The Company You Keep is hitting its stride.
The series has been strong from the get-go, but they’ve turned a corner here and turned the narrative a bit on its head, as The Company You Keep Season 1 Episode 4 saw one-half of the central pairing finding out one hell of a secret.
That’s right. Charlie now knows his girlfriend is a CIA agent. And he handles it a lot better than expected.
I was WAY off about who took Charlie at the end of The Company You Keep Season 1 Episode 3, mainly because I didn’t believe it was time for the series to bring this element in.
But it works here in an unexpected way because it immediately ups the urgency on so many levels and adds a lot more drama, which sets this series on a totally new trajectory.
When I tell you, I audibly gasped when they revealed that the CIA had taken Charlie! Of all the ways I imagined Charlie finding out Emma worked for the government, I always thought it would come in a way that would catch them both off-guard.
Perhaps Charlie was running away from a scene, and Emma had to tackle him to the ground; the two then realizing the gravity of the situation and having just seconds to make a decision that would change their lives forever.
But that’s not exactly what’s going to happen.
It’s funny that the only red flag on Charlie’s file is of some missing time in Nicaragua, not the very cons he’s pulled off over the years. There’s definitely more to that story, but he passes his lie detector test with flying colors, gets cleared, and then has to decide what the hell to do about the fact that he’s dating a CIA agent.
In the moment, you can see that Charlie is genuinely surprised, but any surprise or fear is covered up quickly. A career criminal knows what to do in a situation like that, and he plays it perfectly.
He stays calm and handles everything correctly, acting extremely understanding and almost as if it’s no big deal.
But you can tell it’s a cover when he’s blanking out with Emma in the car and when he gets home and nearly bites his family’s head off.
It throws him for a major loop, and for a good reason. He’s got some serious decisions to make in a short amount of time because it becomes crystal clear to him that the longer he lies to Emma, the worse it’s all going to be for him.
Charlie isn’t a bad guy, but he does do bad things. The Nicolettis have a serious Robin Hood thing going on, where all the cons we’ve seen them pull off involve stealing from actual bad people. But stealing is stealing, and they aren’t exactly using that money to fight back against the man or something. They’re just pocketing it.
Charlie: She doesn’t know about this side of me, Pop.
Leo: What side of you? You are a stand-up guy. And stand-up guys take care of their families.They do what needs to be done.
But underneath it all, you can tell Charlie is a decent human. And it was nice to hear Leo give him a pep talk when he started to doubt that about himself. Of course, Leo doesn’t know everything, but Charlie needs to hear someone who knows him well remind him of who he is at his core.
And wanting to give up the life for Emma? Charlie is in DEEP.
They both are, honestly. Emma disclosing her relationship to the CIA means it’s serious, and Charlie taking on the most dangerous job possible just to get out of the deal with Daphne and start new shows how much Emma means to him.
But the big con was way too good to be true in a totally unpredictable way.
Choosing to keep his family in the dark about Emma made sense to Charlie because he thought it would be a moot point. If he could get Daphne her money, he could walk away, be a bartender for real, and then it wouldn’t matter what he did in the past.
And he’s lucky that his family trusts him as much as they do because it doesn’t take much to get them on board once he and Leo can iron out all the kinks.
One thing about the cons on The Company You Keep is that they can be very intricate, and they explain things so fast sometimes it’s hard to keep up.
You almost have to dumb it down a bit and just extract the main parts to understand how it all works. Or hell, maybe it’s just me that needs to do that.
It’s always great seeing Daniel Sunjata on my television screen, and Robert is every bit the boss he’s set up to be. Charlie’s ability to dive into whatever character he needs to is a trait not everyone possesses, and Ernesto is the best he’s played so far.
Brash and borderline annoying, Ernesto was the kind of guy to make an impression, and you’ve got to do that if you want to get invited to the big kid’s table.
Everything almost came crashing down at David’s fundraiser (which we’ll dive into later), but Charlie thought quickly on his feet, and then it was pretty much smooth sailing, getting millions of dollars off a heavily armed ship.
As soon as Connor showed up in America, you knew his presence would muddle things up somehow. He’s barely been involved thus far, yet the few time we’ve seen him, he’s been an overly angry man-baby with a superiority complex.
