As Nancy Sinatra sings “Bang Bang,” my stomach ties itself in knots. Two episodes remaining in this season of Sexy Beast and I find myself torn. Part of me wants the story to go on for however long the filmmakers want. But another part hopes they wrap everything up, since high quality isn’t the kryptonite of short-sighted cancellation it was just a few short years ago. (Fatal Attraction, we hardly knew ye.)
More importantly, though? I’m nervous as hell. My body’s reacting to the prospect of pressing play on this episode as though it thinks I’m actually in danger myself. The atmosphere of mounting dread, created by showrunner Michael Caleo and now helped along here by writer Alastair Galbraith and director Stephen “Teddy Bass” Moyer, has me that shook.
As it needs to. In the original Sexy Beast, you know from moment you see Aitch, Jackie, Deedee, and Gal react to the news that Don Logan called that this man is terrifying; you spend the movie wondering when he’ll make good on his reputation. The TV show’s trick is to set whatever event gave Don that reputation—whatever made people stop thinking of him as weird and annoying and start thinking of him like an alien could burst out of his chest and eat them at any moment—in the indeterminate future. We know we’re getting closer to it, but we don’t know how far we’ve gone.
I reviewed the fantastic penultimate episode of Sexy Beast‘s first (?) season for Decider.
Tags: decider, reviews, sexy beast, TV, TV reviews