When we last left Lucky and John Armstrong, they were turning themselves in. We were kinda with John on that — “You sure about this?” he asked his daughter — because we’re happy to admit that in most any crime genre thing, and especially in the case of a twisty, non-linear, keep-us-guessing thriller like Apple TV‘s Lucky, we always wanna see the bad guys get away. It’s the thrill of it.
And it’s not like this father-daughter duo are particularly violent criminals. It’s the con that drives them. And at FBI headquarters in LA, we gain some real insight into their shared history of hustle. No visual flashbacks — this one is all Timothy Olyphant. John Armstrong describes his first-ever haul, $942 from a revivalist preacher’s collection plate. He saw genius and utility in how the man so easily separated honest working people from their hard-earned cash. Still a kid himself, John realized the opportunity to take something is innate to people’s eagerness to be hustled. And he taught that lesson to Lucky — put her on the con — when she was just seven years old. This grifter’s life really is all she’s ever known.
And it’s led Lucky and her father here, to try and make a deal that will get Billie Rand and the FBI, plus Priscilla and Wayne Whittaker, finally out of their hair. Rand wants Lucky to arrange a meet that will draw out the big fish, and she agrees. Too easily? The other thing we felt when they surrendered was that this is all part of Lucky’s real play. “I don’t have to trust her,” she says to John about Rand. “I know what she wants.”
The night before the meet, the FBI puts John and Lucky in a hotel. Rand’s partner Gates is posted outside. And for Jailbird John, this is heaven. 600-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, a shower with no limit on hot water, cushy hotel bathrobes, and a brilliant grifter daughter he just knows, any second, is gonna whisper to him her real plan for the money.
He is mistaken. It was real, the calm Lucky felt in her marriage to Cary, away from the life that raised them. “I’m ready to be still, dad,” and the money is part of the deal. She will give it all up to gain their freedom. As John frets, ever the restless con man, Lucky sets up another terrific download of their time together as a two-person crime family. Lucky wants the kind of stability they never, ever had. At least some semblance of normalcy. “I should have been in school, learning algebra, and having crushes on boys. Instead I was running fiddle games and pigeon drops with you!” Lucky says it’s always fallen on her to save John from himself, his impulsivity, and his instincts, which reveals probably more than she wished. The Episode 4 flashback, and Lucky’s first agreement with Rand. The one that broke when John was originally sent to prison.
Lucky will have to convince Priscilla to set up the meet. Neither she nor Whittaker do business over the phone. And their conversation at Priscilla’s Malibu mansion is another insightful moment for Lucky, as we close in on the season finale. The women remark how much each has been known to sacrifice, with Cary as a common link. (Priscilla: “We’ve established we both have a blind spot for lesser men.”) But while she can appreciate Lucky’s wish to get out, she thinks it unrealistic. Even naive. “Wherever you go, there you are,” Priscilla tells Lucky, in whom she sees a bit of her younger self. Maybe advice she never took? “You’re not trying to escape a place, Lucky. You’re not even trying to escape the life. You’re trying to escape who you are.”
The collective DNA of crime is in all of them — it’s wrapped up with family, wrapped up with the grifter’s life. (Also Priscilla: “You’re gonna be me, sooner than you think.”) But in the meantime, the meeting place is set. Lucky is fitted with a buttonhole microphone and given a sham phone, for Whittaker to access the digital wallet. Once that happens, the feds are supposed to swoop in with cuffs and arrests. Rand will nab Priscilla and the elusive Wayne, as well as the skimmed millions. And maybe then, after all that, Lucky and John will be free.
But hey, never trust a crime show to do what it says it’s gonna do; twists and crosses are another thing we love about this genre. As Rand drives Lucky to the meeting point, John is still with Gates back at the hotel, where they hear a noise in the hallway. Come on, FBI guy! Why aren’t you wearing your vest? Gates is drawn out of the room, gets fired on by a decoy scrub, and takes that guy out, but is quickly jumped from behind, shot twice, and killed. Someone is making their own play, separate and apart from the big meet. John watches as the lock is shot out of his hotel room door. Maybe it would’ve been safer to just stay arrested.
Scratch-Offs for Lucky Episode 6 (“Wherever You Go, There You Are”):
- Episode 6 of Lucky features The Kills over the end credits, smartly, given this episode’s themes, with “DNA” off the duo’s 2011 record Blood Pressures.
- “Fiddle games and pigeon drops”: Lucky references these classic cons in her argument with John. In a pigeon drop, a mark hands over cash to the conner, convinced of a (sham) payday that will be even larger. And a fiddle game? Well, if you ask us, that’s what prediction markets should probably be called.
- John Armstrong had a nice moment with Gates, before all the violence. Con “artist”? That ain’t him. He’s just a con man, a tradesman, “nothing spiritual about it, no inspiration.” Art would imply creation, and John Armstrong doesn’t create shit. “It’s just nature. Survival.” Too bad he couldn’t con his attackers into keeping Gates alive.
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.
