The Sympathizer
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The Captain has a new job.
It leads you to wonder: Why did he accept the job then?
What purpose does this side quest serve?
The General similarly sees it as a means to reignite American support for the South.
But the Captains motives, as we later learn, are more sentimental.
Robert Downey Jr.s Damianos is an impudent and priggishartistewho refuses to budge on his creative vision.
At the episodes start, the Captain is asked to present his greatest misgivings with the script.
Hes concerned that no Vietnamese characters have any lines.
They dont even qualify as characters.
The Hollywood subplot is a mystifying departure from the previous episodes noir-ish murder plot.
It also comes at the expense of us getting to know the Captain.
Ive said it before: the script repeatedly sells the Captains complexity short.
Damianoss brutish condescension and bizarre exclamations upstages the Captains reserved frustration.
Hes unable or unwilling to fully emote on set.
In Damianoss office, the Captain suggests some lines for the Vietcong in a rare outburst of rage.
He slams the script on the table, shocking the director, and yells: Confess, you fucker!
While driving to set, the Captain finds Lana hiding out in his trunk.
She wants to tag along and he reluctantly allows her to accompany him.
Yet theres a disappointing lack of chemistry between the two.
They interact more like siblings than potential lovers.
He is stunned by her attention to detail.
I can almost smell my mothers cooking, he says approvingly.
These details offer some insight into the Captains past but are not a satisfactory substitute for his middling characterization.
As a spy, his motivations are still quite obscure (or underdeveloped) to us.
The Captain is on set to solve high jinks.
Lana, too, is eager to volunteer as an extra and cozies up to Johnson.
Theres one scene inThe Hamletthat makes the Captain especially uneasy.
Yoons character is captured and tortured by the Vietcong.
But things begin to unravel as Glenns commitment to method acting leads him to a mental spiral.
Im recounting something I didnt witness myself, the Captain confesses in a voiceover.
Some of the dialogue is conjecture but it helps to explain the events that follow.
A quick aside: I actually think the episode would have benefited from more expositional voiceover in this manner.
It was just wishful thinking.
Instead, we get some comedic improv between RDJ and Duchovny that is entertaining but unnecessary.
Damianos adds a grisly scene where a female villager gets raped by a Green Beret.
When the Captain learns of this, he angrily confronts Damianos in his office.
Its an anticlimactic confrontation where he hoarsely yells, You dont know a thing about my mother!
It may be his weakest scene so far.
The Captain sticks around out of concern for Lana.
In the scene, Johnsons character rushes in and rescues Que Linh/Lana while she is assaulted by Shamus/Glenn.
Fearing for Lanas safety, the Captain interrupts the scene and ruins Damianoss singular take.
Lana stalks off, angry at his interference, and the Captain is forcibly removed from the production.
On his way out, he stops by his mothers grave.
The very same indulgences you tried to change?
The same can be said for this very episode, which was regrettably bereft of any good lines.
