We’re more than halfway through Apple TV‘s gripping crime thriller, Lucky, but it seems like Lucky’s (Anya Taylor-Joy) luck may be running out…
Spoilers for Lucky Episode 4 ahead.
After Episode 3 ended with Lucky finally coming face to face with her man, Cary Masterson (Drew Starkey), Episode 4, “Too Close to See It,” showed the two hash out their frustrations and go on the run together.
Lucky admitted that she sold Priscilla (Annette Bening) out in hopes of saving Cary and her dad John (Timothy Olyphant), and Cary apologized for making Lucky a mark and leaving her in the dark. He revealed that he planned to deliver the cash to his mother in hopes of ending this all, but decided he didn’t want to be her pawn anymore, so he took it and ran.
As the husband and wife played catch-up, the FBI crashed their reunion, so the dynamic duo hopped in Cary’s blue Bronco and sped away. Though they lost the FBI, a helicopter started following overhead, so Lucky ditched it by stopping under a bridge so the two could escape on foot. Just when it seemed like they’d blend in with the crowd long enough to escape, a black SUV pulled up alongside them, and Priscilla rolled down her window, begging them to get in the car. Instead of surrendering to her, the couple lifted another car, and a new high-stakes chase between them and Priscilla began. It didn’t take long for the FBI to spot two speeding cars and join the party.
In true Lucky fashion, the Apple TV series went full-on action movie, with incredible stunt work, immersive camerawork, and adrenaline-pumping sound, visuals, and performances. When Cary whipped out a gun in the passenger seat and started exchanging fire with an officer mid-car chase, Lucky‘s stakes reached new heights. But when a bullet blew out one of Lucky’s tires, she lost control of the vehicle, and it repeatedly flipped, smashing her and Cary around until the screen went black. When Lucky woke up, Cary was bleeding out beside her — but not from the crash! He’d taken a bullet during their wild ride, and as he took his final breaths, Lucky tearfully pleaded for him not to leave her again. With sirens approaching, she kissed his head and reluctantly left him behind.
By the time the FBI reached Cary, he had no pulse. And when Priscilla pulled up behind the crash and looked on from a distance, her jaw dropped as EMTs covered her son’s body with a sheet. Dutch (Clifton Collins Jr.) physically restrained her to stop her from running down the hill as she wailed in agony, screaming “NO! LET ME GO! MY BABY!” Bening gives incredible performances all throughout Lucky, but this raw, gutting reaction to one of the show’s biggest deaths will absolutely wreck you.
When Priscilla has time to process, she’ll likely feel immense guilt and blame for her son’s death, because she pushed this life on him and failed to protect him from the fallout. In the moment, however, Bening told Decider, “I don’t think there’s anything going through her mind.”
“Thank god I’ve not experienced that, but I worked with Jet Wilkinson, who directed that episode. And I love the fact that that episode, which is a lot of the chase in it, is directed by this incredible woman. She really inspired me as a person, and I hope to work with her again. We have been trying to make that happen. And I just instinctively knew that she was going to help me in the way that she shot it,” Bening said when asked about the pivotal scene. “There are certain scenes, once you read them, hopefully you don’t think about them. Sometimes you have to think about things in a way that’s thinking about the craft. But if a scene is well written, and I feel an intuitive connection to it, I try not to think about it. And that way, when I do it, I just do it.”
Priscilla may be a ruthless mob boss, but at the end of the day, she’s also a mother. And after seeing how hard she fought to get money back, I can’t imagine she would process her son’s death without giving herself — and anyone else she deems responsible — hell!
Tune into Lucky Episode 5 on Wednesday, August 5, to see how Priscilla and Lucky process their immense loss.
New episodes of Lucky premiere Wednesdays on Apple TV.