Nick and T go to Starr’s jewelry store.  But it’s not a legitimate business — the storefront is a facade.  Heeyyyooooo!

Apparently, mobster Starr has hired these two goons to rob him so he can collect the insurance money.  They watch as the middle-aged Mr. Starr locks the shop and drives off. Nick has the great idea that they should keep the jewels and “do the same thing Starr is doing.”   T reminds him nobody steals from the evil Declan Starr and gets away with it.  Wait, Nick’s plan is to steal from a gangland kingpin and pull the same ruse?

• So lease a space, requiring a huge deposit?
• Purchase expensive showcases.
• Open a store which will have only a few pieces of merchandise?  Or will they purchase $$$ of other inventory to appear legit?
• Advertise said merchandise, alerting Starr to exactly where he can find the exact pieces stolen from him?
• Secure insurance despite having no identities, references, bank accounts, or business license?
• Then hire two other goons to rob them?
• Wouldn’t it be easier just to fence the jewels?

I guess I just don’t have a criminal mind. ^[1]  They bust the lock and enter the store.  The camera, like the viewer, is not interested enough to follow them inside.  Things pick up when we hear two gunshots.  Sadly, both men emerge unhurt.  Wait a minute, what were the shots?  This was just a ruse.  Anyway, things do pick up when T accuses Nick of planning to double-cross him, and shoots down him in the street.  T picks up the jewels and heads for the getaway car.  However, Nick is not quite dead and shoots T.  Viewers cheering this happy ending and heading for the fridge should note that we are only 4 minutes into the episode.

I guess Nick was wearing a flak jacket because he tells T the same thing girls always tell me: “Next time, aim lower!”  Nick gets in the getaway car and gets away.  But wait, T must have also had a flak jacket on because he jumps up and fires several shots at the car as it peels out.  Remember, kids — double-tap!  Did we learn nothing from John Wick?

T must have hit something vital; on the car, I mean.  The car breaks down in front of an old hotel.  Nick checks in and notes the clerk looks familiar.  He takes the seedy elevator to the seedy second floor and goes into his seedy room.

He realizes the bullet did do some damage after all and calls Fixer, who I assume is like Mr. Wolf in Pulp Fiction.  Fixer claims to not know him and then the phone number doesn’t work at all.  Nick goes downstairs, but the clerk is not at his post.  Then something totally unexpected happened — I got interested.

Nick meets a woman in the lobby and that begins a series of interesting scenes that are blood-soaked or just plain weird.  Everything seems to come together at that point.  It even retroactively increased my appreciation of the first few minutes.  I enjoyed some of it so much that I won’t spoil it.

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t seem to make sense or even play fair.  The reasonable assumption any horror fan would make is that Nick is dead the whole time.  Some of the dialogue between him and the clerk or the woman also cleverly suggests that.

However, at the end, we can see that Nick is alive until the last seconds of the episode.  OK, maybe this craziness was fever-dreams from his wound.  But the woman really is dead, so where does that leave us?  Not only that, she somehow made a phone call to Mr. Starr in the land of the living.  There also the chap in the lift pictured above — we can guess who he might be, but no clues are given.  I suppose all this could be artfully explained away, but they seem like loose ends.

However this is a story that started out boring me, then soon won me over with good dialogue, fun visuals, and a couple of fine performances.  It’s hard not to be happy with that.  OK, maybe  little — the episode is utterly humorless.  And I understand the irony of that coming from me.

Other Stuff:

• [1] To be fair, Nick does say he has a Plan B:  “We keep the jewels.  Mr. Starr gets something . . . we get something.”  I assume he means that Mr. Starr gets the insurance proceeds.  So Nick thinks Mr. Starr will be amenable to them stealing the diamonds, and him being out the amount of the deductible and the original loot?  I think even his dopey Plan A is better than that.
• Upon further reflection, I had never considered that the whole stock of a jewelry store might fit into a briefcase.
• When we get a look at the loot, it all seems to be not jewelry, but uncut diamonds the size of the ice cubes in my dinner.