her other skills when Dutch catches up with her at a gas station. She’s able to set his legs on fire and evade him, but she makes the ballsy move of hiding in his truck, which is probably the last place he’d think to look. Lucky is a character you root for because she keeps the plot moving, and you’re interested in seeing what she does next, but thus far, the Apple TV show is taking quite a bold approach in how it’s characterising her.
Lucky Episode 2 also spends much more time with Priscilla, who is unequivocally a bad guy, but around whom we seem to be building some measure of sympathy. First, she visits John in prison, where she warns him that Wayne Whittaker, whose money Cary took off with, will kill both of their children if he doesn’t get what he wants. There’s no love lost between the two, but there are also clear hints of a previous relationship, which is confirmed later. In short, it seems like Priscilla’s job was to wash Wayne’s money, John conned her out of a great deal of it, and then he instructed Lucky and Cary to move it before she could find it. She’s also fresh out of prison, which is what mandated the urgency of the short-notice job. She would have immediately been hunting for the cash.
Priscilla’s relationship with Cary also seems quite interesting. She traces the GPS of his rental car to the parking lot of a mall in Long Beach and finds an address on a bit of rubbish inside it. This takes her to the address of a guy named Noah, who claims not to know Cary, so Priscilla shoots him in the foot and takes him with her.
But it’s Priscilla’s demeaning scene with Wayne that is most telling. She’s visibly frightened of him. And for good reason — when she tries to soften him by being all flirtatious, he strangles her half to death while berating her about the delusion of a woman of her advanced years trying to throw sex around as a negotiation tactic. Poor Annette Bening! But either way, it’s clear he wants his money back, and that Priscilla isn’t going to be safe until she gets it. That makes her even more dangerous. I give it a couple of episodes until Lucky sets her on fire.