Charlie knew exactly what he was doing when he made that call to him at the end of the previous hour because a guy like that doesn’t like to be surprised, and he most certainly doesn’t want to be upstaged.
He barely allowed Daphne to work how she wanted, but finding out she was his half-sister? Well, that was just a wrong his feeble mind could never accept!
Thus far, Daphne has been a decent villain in that she hasn’t been too overly caricatured and more or less has been just mean enough to get her point across. But the more you get to know her, it’s clear she’s got a lot of daddy issues going on.
Maguire shows up at her mother’s funeral, and how she talks about him makes it seem as though they’d forged a relationship that led her to where she is now. The little time we’ve seen father and daughter together has not been of the warm and fuzzy variety, but there was also a lot at stake then.
Connor breezes into town to assert his dominance over Daphne and nip her plans in the bud. I can appreciate Daphne for trying to appeal to the greedy side of Connor because it was the right play. But that man would never listen to her or want to be looked at as her equal in any way.
Connor: Does your mouth ever stop moving, son?
Charlie: Let me ask you, Connor. You know that saying, ‘every king has an heir and a spare.’ Which one am I looking at?
As bright as Daphne is, though, she definitely overplayed her hand and was on unequal footing the minute Connor found out Maguire was her father. But if there’s anyone that can eventually bounce back, it’ll be Daphne.
It just sucks she’s almost guaranteed to suck the Nicolettis back in to do it.
Connor’s decision to take the money from Charlie was probably made when he was still across the ocean. Charlie unknowingly set himself up the minute he dropped that paternity news, which may cost him more than just money.
Emma, Emma, Emma.
Emma is such a great, likable lead, and all I can think about is how much it will suck when she figures out the truth about everything.
Of the two, she was more hesitant to pursue things with Charlie, but now that she’s in, she is all in. And bringing Charlie to meet her family shows how much this relationship means to her.
Charlie is the kind of guy anyone would be thrilled to bring home to meet their parents. He’s charming, intelligent, and thoughtful, and he has a good head on his shoulder.
It’s funny that Emma was worried about her mother’s reaction when it ended up being Joe, who went off the rails.
Joes is a career politician, and he should be able to spot a fake from a mile away. Not that Charlie is a fake, but he’s hiding something. We know that. Joe seems to suss it out immediately, but it’s a shame he takes some real concerns and then turns it into a ‘my daughter deserves better’ thing as if his not having some fat bank account is what matters.
She deserves better than a bartender? The most important thing should be that she’s being loved and cared for by someone who respects and appreciates her. Charlie treats Emma with nothing but respect, which you can see from a mile away, and it sucks that Joes could not see that.
And it’ll stink even more if he gets the last laugh one day.
Ramping things up may have been a surprise, but it gave this already captivating series a major jolt. Emma had eyes on Charlie, and Charlie had eyes on Emma, and the possibilities moving forward are endless as these two head toward their inevitable crash.
The Notes I Kept
- Leo and Fran have such a sweet and tender relationship, but I worry about Leo’s reluctance to discuss his condition. The slip-up on the yacht wasn’t significant, but it could be deadly in their line of work and needs to be talked about and understood.
- Claire Fox doesn’t seem all that menacing, but she obviously wants this woman to join David’s campaign so she can have eyes on the inside and push her agenda, right?
- Seamus had A LOT of nerve screwing Daphne over and then just sitting there with her later like the mess she was in wasn’t entirely his fault.
- There has to be a reason to bring Ernesto back again. Milo Ventimiglia was having the time of his life playing Ernesto, and for selfish reasons, I need to see him again one day!
- What do we think actually happened in Nicaragua? Because I have a tough time believing the story he spun to the CIA. And if he passed the lie detector test, would they even think to corroborate his story?
Now that Charlie knows about Emma and understands how close she is to his business, he has to figure out how to play this and decide when he will let the rest of the Nicolettis know what’s going on.
This was the best episode of the series so far. Dramatic, funny, shocking, and all the emotions throughout!
Drop me a line in the comments and let me know what you thought about the hour! And please watch The Company You Keep online so that you can join the conversation!
Whitney Evans is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.