Duster goes Looney Tunes in a rollicking episode
Well, that was fun! After a second episode that channeled some Quentin Tarantino flair and a third that went full Halloween II slasher, Duster goes Looney Tunes this week. And by that, I mean this episode literally opens with Josh Holloway's Jim Ellis imagining his current criminal predicament as a Looney Tunes cartoon. It's a hilarious bit of animation and a welcome reminder that Duster doesn't take itself too seriously, so neither should we.
In fact, this episode ends with one of my favorite action set pieces yet: a bathroom brawl between Jim and an assassin that eventually turns into a team-up car chase motivated by a dose of Russian sociology. It's not at all how I expected this more character-centric hour to end. But part of the fun of Duster is that you never know what you're going to get when you tune in each week, and this hour totally delivers on the surprise front.
The other thing that impresses me about Duster is how it's balancing episodic and serialized storytelling. Though each of the first three installments felt like distinctive hours of TV, they've all been continually adding to the overarching plot as well. Back in the premiere, Jim briefly made and then broke a deal to drive for Mexican crime lord 'Mad Raul,' which now comes back to haunt him here as Raul's assassin Enrique the Blade (Rigo Sanchez) enters the scene. Meanwhile, it turns out Nina's trip to the Kirkbridge Sanitarium last week wasn't so pointless after all. Agent Breen may be dead by suicide (yikes), but it turns out he left a secret code for his replacement to follow. And Awan's love of comic-book riddles is just the thing to crack it.
Even Elvis' blue suede shoes are still in play, as Jim didn't bury Sunglasses in them after all. It's fun to see Duster maintain such a strong sense of continuity even as the tone and locale changes week to week. This time around, Jim and Nina both get out of Phoenix for the day, as he offers to drive Saxton's son Royce to the Snowbird warehouse in Scottsdale while she pays a visit to the Navajo Nation reservation with a reluctant Awan in tow in order to find the secret message Breen hid there. After two 'showcase' episodes, it's nice to see our two co-leads on more of an equal playing field again—especially when characters like Izzy, Royce, and Awan all get some new dimensions this week too.
If there's an overall theme to this episode, it's about feeling caged in by 'the man.' Izzy, for instance, is struggling with the reality of being one of just 126 female long-haul truckers in her union. There aren't safe bathrooms or showers on the road, and sexual harassment is a frequent reality of the job. When union president Bob Temple (Kevin Chamberlin, returning from the premiere) refuses to take her concerns seriously, she rallies some of her fellow female drivers to take him down.
That Izzy lets Luna serve beers and listen in on some very adult ranting is a hilarious bit of low-key '70s parenting in action. But it's also a sweet example of the way she lets Luna into the realities of daily life as a woman in a male-dominated field. Izzy is letting her daughter understand both the hardships women face and the solidarity they can find together, and those are lessons that will surely serve Luna well as she grows up.
If only Royce could be so lucky. Unlike Luna, Royce has been shut out of the day-to-day details of his father's work life. Though he's ostensibly a power player and future leader of Snowbird, in reality he's being treated more like a child. And in a classic 'chicken or the egg' dilemma, it's hard to tell whether that's keeping him in a childlike state or whether Saxton might have the right instincts that Royce isn't really up for the tough jobs.
While Royce was sympathetic when he was recovering from heart surgery and reading his little sci-fi novels, he comes across like a bit more of an off-putting dweeb this week. He picks up Howard Hughes' famed Lincoln V12 'Aeromobile' only to immediately overheat it on the road. And he fails to do even the most basic of price negotiation with the mechanic he hires to fix it. Royce is naive at best and ineffectual at worst. Thankfully, that makes him just the right mark for Jim's newfound interest in sleuthing.
It's kind of hilarious how easily Jim is able to manipulate Royce's 'we both feel powerless' sympathies into a full-on tour of the Snowbird Mesa Scottsdale warehouse. One of the main pleasures of Duster is watching Jim grow in confidence as a spy as Nina keeps pushing him for more and more hard evidence about Saxton's organization. Holloway is doing a fantastic job layering Jim's rough-and-tumble demeanor with a level of charisma and confidence that makes him a really believable double agent.
