Another week, another delightful evolution from Duster. And no, I’m not just talking about that hilarious and uncanny Richard Nixon deep fake that opens the episode. Now that Duster has evened out the screen time between its two leads and found the right balance of episodic and serialized storytelling, my only remaining big-picture critique was that the series could probably do a better job integrating Jim and Nina’s stories so that Josh Holloway and Rachel Hilson don’t feel like they’re each heading up a different show. And, lo and behold, this week’s episode does just that.
That synergy starts with a snappy cross-cutting montage in which Jim and Nina are both dressed down by their superiors. And it’s a welcome thematic parallel to kick us off. Saxton is pissed that Jim lost Howard Hughes’ million-dollar car and let his son get beat up, while Nina’s boss Agent Braddock chews her out for defying directives and visiting Agent Breen. Still, Nina fares the better of the two. She’s at least able to talk her boss into giving her 48 hours to crack the Snowbird case. Jim, meanwhile, gets fired by Saxton. It’s the one wrinkle Nina can’t have in her big plan to go undercover as Saxton’s Russian interpreter. So when Jim fails to get his dad Wade to step in and make the introduction instead, Nina goes right to the Ellis family home to plead her case.
It’s an absolute delight to see Jim walk into his dad’s house only to discover Charlotte giving Nina acting lessons while Wade looks on in support. So far, Jim and Nina have mostly just shared brief conversations in their go-to parking-structure meeting point. Here they get to argue like siblings in Jim’s childhood home. Where they were once reluctant allies, they’re now becoming genuinely comfortable with one another—much as they may try to deny it. Holloway’s bratty “I’m working on it” was a particularly hilarious button on the scene.
In fact, that lighter comedic touch colors much of this hour, which uses its Fourth of July backdrop for a livelier tone. Not only do Nina and Jim get parallel dressing downs, they get to dress up in parallel too: She rocks a denim pantsuit as Russian interpreter Nina Saint James, while he pulls out a navy tux, mustard-yellow ruffled shirt, and Elvis’ blue suede shoes to crash a wedding with Saxton’s daughter, Genesis.
Though Genesis has been floating around this show since the premiere, she hadn’t really snapped into focus as a character for me yet. But thankfully, it feels like the show finally figures her out this week, maybe because we actually get to see the inside of her much-discussed bar for the first time. That’s where she confesses her woes to Jim: She’s been secretly dating Daphne, the daughter of Saxton’s crime rival Greek Sal. Only now Daphne is being forced to marry a shipping magnate’s son to consolidate Sal’s criminal power.
So far we’ve mostly seen Genesis as an aggrieved, overlooked daughter, but recontextualizing her as a glamorous, romantic, gun-wielding lesbian gives Sydney Elisabeth some great new notes to play and helps make the character feel way more three-dimensional. (Plus, her wedding crashing look is absolutely stunning.) I also like her dynamic with Jim, which seems to be a genuine friendship with a slightly transactional element to it. Jim knows that helping Genesis piss off Greek Sal could be just the thing to get him back in Saxton’s good graces. And she knows she’ll need a world-class getaway driver to escape Sal’s equally capable goons.
Of this episode’s two main storylines, Jim’s plot is pure goofy fun—complete with a runaway bride escape sequence set to Ike & Tina Turner’s iconic cover of “Proud Mary.” In fact, the “Proud Mary” car chase is exhilarating specifically because Jim, Genesis, and Daphne have such competent foes to face off against. Once they realize they can’t just outdrive Sal’s men, they start turning Jim’s fireworks collection into a set of improvised weapons instead. It’s both a literal and metaphorical blast.
Unfortunately, that zany escape comes with an emotional cost too. Jim may save Genesis and Daphne’s relationship and earn his way back into Saxton’s crew, but he misses the chance to spend Fourth of July setting off fireworks with Luna, who winds up celebrating with David instead. A melancholy montage set to Simon & Garfunkel’s “America” drives home the idea that if Jim keeps living a criminal life, he’s going to struggle to “have it all” with Luna and Izzy. Or, as Genesis puts it earlier, “Fathers ruin fucking everything.”
