The Assassin - 1.3
Jan. 9th, 2026 08:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessJulia and the other three crossed Albania via butcher’s lorry, morgue and stolen car in search of not-dead Damian the cockroach. And though she was the most competent, Edward, Kayla and Luka played their part.
This episode was more engaging because there was so little of the Dutchman. The focus was split between Julia in Albania and Aaron Cross having to host a do in France with a local dignitary when he just wanted to fret about Chantaine. Aaron Cross is as much of a terrible parent as Julia at start of episode, by the end, he seems worse. (Still amused at the character’s name, and kind of thinking Alan Dale is channelling Rupert Murdoch here, which is lazy of me.)
Developments, as Julia worked out that Edward and Kayla’s meet cute story was iffy, given his lifelong aversion to tennis (I was sidetracked by whether his arm was really injured or not), but of course he’d been investigating her/her family. Plagued by conscience all ep, he blurted out the truth, and Kayla, totally understandably, did not react well to finding out that he’d been lying to her (also not helped by all the shenanigans with his mother and how prickly she was.) So she was on her way back to France, to the non loving bosom of her father, who at best seemed indifferent to his kids’ future, but might have been behind the hit on Kayla.
What was interesting was that Edward had started investigating her father’s company because of an old link with the company behind the money he’d been left, which we and he assume is his father’s. So, as Julia was trying to work out who from her past was after her, the audience was being led to think it had something to do with Edward’s father.
Especially as we learned more about the intriguing Marie (although frankly the actress’s face is one of those cautionary tales about plastic surgery – would take that back if it was after facial disfigurement, obvs. Oh, good grief, she’s played by Gina Gershon.) So she was rich enough to pay her way into the do at Aaron Cross’s house, smarter than Ezra (not hard, I end up thinking how thick he is every scene. And also desperate for attention, and even when he’s blabbing about Julia being a retired assassin and the people with guns thing, not always getting it). I wasn’t wholly convinced that she’s a broker for assassins (though she probably is given the association with Julia) and would also buy her being involved in the sex work industry. Sorry, but yeah. She did seem to have met Aaron Cross in the past, but revealed to Ezra that she was Edward’s father’s sister, and that’s why she was looking for him. She could have been lying but probably wasn’t.
Much fun with Sean’s thumb, although characters’ squickiness about it seemed selective. Also lots of mother knows son who is trying to assert his independence in front of his ladylove, who is also finding her future mother in law a bit of a drag amusement. And yes, Aussie!Kayla, they’re very sarcastic, they’re English.
Luka – his ability to evade the police chase could be read as his having being more than a butcher in the past – insisted he stay with Julia, Edward and Kayla because he wanted to get the fake Interpol agent who’d killed his fellow islanders. Then he gave up in disgust when Julia seemed to agree with Damian that the best thing to do was to hide instead of finding who was after her, though I thought Edward needed to be part of that conversation about her (and his?) future.
But Julia and Edward outsmarted Damian, who of course turned on them (and was too stupid to notice Julia had capitulated to his suggestion of leaving it to the next day to easily). We ended on a cliffhanger with a gunshot over a fade to black.
This episode was more engaging because there was so little of the Dutchman. The focus was split between Julia in Albania and Aaron Cross having to host a do in France with a local dignitary when he just wanted to fret about Chantaine. Aaron Cross is as much of a terrible parent as Julia at start of episode, by the end, he seems worse. (Still amused at the character’s name, and kind of thinking Alan Dale is channelling Rupert Murdoch here, which is lazy of me.)
Developments, as Julia worked out that Edward and Kayla’s meet cute story was iffy, given his lifelong aversion to tennis (I was sidetracked by whether his arm was really injured or not), but of course he’d been investigating her/her family. Plagued by conscience all ep, he blurted out the truth, and Kayla, totally understandably, did not react well to finding out that he’d been lying to her (also not helped by all the shenanigans with his mother and how prickly she was.) So she was on her way back to France, to the non loving bosom of her father, who at best seemed indifferent to his kids’ future, but might have been behind the hit on Kayla.
What was interesting was that Edward had started investigating her father’s company because of an old link with the company behind the money he’d been left, which we and he assume is his father’s. So, as Julia was trying to work out who from her past was after her, the audience was being led to think it had something to do with Edward’s father.
Especially as we learned more about the intriguing Marie (although frankly the actress’s face is one of those cautionary tales about plastic surgery – would take that back if it was after facial disfigurement, obvs. Oh, good grief, she’s played by Gina Gershon.) So she was rich enough to pay her way into the do at Aaron Cross’s house, smarter than Ezra (not hard, I end up thinking how thick he is every scene. And also desperate for attention, and even when he’s blabbing about Julia being a retired assassin and the people with guns thing, not always getting it). I wasn’t wholly convinced that she’s a broker for assassins (though she probably is given the association with Julia) and would also buy her being involved in the sex work industry. Sorry, but yeah. She did seem to have met Aaron Cross in the past, but revealed to Ezra that she was Edward’s father’s sister, and that’s why she was looking for him. She could have been lying but probably wasn’t.
Much fun with Sean’s thumb, although characters’ squickiness about it seemed selective. Also lots of mother knows son who is trying to assert his independence in front of his ladylove, who is also finding her future mother in law a bit of a drag amusement. And yes, Aussie!Kayla, they’re very sarcastic, they’re English.
Luka – his ability to evade the police chase could be read as his having being more than a butcher in the past – insisted he stay with Julia, Edward and Kayla because he wanted to get the fake Interpol agent who’d killed his fellow islanders. Then he gave up in disgust when Julia seemed to agree with Damian that the best thing to do was to hide instead of finding who was after her, though I thought Edward needed to be part of that conversation about her (and his?) future.
But Julia and Edward outsmarted Damian, who of course turned on them (and was too stupid to notice Julia had capitulated to his suggestion of leaving it to the next day to easily). We ended on a cliffhanger with a gunshot over a fade to black.
