REVIEW: The Continental – Episode 3, “Theatre of Pain”

Television Reviews

“Theatre of Pain” brings The Continental to a ridiculous, empty-headed conclusion, successfully demystifying the High Table and removing the stakes from what should have been a near-suicide mission. A few good scenes are sprinkled through what is otherwise an enactment of a child playing with action figures.

Winston and his allies prepare for their assault on the Continental. KD gets closer to the hotel while Mayhew tries to protect her from herself. Lou’s conflict with the Chinatown boss comes to a head.

“Theatre of Pain” is what the first two chapters of the miniseries have been leading to: the big blowout battle with Cormac’s forces in the Continental. This should be a lay-up; just deliver a lot of satisfying action and let us have a good time while trying not to wish it was John Wick cutting his through gangsters and assassins instead of a bunch of stand-ins. But it fumbles spectacularly, with a bland showdown taking up the entire second half of the episode. The action is sometimes good but often obscured, and the characters don’t resonate, so we don’t care if they win or lose. There are desperate attempts to give people motivations, wild contrivances to get someone out of a jam, and cartoonish bends of reality that take you out of the story completely.

*SPOILERS*

First of all, the Continental is entirely too easy to infiltrate, let alone conquer. For all their planning and preparation, Winston and his team essentially waltz right into the impenetrable hotel for killers and have their run of the place. This is insane; not only is the Continental supposed to be owned by the most powerful criminal organization in the world, but Cormac knows Winston and his allies are coming. Shouldn’t he be at least slightly prepared? Nobody is watching the doors? There’s no contingent of heavily-armed guards on alert? I understand he thought he’d captured Winston, and Charon turned on him (which is supposed to be a twist even though Charon and Winston are close friends in the John Wick movies), but for Cormac not to be battle-ready until his enemies are all dead is idiotic. A major problem with “Theatre of Pain” is that you’re not left marveling at how Winston took the Continental but wondering why nobody ever did it before him.

It’s also hard to care one way or another because The Continental has failed to make Winston a likable protagonist. The backstory with his brother (which is brought back here for the sole purpose of setting up the reveal of the coin press location; how nobody found it is another unbelievable plot hole) feels more like a side note than character development, and Frankie goes almost entirely unnamed in “Theatre of Pain.” The only times he comes up are in relation to other characters to give them motivation. Apparently, Charon fought with Frankie in Vietnam, and that’s why he sided with Winston instead of Cormac; their friendship in the movies happened by default. And KD was the sole surviving victim of the fire Winston and Frankie started as kids, which is why she’s been so gung-ho to find Winston; that plot point is so abrupt in its reveal that it’s robbed of any resonance it would have otherwise had. Lou and Miles don’t feel like they’re fighting for anything, and while I like Jenkins, he’s there to be backup and nothing more.

Maybe it’s good that the characters don’t resonate, because the battle is so devoid of stakes that there’d be no tragedy if any of them died. The only one who doesn’t make it is Lemmy, whose name I had to look up because he’s so bland and weightless. There are moments where it looks like curtains for a few of the others, but they’re saved by ridiculous contrivances and inconsistencies. At one point, a grief-stricken Yen is going to explode a bomb strapped to her chest, which will kill her and the twin assassins Hansel and Gretel, but is talked out of it. Later, after a long fight with Gretel, she somehow gets the bomb onto Gretel (the final part of this fight happens off-screen as they’re underwater in a pool), then detonates it while she’s right next to her, but somehow, the bomb only kills Gretel because the writers want Yen to survive. Meanwhile, Lou and Miles are fighting Hansel and losing badly until the Chinese kid who decided Lou is his new surrogate mother randomly pops out of an air vent and gives Lou a gun so she can kill Hansel. (The entire subplot with the Chinese mob exists to allow for this moment, and it’s still unearned and laughably dumb.) Lemmy uses the mail delivery system in the Continental to send bombs to each floor and blow up bad guys, despite having no way of knowing anyone’s position; you’re damn skippy they hit their targets every time, though. It’s so stupid it keeps the action from being exciting.

And the biggest takeaway is that no one of consequence dies. “Theatre of Pain” was the perfect place to raise the stakes by having Winston’s team whittled down by Cormac’s men; none of these people are in the John Wick movies outside of Winston and Charon. Why not have Yen sacrifice herself because she can’t live without Frankie, or Lou and Miles get cut down while fighting together (or even just one of them, so the other has to grieve), or even have someone kill Jenkins as he’s sniping to remove his support for the guys on the inside? Cormac himself survives too easily for a while, first because Charon can’t bring himself to shoot the boss he double-crossed, and then because a fight happens in total darkness, and we’re later told he escaped. And once Winston finally does triumph, he blackmails the High Table into giving him the Continental, which doesn’t fit with the movies at all. This whole endeavor was an ill-conceived attempt to extend the John Wick universe past the killer/animal rights activist that gave it its name, and all it did was cheapen what came before it.

There are a few good scenes in “Theater of Pain,” though. In one, Mayhew follows Lou to a payphone near the river, which leads to a close-quarters fight between the two. It’s well-filmed and executed, with the hits feeling like they hurt. It’s so much better than Lou’s fight in the second episode, where she looked like she was barely tapping her opponents. The fights with Hansel and Gretel are good, too, with the villains seeming like indestructible monsters until they’re finally put down. The Gretel one gets a little too silly when Yen breaks her leg, and she uses ballet to fix it, but the rest is good. Albert Hughes is back directing this one, and the difference is immediately noticeable. I also like the way he films the snowfall, with the flakes dancing in the air as they descend, like we’re watching a fairy tale. It’s too bad he didn’t have better material on which to use his talents.