Still, not every dad is messing up this week. While I was worried that Wade was going to blow it in the scene where he goes to suggest Nina as an interpreter for Saxton, he handles everything absolutely flawlessly. It’s a nice reminder of Wade’s own expertise in the criminal underworld and another place where the show effectively shrinks down its sprawling ensemble into something more cohesive. The show is also striking a very believable balance of Wade and Jim’s mix of loyalty and doubt when it comes to Saxton. Like Jim, Wade initially refuses to believe that Saxton could have had Joey killed. But there’s one percent of uncertainty that he just can’t shake, which is why he agrees to play his part in Nina’s plan.
While the Jim/Genesis rescue mission delivers action extravagance, Nina’s quieter undercover mission provides the episode’s stakes. Her Russian may be flawless thanks to her comparative-lit-professor mom, but she’s got to stay calm during a one-on-one meeting with the man who killed her father. As ever, Keith David is great at making Saxton charming and terrifying in equal measure. (There’s incredible tension to the moment he sets a gun on the table while interviewing Nina.) And the whole sequence is another welcome example of the show integrating the two halves of its world and letting Hilson interact with characters beyond just Nina’s FBI co-workers.
That comes to a head in a great final scene where Saxton “introduces” Jim to his new interpreter Nina, who he’ll be driving to a meeting with the Russians next week. Far from hiding in parking lots, Jim and Nina now have to figure out a way to hide in plain sight. That’s a great set-up to take us into the final three episodes of the season, which will hopefully let Holloway, Hilson, and David share even more screen time together.
But that’s not the only big season-long story move that happens this week. After two weeks of more episodic adventures, this episode finally circles back around to the cliffhanger from “Suspicious Minds,” where Agent Breen’s wife Evelyn called a cowboy-hat-wearing contact (played by J.R. Yenque) to warn him that Nina was snooping around Joey’s death. Here we see that mysterious man meeting with the Director of the CIA to track down a “certain something” for President Nixon—something Cowboy may or may not have stolen himself.
It turns out he’s a Washington, D.C. fixer who’s also secretly working for Xavier, the man who increasingly seems like the lynchpin of this whole conspiracy. And in the biggest twist of all, it turns out Cowboy is also in cahoots with Nina’s workplace antagonist Agent Chad Grant—who was apparently asking about her investigation not because of racist/sexist arrogance but because he’s been trying to keep tabs on how much she knows.
It’s a welcome reminder that you never know exactly who or what to trust on Duster, which has put my suspicions on high across the series. While all the scenes with David and Luna are incredibly sweet, I’m now starting to wonder if he’s maybe a little too good to be true. Could he be embroiled in all this somehow? Maybe even as Xavier? And who else in the FBI might be less straight-and-narrow than they seem? Could Agent Chad just be a red herring for a much bigger conspiracy? They’re just the questions I want to be asking about a show that’s doing a great job of both getting to the fireworks factory and still leaving you wanting more.
Stray observations
- • This week in “It’s the 1970s!”: Nina and Awan are both big fans of The Godfather, which would’ve come out just a few months ago. Plus, Jim compliments Genensis’ throwing arm by calling her Tom Seaver, who was the star pitcher for the Mets at the time.
- • Opening-credits watch: I almost thought we weren’t going to get anything new this week, but the sequence ends with an early preview of the episode’s Fourth of July fireworks.
- • It turns out Agent Breen was being dosed with high levels of LSD to keep him in a fugue state and acting erratic enough to stay locked in the hospital. As Nina puts it, “Whatever Breen knew, they went to crazy lengths to keep it quiet.”
- • We don’t spend a ton of time at the FBI office this week, but I love Jessica-Lorraine’s excitement to play the fake secretary to Nina’s fake Russian translator.
- • I love how Charlotte gets some new dimensions when her acting advice turns out to be genuinely helpful to Nina’s undercover mission. It’s another way in which the show is bringing its sprawling ensemble together.
- • Everybody’s casual red-white-and-blue fits look absolutely incredible this week. Jim’s shirt with the horses is a particular highlight, but I also love Izzy’s cute hair scarf.
- • So do we think Saxton actually had Joey killed? Where do you guys stand on David? And who’s your dream casting for Joey if we see him in a flashback? I’d say make it a full Lost reunion and bring in Ian Somerhalder!
