The Continental's Easter eggs cheapen the John Wick movies
The prequel series' nods to the film franchise feel weirdly misguided, unnecessary, and—worst of all—not the least bit fun
John Wick: Chapter 2, the best film in the series, shatters everything we thought we knew about the underground world of assassins at the center of the saga with the introduction of one character: The Bowery King, a self-appointed monarch who rules over the unhoused people of New York City with a loving-but-firm hand, creating a network of spies, messengers, and killers that comprise the secret power structure beneath and beyond the secret power structure that runs the world of John Wick. And, best of all, he’s played by Laurence Fishburne, which is both a meta-nod to his role opposite Keanu Reeves in the Matrix movies and an opportunity for him to really stretch his legs and chew the scenery and—in a purposeful contrast to Reeves’ taciturn Wick—just have a goddamn blast in general by single-handedly filling the franchise with more personality than most movies have in their whole cast.
Peacock’s not-entirely-unsuccessful John Wick prequel miniseries, The Continental, pays homage to The Bowery King with a character named Maisie. But like every other instance of the show directly nodding to things in the movies, it feels weirdly misguided and needlessly cheapens the movies for basically no reason—and that extends to the central character of the show, a younger version of Ian McShane’s Winston played reasonably well by Colin Woodell. The show answers the question of how Winston came to be the proprietor of the eponymous hotel, a safe haven for assassins where absolutely no “business” can be conducted, but that’s not a question that the Wick movies have ever demanded an answer to. A lot of the fun of John Wick is introducing some ridiculous thing with no explanation, and then having everyone treat it like it’s totally normal, which obviously doesn’t lend itself to the overly explanatory nature of a prequel.
And The Continental is mostly good about that. There aren’t too many of the “whoa, that’s how so-and-so got his such-and-such” moments that tend to make prequels overly cute, which is why the few “get it?” nods to John Wick feel so out of place and desperate. One of the first comes at the end of The Continental’s opening episode: After a daring escape that goes wrong, Winston decides to take the fight to the people who wronged him, and what do you need for something like that in the John Wick universe? “Guns. Lots of guns.”
That’s what Winston tells some arms dealer buddies, and many years later it’s what John Wick will tell the older Winston in John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum when he finds out that The High Table is sending an army into the Continental to kill him. But young Winston is not John Wick, so it comes across as more than a bit phony. And part of the reason for that is that the line itself is a reference to The Matrix—Keanu Reeves’ Neo says it before he and Trinity gear up for the big lobby shootout. That’s an earned reference that plays off of the audience’s existing knowledge of the other movie where a guy played by Reeves gets into a big shootout in a lobby.
