‘Sexy Beast’ Episode 6 Recap: Bachelor Party

First, and maybe foremost, this is the most sympathetic portrayal of infidelity I’ve ever seen on television. This is not to say, obviously, that it shies away from the impact Gal and Deedee’s actions have on Marjorie and Alan; their responses — she’s devastated and teary; he funnels it all into a desire to beat the guy up — ring true based on how gender roles are expected to be played in this situation. 

But we already know, from the movie, that what Deedee and Gal have is True Love, a love that will last forever, a love they’re willing to die for, and ultimately to kill for. Everything creator Michael Caleo, working here with cowriter Ollie Masters (off a story by Masters and Juliet Lashinsky-Revene), has had them do proceeds from that unshakeable fact. This isn’t an impulsive, selfish affair, though it may in some ways be both. This is two people who were meant to find each other finding each other, if you believe that kind of thing at all. It’s painful, it’s unpleasant, but it’s also the best thing that will ever happen to either of them. 

The show knows it. And shows it. That sex scene in the car is rapturous before Alan breaks it up. Even the sex scene that opens the episode, in which Gal imagines Deedee as Marjorie makes love to him — you understand why he’s doing it, and you understand how unfair it is to Marjorie. They’re not pulling punches in either direction.

But it’s the lead-up to that car sex scene that really seals it. When Deedee asks Alan why he loves her, he doesn’t have an answer. When she asks Gal, it takes him a moment — not because he doesn’t know, but because he does, and wants to get it right. “Because when I’m wif ya,” he says in his Gal accent, “I’m not afraid.” Reader, I went “woooooooooooo” out loud. Yeah, that’ll make someone fall right back in love with you alright.

This leads to the second point: James McArdle’s performance as Gal. Maybe it’s the way he talk-laughs through a toothy grin as he horses around with Marjorie in bed, maybe it’s how he spends a decent amount of the episode with his shirt off and a gold necklace on, but it suddenly hit me: He’s channeling James Gandolfini as a youngish Tony Soprano in the early seasons as much as he’s channeling Ray Winstone in the Sexy Beast movie. Talk about setting the bar high for yourself, but he clears it, god bless him. It’s a meticulously crafted performance of an effortlessly charismatic character. 

Point three: Don Logan’s dysfunction. In a genuinely inspired stroke, the show has made Don Gal’s best man. Fucking amazing! And unimaginable if you’ve seen the film, but now wholly believable thanks to the work done by Caleo, McArdle, and Emun Elliott. There’s no doubt at all that Elliott has the hardest job of anyone in the cast: He has to be a prelude to one of the most iconic performances in the history of British cinema, similar enough to feel right yet different enough to demonstrate that he is not yet what he eventually becomes.

On top of that, he has to work with the psychosexual horrorshow that we’ve learned is Don Logan’s mind — a concept that may have been on the mind of Ben Kingsley and the filmmakers but which was never articulated outright. It’s unlikely that his abusive father and sister were on anyone’s mind during the making of that movie either. Elliott has to carry all of that weight.

Knowing Don the way we know him now, of course he’s both perfect and singularly unsuited to the task of arranging Gal’s stag party. Perfect, because he views Gal as a combination best friend, brother, and minor deity, especially after he displays a true safecracker’s intuition and unlocks a safe on instinct alone. He wouldn’t dare fuck this up! But singularly unsuited, because this is not a man capable of handling the low-grade sexual hijinks of a bachelor party. When his buddies insist he receive a lap dance from the stripper he’s hired, his brain boils like a tea kettle until he finally tosses the woman off his lap to the ground, shouting “You dirty bird!” like he’s Annie from Misery.

This Don makes sense as a guy who would brutally slut-shame Deedee all those years later. It’s less that he’s a misogynist pig and more that he’s a broken man, incapable of healthy sexual relationships, suspicious of those who enjoy it. His father enjoyed it, after all. His sister too, maybe. To hell with people like Deedee, then. 

That’s why he breaks when Marjorie, tipped off by the vindictive Ann Marie, confronts him about it. As much as he loves Gal, he can’t bring himself to cover for the lovable lug when he’s doing the wrong thing. Whatever else Gal is, he’s disloyal to Marjorie, and that will cost him and Deedee a lot with Don in the end.

On the other side of the slut spectrum is Teddy Bass, the man for whom Freud invented the phrase “polymorphously perverse.” (Not really, “polymorphously perverse” refers to one of Freud’s imaginary stages of infant development and does not in fact mean “I’ll fuck anything that moves,” but hey, it’s a living language!) We learn here that Arabella (Hannah van der Westhuysen) the beautiful, patrician woman he’s been seen with at the club, is related by marriage to Sir Stephen, his quarry; this is the kind of chess he’s playing. We watch her coo and purr about his extremely direct advances to her gorgeous friend Chole (Maja Simonsen) as they recline drunk on a couch. 

We watch him verbally spar with Sir Stephen, who knew Teddy’s identity and general line of work even before Teddy offers to “find” the necklace he himself ordered Gal and Don to steal from Chloe. We watch Chloe spread her stockinged legs for him at dinner so he can put his hand down her panties. We watch Sir Stephen bid him goodbye with a lingering touch on his shoulder; even he cannot resist this man’s magnetism.

And when he does get violent, crushing the nerves in the hand of some posh git who insulted Arabella in a joking way until he literally brings him to his knees, it only seems like he’s reacting to an insult in the moment. That is simply not how Teddy Bass operates, or he’d have hauled off at Freddie McGraw in the club instead of turning away and waiting for the right moment to spring. (Freddie’s reputation has suffered tremendously as a result, if even Deedee is aware of the incident.) No, he’s doing this not to vent his anger, but as a calculated ploy to further impress Arabella, Chloe, and Sir Stephen with his virility. Does it work? Guess what, motherfuckers? 

Stephen Moyer’s Teddy is not Ian McShane’s Teddy. This man is more dynamic, less reserved, if still every bit as charming. He’s still got places to go, people to see, things to prove. By contrast, the Ted of Jonathan Glazer’s film is like Paul Sorvino’s Paulie in GoodFellas: “Paulie? Paulie didn’t move for anybody.”

But Teddy has been blessed with, there’s truly no other word for it, the kavorka. “Everyone in this room, man and woman, wants to fuck me, but I only want you”: This was his opener for Arabella, and it worked, because it’s true. Teddy Bass is un homme fatale, a noir seductress in cis male form, using sex to lure, use, and destroy. In a story full of people who are all too real, he’s a movie villain. They stand as much of a chance against him as they would against Gozer the Gozerian. 

Every single layer that Sexy Beast adds has enhanced rather than obscured the source text. It’s like if Coppola had made a TV series of the Vito Corleone section of The Godfather Part II. It is absolutely the goddamnedest thing. 

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.