‘Sexy Beast’ Episode 2 Recap: Rough Beast

Oh. So it’s a real show then. Upping the ante of violence considerably — from shocking and stylish to prolonged, sexual, and horrific — this episode of Sexy Beast is at times a very tough watch. It probably had to be. There’s nothing wrong with a slick ‘90s British crime caper series featuring well-executed younger versions of characters we know and love from a bona fide movie masterpiece. But that movie is absolutely grueling to watch at times, however much its London gangster cool and brilliant soundtrack convince you otherwise. For this show to be more than a good time on the telly…well, it has to be a bad time, too.

No point in burying the lede: The sexual violence we see in this episode (“Donny Donny Donny”), committed first against a young Don Logan by his father in a flashback, then against callow, Road House–quoting gangster prince Freddie McGraw by Teddy Bass as a brutal show of force, is what dominates the mind when the credits roll. It’s sort of like the show is speedrunning The Sopranos, which took until partway through Season Three to really start vomiting its bile and showing you how cruel and repulsive those characters really were. Writer-director-creator Michael Caleo undercuts Teddy Bass’s reputation as the super-cool Prince of Fucking Darkness Himself; you’ll never watch him glide infernally up a flight of stairs or scowl menacingly across a crowded nightclub again without thinking of what he does at the end of this episode.

It will similarly be difficult to think of Don Logan as a black-comedy member of the Memorable Movie Villains Hall of Fame Class of 2000 after this one. The inability to form appropriate attachments, the tendency to idolize and then denigrate the very same person depending on the moment, the dissociative episodes, the compulsive speech and movements, the violent trauma-induced response to pressure or being told no, the obsession with pleasing the sister who saved him but then forced him to watch his father’s slow death from ground glass in his food — that’s what was fueling “No no no no no no no NO” and so on in Ben Kingsley’s perfect performance. 

For now, all it brings out of Don in the end is tears — unthinkable in his circa-2000 incarnation. Yet it’s now no longer hard to see how the Don for whom Gal cares like a little lost child has the capacity to snap and become the Don who makes Gal tremble in undisguised terror a decade later.

(At least, this is as far as Caleo is concerned. As far as sequels and prequels and interquels go you are always free to count exactly as much or as little as you want as canon. To me, there are only seven Star Wars movies and one Star Wars TV show (I II III IV V VI Rogue One and Andor), only two Hellraiser movies (Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II), and only four seasons of The Wire. So take it exactly as seriously as you want.)

There’s sexual violence of another sort at work in Deedee’s storyline. Despite receiving an offer she can’t refuse from an American producer, who’s willing to grant her the kind of control over “cash and creative” (to use a pro wrestling phrase) that later porn stars would pioneer in real life, the McGraws don’t want her leaving the studio they’re bankrolling. They make this plain by beating the American half to death with lead pipes right in front of her. They aren’t hurting her directly, no. But they are forcing her to fuck under circumstances not of her own choosing. There’s a word for that.

Even Gal’s derring-do nominally on behalf of his (very self-evidently) great budding romance with Deedee goes sour. When her boyfriend guy catches them canoodling and pulls a knife, Gal knocks the piss out of him, prompting an aghast Deedee to send him packing. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not thrilled with the knife-pulling idiot on whom she’s on the verge of cheating, but she’s not thrilled with Gal either.

The kicker is that none of this means the show has lost any of its actual charm. On the contrary! The heist sequence — this time involving a power drill, a bottle of acid, a series of pulleys, and patience — is beautifully built to, structured around the challenge of cracking a seemingly impregnable safe Don’s dumb ass committed them to compromising before they could determine if such a thing were even possible. 

And I continue to marvel at the easy breezy likeability of James McArdle as Gal Dove, himself one of the most easily breezily likeable characters in the history of crime cinema thanks to Ray Winstone. Whether he’s chatting pleasantly with his mom, working overtime to win over his drug-addled kid sister with physical comedy, flirting with Deedee like he’s a master of Flirt Style kung fu, or defending Don to his fiancée Marjorie since there’s no one else in the world who will, Gal is a person you want to spend time with. This makes the moments when he isn’t — when he reveals his proficiency with violence, or when he lies to his sister about where her good-for-nothing boyfriend Larry really is, or when he channels his frustration over Deedee into passionate but ultimately selfish sex with Marjorie — that much tougher to watch.

Long story short, this episode of Sexy Beast shows you more of who Gal and Dee are, and who Teddy and Don are, and why the former pair would soon rather vanish than have anything more to do with either man. It’s a dirty job, and this episode did it.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.