1-3. Smart Money Is on the Skinny Bitch.

Sun displays her martial arts skills, not aware

 that she's about to fight two battles at once.

Running Time: Approx. 48 minutes. Written by: The Wachowskis, J. Michael Straczynski. Directed by: The Wachowskis.


THE PLOT:

Will is a hero after successfully arresting Jonas, but his injuries landed him in the hospital. When he insists on leaving, it's over the protests of the attending nurse, who talks about "unusual brain activity." Will tries to see Jonas, but his newfound status is not enough for the FBI to agree to that, and he is left wondering if he truly did the right thing.

In Korea, Sun is frustrated with attempts to contact her father regarding business irregularities. She relieves her anger by entering a kickboxing match. When her opponent objects to fighting a young woman, the referee smirks at him, telling him that "the smart money" is not on him, but on Sun.

In Nairobi, Capheus prevails on his friend, Jela (Paul Ogola) to help him buy AIDS medicine for his dying mother (Chichi Seii). Thanks to Jela's bartering skills, he is able to obtain some from a drug dealer... But when his bus is robbed by thugs calling themselves "the Superpower Gang," the drugs are stolen - leading him to desperate action to try to recover them, unwittingly pulling Sun and Will into his fight!

All the while, Nomi's surgery looms ever closer, with escape seeming like an impossibility...


CHARACTERS:

Up to this point, Sun and Capheus have been the least developed of the regulars. The first episode gave them arguably the least to do of all the characters, and the second episode all but ignored them. This installment is tasked with rectifying that, turning them from the sketchiest of sketches into proper characters. It does the job well, and does it in different ways.

Capheus is more or less of an "Everyman" character. He's a bus driver trying to earn enough money to get by while caring for his mother.  He's an open character, so we learn this fairly openly. He talks with his friend about his childhood wish to be "a zebra," while he flashes back to watching zebras with his mother. His main actions of the episode are focused first on getting drugs his mother needs, then on recovering them. There's no mystery, because he's a man with nothing to hide (so far).

Sun is a closed character. She speaks little, and has no interest in revealing herself to others. Instead, we learn about her by watching her in action - Listening to, and dodging, a banker's messages. Curtly attempting to see her father, then taking out her anger at being refused by destroying the smug secretary's desk. The fight at the end, in a ring where she seems to feel more sense of belonging than in her office. We don't know what drives her yet, but we can see her personality - Not in words, but in actions.

The episode also touches base with the other threads. Lito is drawn into an uncomfortable meeting with Joaquin (Raúl Méndez), Dani's criminal ex-boyfriend, the conversation ending in a way that indicates all is far from settled. Riley, barely seen in the previous episode, is given a bit more backstory, as she talks with two friends about her childhood in Iceland and her relationship with her father (an actual positive relationship! ...He'll probably die soon). So even as the focus of the episode narrows to just a few characters, we see the other threads inching forward as well.


THOUGHTS:

Smart Money Is on the Skinny Bitch more or less replicates the formula of the previous episode, building up the characters while also managing to move forward in both subtle and overt ways.

This becomes the first installment to end not on a cliffhanger, but instead on a revelation: In urgent need, Capheus is able to draw on Sun's martial arts skills and Will's police training to face down the street gang. His bus is named after martial arts star Jean Claude Van Damme, and a woman on his bus watches the fight and admiringly comments that "he really is Van Damme!"

It's a strong action set piece, in no small part because the show has so steadily built to this point. We don't know exactly why the three are able to share in the fight, but we have seen enough flashes of each of them experiencing the others' lives that we understand what is occurring without having to be told. The resulting action is clean, well-shot, and effective, and ends the episode with us comprehending why someone might consider these people either dangerous or worthy subjects for experiments - The array of skills any of them can tap into would potentially make James Bond look like a Smurf.

Beyond that, this is another solid chapter, in a show that's becoming progressively more involving as it goes along.


Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: I Am Also a We
Next Episode: What's Going On?



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