Penultimate episodes of thrillers are tougher than they look. The writers and producers need to strike a balance between answering just enough questions to satisfy viewers who have already committed so much time to the season that they don\u2019t want to see a show spin its wheels right when it needs to pick up speed, but they also need to save the big stuff for the finale.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team behind \u201cN\u00e1niikai (We Came Back)\u201d come close to threading that needle, pushing their many subplots closer to either conclusion or at least a satisfying break between seasons. There\u2019s death, movement toward healing, and two key relationships that feel like they\u2019re at turning points. While some of the individual scenes feel a bit hurried, especially the heartfelt one between Jim and Bern, the sum of this episode\u2019s individual parts is another reminder of its overall quality, leaving us ready for the finale without promising we\u2019ll get every question answered.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the big one: What will happen between Joe and Emma Leaphorn? The season opened with a solitary Joe feeling a bit unmoored by the departure of the love of his life. When the case of Billie Tsosie took Joe to Los Angeles and back into Emma\u2019s life, it felt like a reunion that would result in her returning to their home. But this week\u2019s best scene changed the odds of that happening significantly. She\u2019s happy in L.A. and wants to make a go of it there. She\u2019s not closing the door on ever returning to Joe, who she clearly still loves. It\u2019s a tender scene between two great performers that also speaks to the displacement felt by a number of Indigenous people in this country, people who live off the reservation that holds their hearts.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s a theme to \u201cN\u00e1niikai (We Came Back),\u201d it\u2019s the way personal relationships can both define and complicate our goals. For example, the ruthless Irene murders her grandfather in cold blood, running him down with her car when the mean old man becomes too much work for her. At the same time, Billie\u2019s reunion with the mother she thought was dead is fraught with emotion and danger. As it unfolds in the episode, it\u2019s a little hollow simply because we don\u2019t know the mother character at all and barely know Billie really (despite good work by Isabel DeRoy-Olson), but it ties into other arcs of the season, especially Jim\u2019s. If you think about it, both Jim Chee and the girl he\u2019s been trying to save are haunted by their absent mothers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In this episode, Jim finally breaks down and tells Bern how much he\u2019s been impacted by the death of his mother. It\u2019s revealed that she died of cancer during his senior year of college and that Jim didn\u2019t take her back to the reservation to pass. He\u2019s haunted by the fact that she \u201cdied among strangers\u201d because of him and that he didn\u2019t take the time to give her the homecoming to make sure her soul rested in peace. Like a few of the emotional beats this episode that feel rushed to get to the action of the finale, this scene comes off as a bit manufactured as Matten and Gordon push the tears a little too hard. It\u2019s excusable due to how exhausted these characters would logically be, and I love how vulnerable the writers of this show make their leads, but it still feels rushed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What about the action? It starts when Irene catches up to Billie after her awkward reunion with her mother. Just as she\u2019s about to kill Billie, Joe, Bern, and Mustache Man arrive, and a well-done sequence unfolds with a pulsing score and tight editing. Mustache gets stabbed in the shoulder, and Irene escapes with Billie. She needed the hostage to get out of the situation, but Bern knows that she\u2019ll likely kill Billie now, which amplifies the urgency for the finale.<\/p>\n
The real tension this week comes in two scenes: First, it\u2019s the alpha-male showdown between Joe Leaphorn and Dominic McNair. Does it feel to anyone else like they\u2019re setting up McNair to be a villain in a future season? Joe admits that McNair will likely get off in his upcoming trial and be walking free soon. Zahn McClarnon and Titus Welliver are excellent in this scene as two tough, no-nonsense men trying to one-up each other with words and threats. When McNair says, \u201cThe last thing you want is me worried about you,\u201d it feels like a threat that could be difficult to wrap up with only one remaining episode.<\/p>\n
Second, of course, there\u2019s the ending, which is a twist on a twist. The first is that the slacker dude in the camper that Bern and Jim talked to days ago who said he was Phillip Grayson was actually the coveted Leroy Gorman, which sends Joe there to bring him home. When Leroy confuses his aunt with his grandmother, Joe realizes it\u2019s all been a trap. That isn\u2019t Leroy; it\u2019s someone working with Irene, who emerges from the shadows to chloroform and kidnap our hero. Flashbacks reveal that this case was never about killing Leroy; it was about replacing him for the upcoming testimony. And the reason Irene had to eliminate Billie and Albert was because they would recognize the stand-in. Irene says, \u201cYou\u2019re mine now, Joe.\u201d Not for long.<\/p>\n
Stray observations<\/p>\n
\u2022 Isabel DeRoy-Olson is good here, which reminded me to recommend Erica Tremblay\u2019s Fancy Dance, an Apple TV film that stars her and the wonderful Lily Gladstone. It\u2019s worth seeking out.
\n\u2022 If the fake Leroy looks familiar, that\u2019s Forrest Goodluck, who debuted in The Revenant and has appeared in The Miseducation Of Cameron Post, How To Blow Up A Pipeline, and the Paramount+ show Lawmen: Bass Reeves. He\u2019s a solid, promising young performer.
\n\u2022 The show\u2019s final scene gives way to \u201cIn Memory Of Udo Kier,\u201d a legendary screen presence who passed in November. There are too many memorable Kier turns to recommend as the German legend appeared in more than 200 films. He will be truly missed.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Did anyone else notice that Irene shifts gears right before the commercial break after running over Gunthar? It looks to me like she\u2019s putting it in reverse to make sure the job gets done.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Predictions for the finale? Irene has to die. She\u2019s committed too much murder not to meet a deserved fate. Will someone save Joe or will he escape on his own? It feels like maybe Jim needs a redemption arc in the finale, a reminder that he can overcome his demons and still be a hero even if Bern is his boss.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Brian Tallerico is a contributor to The A.V. Club.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penultimate episodes of thrillers are tougher than they look. The writers and producers need to strike a balance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-365294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}