Smoke – Season 1 Episode 5 Recap & Review

The Review Geek

2 days ago

Size Matters
Episode 5 of Smoke begins with Gudsen about to head out on his Arson Conference. Captain Burke shows up to see Englehart though, waking Gudsen up where he's currently dozing on the sofa.
Burke certainly backs Calderone's credentials though, calling himself a 'loyal soldier to the department'. It soon becomes clear that this visit was actually a clever ruse to find information on Gudsen's old partner, Ezra Esposito.
With the information in hand, he rings Calderone and lets her know the address. This gives her a solid lead but before she leaves, Emmett pops up, asking about his stepdad.
Given he's read Gudsen's novel, he questions whether Michelle is sleeping with him. She's pretty disgusted with the implication, but interestingly, Emmett has the draft of the book and sends it over to her. Thankfully there's an audio version but given his prose, I doubt anybody is going to buy this one on Audible!
Gudsen is unaware of all this as he heads to his conference, leaving Michelle to catch up with Ezra. Apparently Gudsen set up Ezra and got him fired because he got too close to the truth. 'I know he's an arsonist and you know it too,' He says.
Ezra explains that it's suspicious Gudsen is always at the scene of the crime first and has an uncanny ability to find an inch long incendiary device – literally a needle in a haystack – 17 times at different arson spots. Realizing his jig was almost up, Gudsen got rid of him.
Meanwhile, Freddie shows up at work and finds there's a new manager, Dev. He begins spiralling, unhappy that he's not been given the same opportunity and prepping for a big fire that night.
Speaking of unhappiness, over at the conference Gudsen's usual fire stunt doesn't go to plan. One of the officers questions Gudsen's methods and embarrasses him in front of everyone. Gudsen grins it off and instead focuses on Reba, a charismatic middle-aged woman at the bar.
Naturally, the pair end up in bed together, vibing over the idea of drifting through life and pretending everything is fine.
Unfortunately, Gudsen has a little trouble 'standing to attention' and Reba calls Gudsen out for it. He's still hung up over the presentation and she can sense this. It's also here where we learn that Reba is his ex-wife, and she knows how fragile his ego really is.
After a night of drinking, Eztra invites Michelle over to his and shows her a video of his 'initiation' with Gudsen. The video is pretty unsettling, depicting Ezra setting fire outside a caravan. Despite being told the place was empty, the caravan had dogs inside.
That's not the only arson incident we see this week though. Freddie is back on the hunt, but this time there's a problem. He winds up bursting the jug, spilling liquid everywhere in the park before clumsily getting another jug.
Freddie's target happens to be a white couple's place over in Crawford, where he shows up and sets light to their house using six jugs. Englehart phones Gudsen and demands he get on this. Checking out the report online, Gudsen grins and realizes that their arsonist has stepped it up a gear. He realizes that this MO means it was personal for him.
In the morning, Michelle leaves after making sure Ezra is okay. Ezra explains that okay is relative, given his whole life is a mess. This interaction though is a nice way of showing where Michelle's life could go if she lets Gudsen get inside her head.
Calderone continues to suffer through Gudsen's book, perking up when she hears crucial intel regarding the electrical fires.
We then cut back to Gudsen, who goes full-on karaoke mode as he heads back into town in his car. However, he doesn't watch the road and winds up smashing into the side of another car. They don't look in a particularly good way, and the episode ends with everything hanging in the balance.
The Episode Review
As we hit the halfway point of this series, Michelle Calderone is starting to understand Gudsen is their arsonist. Seeing more context around Ezra and why he's no longer working at the station is a nice inclusion, and it helps to explain what happened to him and why he's not around now.
The incident at the conference is a smart inclusion of showing precisely what sort of guy Gudsen is. It's clear that he doesn't respect anybody around him -especially women – and his ego is super fragile. Of course, the show couldn't help but throw in Hollywood's favourite mantra of 'white and pale is stale'. It's not subtle.
So far this has very much been a slow burn thriller, and fizzled out a bit after a pretty explosive couple of episodes to start things off. It really does feel like the proverbial deep breath before we plunge into darker waters, and for Apple's sake, lets hope things pick up in the episodes ahead.
Previous Episode
Next Episode
Expect A Full Season Write-Up When This Season Concludes!