The Sympathizer recap: There's always an excuse for evil

Has it really only been one hour of television since the Captain was tossed the script to The Hamlet by a cadre of RDJs? “Give Us Some Good Lines” reinvents this constantly evolving show once again, bringing in a bunch of new characters, a new setting, and the same old shit for the Captain to deal with.

Look, we all know Hollywood sets in the ’70s (and in the many decades following) were totally fucked. Anyone hoping there might be any brief respite for the Captain or his friends while they’re surrounded by artistes will be disappointed but not surprised to discover the filmmaking process in The Sympathizer is as hostile and mercurial as any spy-craft situation we’ve seen so far. And with three episodes remaining, I doubt things will improve any time soon.

Even before he sets foot on Nico’s domain, the Captain has a problem in stowaway Lana. Turns out the bright lights of, uh, a remote section of Napa Valley are too good to resist, and she smuggles herself into the production via the Captain’s car trunk. Arriving on set, we along with the Captain meet a new horde of characters, chiefly: Ryan Glenn, an unstable method actor (David Duchovny), James Yoon, known for playing any required fill-in-the-blank Asian archetypes and dying on screen (John Cho), and Jamie Johnson, a young singing sensation dipping his toes into acting (Maxwell Whittington-Cooper). Lana and Jamie take a shine to one another almost immediately—something the Captain could desperately do without, but one must pick one’s battles when one is a communist double agent in the process of adding “script consultant” to their current resumé.

“Authenticity” is the word of the week on The Sympathizer. It’s what Nico asks the Captain to advise on during the shoot. It’s what production designer Monique (Marine Delterme) seeks praise for when she gives the Captain a tour of her efforts. It’s what Ryan Glenn, never out of character, insists he’s striving for. All of this in the name of authenticity, though, is just abstract theory that falls apart once examined. Nico largely ignores any real input from the Captain on creating more nuance among the Vietnamese villager characters (who barely speak in the entire film). Monique tells Captain on a walk through the hamlet that all the plantlife was imported from the Philippines. And Glenn’s “method” of choice includes racially abusing the cast and crew. What? It’s authentic!

And still, the Captain does find reminders of his home and mother on the set in quiet moments. He’s a man who’s been living a pretend life for years, finding comfort in a similarly fabricated simulacrum. If anything, it’s the most honestly the Captain has lived in years. He asks Monique if his mother’s name, Que-Linh, could be added to one of the gravestones in the “hamlet”’s burial ground, and after she agrees, spends time each day visiting the fake tombstone. Finally through synthetic means, he can mourn authentically.

“Give Us Some Good Lines” doesn’t tell us much we don’t already know about the hell that is film production, and the series’ signature visual flair and snappy back-and-forth editing are disappointingly pared back. The bigger, stupider jokes continue to not quite land just right, but at this point we may as well make peace with them, as they’re not going anywhere. It is funny watching Nico throw a tantrum about none of the extras speaking Vietnamese (surely something he should have screened?) and the Captain feeding hardcore revolutionary lines to the villagers, knowing full well no one else knows what they’re saying. On the flip side, we get a reminder that there’s no outrunning your demons as Oanh and his indicting grin appear to the Captain several times accompanied by some terrific, terrifying musical stings.

Even with all The Sympathizer’s signature flaws, it’s a densely-packed episode. A few weeks into production and Nico is going legitimately nuts trying to find an ending to the film. Lana and Jamie are all but going steady, and the Captain has replaced the extras with 100 real Vietnamese speakers courtesy of the General, including Bon, who finally discovers the key to getting out of his funk is dying on camera over and over again. It’s not the healthiest coping mechanism but this is a show with a lot of fucked-up irons in the fire, so a short term solution there will do just fine.

Just as things are hitting a pleasant rhythm on production, the Captain gets word of a rape scene devised by Nico that will star Glenn and Lana. Glenn’s behavior has gone from “yikes” to legitimately unsafe over a short period of time, and Nico wants to keep Lana in the dark about what specifically will happen to her in order to capture an—you guessed it—authentic response. This is much more than a veiled reference to Last Tango In Paris. Adding insult to injury, Nico names Lana’s rape victim character Que-Linh as a twisted gesture towards the Captain and his mother. The Captain interferes during shooting and sends Jamie in before his cue, resulting in a real tussle between him and Glenn, ruining the set and making a second take impossible. So the Captain is fired.

As if this episode were made by Nico himself, we of course must end with a giant Hollywood cliffhanger explosion, so later, once again at his mom’s “grave,” the Captain notices wires and explosives running along the ground. Fired and out of the loop on the filming schedule, the guy has walked straight into Nico’s big finale, which involves blowing up the entire set. Objectively cool, it’s unfortunate that it could easily become very stylish manslaughter. Still, I bet it looks authentic as all hell.

Stray observations

• The Captain actually imagines a real-life conversation between him and Man in Man’s swanky Vietnam office. Considering we’ve only ever “seen” Man as envisioned by the Captain since leaving Saigon, there’s a good chance his surroundings are far less glamorous than they look. It’s not hard to imagine the Captain’s coded messages may have been going to someone else this whole time.
• The Captain also directly addresses that the scenes he wasn’t present for but shows us anyway are pure conjecture. I know some people find the unreliable narrator thing tiring, but just look at how Nico warps a story. One way or another, we’re all living out a constructed narrative.
• The General hints at a plan in the works to “reclaim the homeland.” This fucking guy is exhausting but I guess that’s how you make it to General.
• MVP of the week absolutely goes to David Duchovny, who brilliantly toes the line between dangerous and ridiculous as Glenn, slowly ramping up to just the dangerous part.
• This is also Robert Downey Jr.’s best episode yet. Nico is far less a caricature than the other three “big bad” roles. The work between Downey Jr and Hoa Xuande when they’re fighting about the rape scene boasts tremendous acting from both—no wig or funny voice required.