‘Full Circle’ Episode 2 Recap: A Walk in the Park

Everyone says you can’t make a good thriller in the age of cellphones. Ed Solomon and Steven Soderbergh just said “bet.” “Charger,” the portentously titled second episode of the duo’s new crime pulse-pounder (is that a word?), bakes ubiquitous smartphone usage into the drama so smartly and organically that you’d be amazed anyone ever considered the devices a problem for stories involving mystery and suspense. Maybe people just aren’t trying hard enough?

There’s really no plot summary to speak of with this episode, since everyone has pretty much the same goal: get to Washington Square Park to either pull off or avert the murder of Nicky, the homeless teenager believed by his kidnappers to be celebrity-chef grandson Jared. The interested parties include…

• Aked, Xavier, Louis, and Keesen (Shemar Jonas), the actual kidnappers. Aked, the nominal boss of the operation, nevertheless has no clue exactly what he’s doing or why, and he’s pissed about it. Xavier and Louis want to thwart the murder with which the kidnapping is supposed to culminate. Poor Keesen is just there.

• Garmen (Phaldut Sharma) and Paul (Kareem Saviñon), the consigliere and captain of the outfit. They show up to ensure things go according to plan, after Garmen finds the card that Postal Inspector Mel gave Xavier in the guys’ shared bedroom. Unfortunately for Keesen, they think it was his, and kill him on the spot. Unfortunately for Garmen, he gets pulled from the operation by his own boss, Mrs. Mahabir, despite his protests that he needs more information about what’s happening and why in order to ensure the job gets done.

• Natalia, Louis’s sister. She’s there for what turns out to be a big switcheroo, swapping her delivery bike and its big-ass storage box for the one Louis is using to peddle around Nicky’s unconscious body. Natalia’s contains an acupuncture mannequin she stole to use as a decoy; they switch bikes and the plan goes off without a hitch, even after Mrs. Mahabir’s chosen executioner Viktor (Ilia Volok) pulls the trigger on the “boy” in the box.

• Mel, the manic pixie dream postal inspector. Arguably the most off-putting character on the show who isn’t a multiple murderer, she impulsively breaks up with her girlfriend Carol (May Hong) on her way to the Park against her boss’s express orders to pursue a case she isn’t even on. Like many characters in the phone-driven episode, she’s on both the giving and receiving end of various voicemail messages — one from Carol to her, saying there’s no takebacks on this breakup, you asshole, or words to that effect; and one from her to Xavier, chewing him out and threatening him for failing to be a good confidential informant (Mel, I assure you he has bigger fish to fry at the moment); plus a couple of calls with her boss Manny, which go about as well as you’d expect. 

• Now here’s where it gets interesting: Woulghby, the sorcerer from the old country, presumably to ensure the ritual takes place as planned within his chalk circle on the ground. Also in attendance, though? Clarence (Ted Sod), who is both the wronged party on whose behalf Mrs. Mahabir is conducting this ritual execution…and Chef Jeff’s chess partner in the park from the premiere! Maybe you caught this when he showed up briefly in Mrs. Mahabir’s office to chat with her and Woulghby, but it flew over my head until I saw him at that chess table once again. Elsewhere in the episode Jeff — who is deeply upset that anyone could hate him this much given all the acts of kindness he performs — notes in passing that he went out of his way to befriend this man, who presented himself as a fan who’d flown all the way to New York just to meet him. Clearly there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

• Sam, who recklessly flees her apartment to head to the park in search of her husband Derek after his phone dies and who winds up finding him after it’s all over.

• A member of Chef Jeff’s security team, or more accurately the security team from the casino from which Chef Jeff is borrowing the ransom money, who collects it when it goes unused.

• And finally, Derek himself, the man who gives the episode his name. As the kidnappers run him all around Manhattan, he realizes his phone battery is dying, but in a universally relatable mishap, he fails to plug the charger he purchases all the way in and doesn’t notice that the phone isn’t recharging until it’s too late. No handoff. No rescue of a missing kid. Nothing to do but report it all to the FBI and stagger home, so stunned and exhausted and horrified and guilt-ridden that at one point he notes he can’t even tell if he’s sitting or standing. The bizarre look he shoots Sam when she tells him she’s proud of her at the end of the episode will linger in my memory for a long time. (If you’d forgotten how goddamn good Timothy Olyphant was on Deadwood, you won’t for long.)

About the only people who don’t head to the park one way or the other are Jared’s grandma Kristin, a leading advocate for doing whatever it takes to rescue this kid even if he isn’t theirs, and Jared himself, who heads to a remote off-the-grid cabin owned by Chef Jeff’s security chief Joey. (And his dog.)

Stitching all those people together in a pattern that makes any kind of sense, let alone one people find thrilling to look at, is no small feat. Once again, the script by Ed Solomon (PSA: Studios should treat and pay their writers, and actors, fairly) knows exactly how much information to dole out at any one time to keep us on our toes; moreover, as noted above, boy oh boy has he cracked the code for the use of cellphones to generate tension. That feeling of not being able to reach someone you need to reach, of leaving or listening to long freaked-out messages, of the sound of a ringtone or vibration indicating a call you don’t particularly want to receive, of running out of battery, of the goddamn charger not working — these are universal, understood by everyone. Use that!

And pulling his usual triple duty — cinematography under the name Peter Andrews, editing under the name Mary Ann Bernard. and directing as his own damn self — Soderbergh orders all the moving parts like a machine. The handoff between Louis and Natalia, Derek’s frantic efforts to make it there in time, the arrival of Garmen’s crew like the footsteps of doom: All of this is nailbiting stuff, up there with comparable sequences in recent action-thriller standouts like Silo, The Old Man, Better Call Saul, and Andor. This thing is rock solid, friends. And it leaves me with the exact thought it should: I wonder what will happen next week?

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.