“I know that you know that your daddy’s in over his head with Priscilla.” For as much as we anticipated her confrontation with Cary, after Lucky tracked him down in Episode 3, we’re also grateful for the informative flashback that opens Lucky Episode 4. At a diner, Billie Rand pushes her FBI shield into Lucky’s line of sight, and enumerates the dangers of John Armstrong’s latest con. That Rand has enough evidence to put John away, but hasn’t yet. And that dealing with Priscilla, a known quantity in the criminal world, who is adept at making others take the fall, could be his last.

Here is the scam itself, which we’ve learned pieces of since Episode 1. Priscilla was purchasing fuel at wholesale, paying off state regulators, putting it back on the market at full price, and collecting reams of funny money on the back end. But like this show’s love of flashbacks, those details are in the past. Still in play is John’s ten-million-dollar skim from that arrangement, and Lucky’s eventual agreement. At the diner, she agrees to help Rand take down Priscilla. She makes this deal in exchange for promises. No jail for John, and full immunity for Lucky and Cary. We see now what happened to the money, and just what those promises were worth.

At the La Jolla place, the Lucky vs. Cary argument is worth the cost of your Apple TV subscription. She wants the seed phrase that will unlock his digital wallet, which he won’t give. She’s mad he made her a mark and left her behind, two enormous no-no’s in the world of thievery. And what about the world where they loved each other? Lucky tries to impart how she has felt since all this began. What she was thinking about while being chased by cops, locked in trunks, and forced to kill goons. She didn’t know whether she should be hating Cary, grieving his loss, “or somehow fucking saving you.” And this whole time, as her husband tries to explain his decision-making, a gun rests on the table. 

How about another flashback? Now we’re at the Malibu ranch pad, in the days after Priscilla’s sudden release from prison. (Thanks, Wayne Whittaker.) She wants Cary to find the money John skimmed, via his “little girlfriend,” and her son just brandishes his ring finger. Wife now. It happened while his gangster mom was in prison. And Cary and Lucky were happy together, since they kept each other out of the life in which they were raised. But that idyll is over. Cary better get Lucky to reveal the location of the ten mill, and deliver it to his mom. Or else. “You know what happens to her if I have to do this myself.” 

In La Jolla, as Lucky and Cary argue, they wonder where each of their lies began. Was their love ever real? She agreed to help the feds take down Priscilla, and didn’t tell Cary. He agreed to take the money John took from Priscilla, and not tell Lucky. And maybe it’s actually because they were raised by criminals, but they share an ability to compartmentalize all this bad business from their personal pleasure. Despite everything, their bond remains true. Too bad Priscilla’s willingness to murder her way out of anything also remains true. Even if Cary had delivered the cash, she would’ve probably still killed Lucky. “She was, is, always will be bad news.”

A renewal of their vows will have to occur on the run. The whole time Lucky and Cary were arguing, Rand and her team were setting up on the house. But when the FBI tactical team comes crashing through the door, our bickering crime duo have already bolted. It’s another example of Lucky engaging in Convenient Escape Velocity. There are a million cops in a million vehicles, the house is surrounded, but Lucky and Cary still crash through the wall of the garage in a Ford Bronco. There is a helicopter chasing them. Even Priscilla and Dutch are chasing them, whose own high-speed antics don’t even warrant a traffic stop. It’s all just a little too convenient to be anywhere near convincing. But at least we believe in the spark of young lovers. “I did it for you,” Cary tells Lucky. “I love you, and I know you still love me.”

They’re running with Cary’s backpack, which has his laptop, the loose skim cash, and the gun. They cause a traffic collision, total the Bronco, and further strain believability with an escape from the scene on foot. They acquire another vehicle, and at this point the geography of this chase has lost all sense. In a grid of streets and pedestrian malls that can’t be any bigger than a few blocks, Lucky and Cary manage to avoid both Priscilla and Dutch and Rand and the law. They even shake the hovering chopper! Come on, Lucky. It’s all too thin. Kind of like the love these kids thought would sustain them and protect them from the criminal life. 

There are no flashbacks now, only reality. This is not The Getaway. Lucky’s behind the wheel – “You were always a better driver” – and Cary is firing wildly from the passenger seat. Rand and the cops return fire at speed, but Cary shoots out their tires, and then Lucky loses control of their vehicle, which barrel rolls down a San Diego side street. “The gun was a bad idea,” Cary says, spitting up blood. He’s gut shot after the crash, and by the time a concussed Rand can reach their car, a distraught Lucky has melted into the pavement. All that is left of the deals made, lies told, arguments had, and a crime life deferred is Cary bleeding out in the street. From a distance, Priscilla can only scream. It wasn’t John Armstrong who was in over his head.    

Scratch-Offs for Lucky Episode 4 (“Too Close to See It”): 

• What book was Lucky reading in the diner when Rand appeared? Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. “It’s weird to feel like you miss someone you’re not even sure you know.”

• Episode 4 of Lucky features The Chromatics covering Neil Young. Appropriately, their stark, moody “Into the Black” appears on the band’s 2012 record entitled Kill for Love.

• Look to the Teddy? Cary brought the stuffed animal with him to the La Jolla house; it was with them when they ran, and in the end, when Lucky turns invisible again, it’s long gone from their escape vehicle. 

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.