Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Don Logan is the Gollum of the Sexy Beast cinematic universe. Sometimes he’s harmless, fawning Sméagol — desperate for his friend buddy Gal’s affection, willing to catch a bullet if it means sparing his only friend in the world. Sometimes he’s Gollum, paranoid and dangerous, prone to flying off the handle at the most minor perceived slight and spurring the sort of altercations that end with cops dead at the hands of their own crooked partners in full view of multiple witnesses. The problem for Gal is you never know which Don you’re gonna get; this is also the problem for Don.
We get to know Don a bit in this episode, which whisks he and Gal off to Spain, the site of their reunion in the movie a decade later. They’ve been brought there by Teddy Bass, whose respect and trust they’ve earned (to a point) enough for him to stake his own reputation on their ability to pull off a big score for his patron, Roger Riley. The rich cockney exile hopes to steal a massive diamond called the Eye of Bombay from Sir Stephen Eaton, the aristocrat who backed the McGraws in their play for Riley’s territory. The purpose of the other robberies is to spook Sir Stephen into moving the diamond back into the family home on Kensington Palace Gardens, one of the richest (and most secure) locations in the world. The boys are told to be on their best behavior.
Unfortunately for all concerned, both men are preoccupied. Gal has his mind on a magical night he spent walking and talking with Deedee; by the time the sun rose, he was in love, and he’s now trying to figure out how he can win her over. Don knows something’s up with Gal, and given the way his mind works he can only assume something vital is being hidden from him.
It’s an instructive glimpse into how the man’s mind works. For instance, after a row with the cops in town forces them to flee, they wind up stumbling into a wedding party, at which the groom passes out and the bride winds up making out with an inebriated but still charming Gal. (Deedee makes a point of nothing how Gal has probably always been charming to everyone.) Don sees this, and it’s off to the races. Gal doesn’t care about Marjorie, his fiancée, or he wouldn’t have made out with the bride next to her passed-out husband. Gal doesn’t care about Teddy, their ticket to the big time, or he’d have been more in a hurry to get back and less eager to enjoy the local color. Gal doesn’t care about Britain, or he wouldn’t even entertain the possibility of ever moving to a place as hot and Spanish and not-England as this. And if he doesn’t care about any of those things, what about poor Sméagol, I mean Don?
It comes to a head when Gal finally admits the truth: He’s fallen in love with a porn star, real name Deedee, whom he met a few weeks back, but he’s not sure she wants anything to do with him in the end, so now he’s completely at a loss as to what to do next. All Don can hear is he’s willing to throw away a whole lot of his life on account of “a filthy whore.” It’s the kind of shit Don says about everyone all the time, and the kind of shit Gal is used to hearing him say, but not about Deedee. It brings out a savage side of Gal we’ve never seen before, against a guy he views as a kind of neurodivergent kid brother, which shows you how serious Gal is about Deedee.
In the end Teddy interrupts the exhausted combatants, demanding why they missed their appointment with Roger the night before. His mind and Don’s aren’t a world apart, or Roger’s, for that matter: All three understand the meaning of the whole “For want of a shoe, the horse was lost” — if someone fucks up the small stuff, how can you trust them with anything important?
It shakes out alright for everyone in the end. Don shows he still believes in Gal by risking his life and saying it was his idea to let that security guard go in the first episode over Gal’s objections, not the other way around. Teddy shows he still believes in them both by bringing them back to Roger’s instead of killing them and starting from scratch. Roger shows he still believes in them both by allowing them to witness the execution of a police officer by another police officer on his orders. It’s in for a penny, in for a pound with these people.
Considering the paces they get put through in this episode, which is really kind of a one-crazy-night caper/ordeal movie in miniature, James McArdle and Emun Elliott are more impressive than ever as Gal and Don. Without doing impressions of the actors who originated the roles they still feel like convincing early versions of them both. You see how Gal’s charm is both a blessing and a curse; he draws people to him, which means some days you make out with a beautiful Spanish bride on her wedding night or form a deep and abiding connection with the most fascinating woman you’ve ever met while the Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes for You” plays on the soundtrack, and some days psychopaths decide you’re their best friend or best hope at revenge.
(Also, it’s so rare to see guys who are big flirts in stories like this. Hounds, sure, that’s one thing, from Tony Soprano on down. But a guy who just seems to enjoy giving and receiving affection to and from beautiful women, because it’s nice? That’s new to me.)
Meanwhile, you also see how Don is on the downward slope from “weird and sometimes scary, but funny and mostly harmless” to…not that in the movie. Again, in 2000 the mention of his name turns his former friends white with terror; at this point in his life, you can feel Gal’s heart swell when he catches Don talking to a statue of the Virgin Mary like it’s his own late mom. This isn’t easy work to do while still coloring within the broad outlines established by Ray Winstone and Ben Kingsley back in the day; blaming them for not being Winstone and Kingsley will cause you to miss what they’re doing on their own.
One final thing: Nighttime looks like nighttime on this show! Taking over directorial duties from creator Michael Caleo, David Caffrey appears to have actually, get this, lit for depth and moonlit color in his nighttime shots, instead of making everything a wash of blue twilight murk and apricot-colored orange lamplight. (I think True Detective: Night Country, a major offender on this score, has produced exactly one convincing nighttime shot at this point in its run.) You look like you could actually stand under that tree and talk to him if you want, without having your conversation fixed in post afterwards. It’s worth savoring moments of competent craft wherever and whenever you can.
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.