In fact, Jim is so charming that he literally gets Enrique the Blade to share some bourbon with him mid-fight, Princess Bride style. ('It wouldn't be very sportsman-like killing a man you just had drinks with.') Where Sawyer always had a chip on his shoulder on Lost, Jim is much more inclined to play nice where he can, which makes him a great take on the crime-driver archetype. Though I initially thought the show was just trying to pretend Holloway isn't in his fifties, it now feels like age and experience are real assets for the character. Where others in his position might be hotheaded or impulsive, Jim is smart enough to see the big picture and patient enough to know which battles are worth fighting. 'At least I get to live to fight another day,' he tells Enrique as he hands over Hughes' car to pay off his debt to Mad Raul.
This episode ends with our most explicit cliffhanger yet, with Jim on the side of the road in the middle of the desert, unsure how he'll explain what happened to Royce. But it's actually the Nina/Awan half of the episode that felt a tad unfinished to me. Though I enjoyed pretty much everything about their trip into Navajo Nation, I was waiting for a slightly more substantial climax to bring it all together.
It's interesting to see a 1970s reservation in action and fun to meet Awan's old friend Daryl (a delightful Tyler Laracca). I'm also intrigued by the idea that Awan's father sees him becoming a fed as a betrayal of his Navajo community—even as Awan feels that working for the FBI is the best way to get his community equal justice. Again, it's a moment where we see how 'the man' is weighing on our heroes in different ways, which is something Nina can relate to as well. Her criminal father wouldn't have wanted her to become a fed either, while her doctor ex-fiancé didn't want her to have a career at all. I just wanted one more button or elevation to really tie everything together.
Hopefully the reservation will be a location we revisit often because it's a welcome addition to a series that's clearly trying to shine a light on the non-white-male 1970s Southwest experience. For now, however, the detour mostly exists to give Awan a little backstory and provide our FBI heroes another clue from Breen: a scratchy video recording in which he warns against Xavier, the same person Jim overheard Saxton and the Russians discussing last week.
Still, even if some of the plotting is a little underbaked, that's a minor complaint for an episode that adds Robert Rodriguez as yet another directorial influence on the series. Enrique's endless hidden knives and over-the-top throwing skills bring some of that opening Looney Tunes energy into live action, albeit against some Mormon-looking carjackers rather than Jim. That the Jim/Enrique climax can be really goofy, violent, and unexpectedly noble all at once is a great example of what Duster is adding to our current TV landscape.
The fact that Jim moves from fake bonding with Royce to really bonding with Enrique is also a welcome reminder of the ties can be forged in solidarity against 'the man.' If all of our characters are looking to 'move upward' in one way or another, here's hoping there will be more fun, unexpected pairings in the future.
• This week in 'It's the 1970s!': I don't have much first-hand experience with urinals, but that trough-style one sure looked like a relic from the past. Also, David rocks some incredible cutoff jean shorts to go with his '70s stache.
• Opening-credits watch: We get an advanced glimpse of Howard Hughes' car before it debuts in the episode. Plus, we finally see the Snowbird Mesa warehouse IRL this week, while David gives Luna a set of Hot Wheels complete with a loop track.
• My main reference point for Kevin Chamberlin is Seussical The Musical, so it's hilariously jarring to watch him play a lecherous union president here.
• Izzy walks into a building labeled 'Truckers Union Office Local 649,' but aren't they called Teamsters?
• The one thing Nina kept from her college ex-fiancé is the idea of doing push-ups when you get stressed.
• I never noticed the geometric shape of Nina's glasses before, but they look so cool!
• It turns out Awan's love of superheroes extends to Adam West's Batman as well. 'I love Frank Gorshin, don't you?' he asks Nina. 'I'm more of an Eartha Kitt girl,' she responds.
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