Lucky Season 1 Episode 6 Review: Daddy Dearest

So, what’s the plan, Lucky?

A mere 24 hours ago, Luciana Armstrong had some major aces in hand — access to $10 million, her father freed from prison. The world could’ve been her oyster.

But she made a deliberate choice and convinced her dad that turning themselves in was the right play.

Lucky “Wherever You Go, There You Are”

Lucky Season 1 Episode 6, “Where You Go, There You Are,” the penultimate offering of the series, is a study in pensive moments, fraught with tension.

After shootouts, car chases, hospital escapes, and collisions, it’s a marked change of pace to spend an entire chapter just talking in conference rooms, hotels, and a stable.

As every conversation unfolds, it’s worth paying attention to what’s not being said.

In negotiating with Agent Rand, both Lucky and John offer insights into how to deal with Priscilla and Whittaker. What goes unsaid is that chances are slim to none that the deal will go as planned.

And when Priscilla describes to Lucky her personal realization that she’d never escape the life because she couldn’t run from herself, the silent subtext is that she tried.

Agent Rand and John’s discussion is the least subtle. For the second time in the series, Rand is asked if she has kids. (The first time was Priscilla on Lucky Season 1 Episode 3, “Read the Room.”)

“The job is not a job. It’s a goddamn calling, isn’t it?” — John Armstrong

John suggests that Rand’s kid hates her for putting her job ahead of her family. Rand flat-out accuses John of turning Lucky into a commodity. Both of them imply they are the better parent.

John and Gates have a rather pleasant conversation while playing cards. It provides way more backstory for Gates than we’ve had up until now.

Unfortunately, he bites it in the next scene.

But their dialogue is a wonderful examination of how one’s identity is shaped. It dances around the concepts of mission, motivation, and mindfulness.

Armstrong Strong

But it’s the scenes of Lucky with her father that illustrate the tragedy of their existence.

“Wherever You Go, There You Are” opens with John telling Lucky about his first haul, stealing the collection plate from a local evangelical preacher when he was eight or nine.

In response, Lucky recalls her first haul. With her dad’s coaching, she bagged a couple of hundred at age seven by faking a fall outside a mall.

Unspoken by Lucky and unlooked for by John is the sorrow she feels that their first shared success is a lie that victimized an unsuspecting mother.

“Who wants to be free if you’re broke?” — John Armstrong

Later, when Lucky confronts her father with her grievances about her childhood, what isn’t mentioned is how she never sought to escape that life until he was locked up and they were separated.

And when he calls her an idiot for believing Rand when she made the deal that landed him in prison, it distracts from his shock that he never put that together.

Who Holds the Cards?

Heading into the finale, everyone thinks they have the winning hand.

Lucky believes she can buy freedom for herself and her father with the deal she’s struck with the FBI.

Rand bets her career on this takedown of Priscilla and Whittaker.

Her boss, Kershaw, only allows her enough rope to hang herself in this endgame scenario because he’s pretty certain how this is going to play out.

But it’s the faceless gunman who takes out Gates and breaks into John’s hotel room who may flip the table on this game.

Parental Guidance

There’s a lot of talk of mothers and fathers here.

Obviously, Lucky and John are the focal point. John brings up the fact that Lucky’s mother died when she was an infant, forcing him to invent the fatherhood wheel as he saw fit.

(Point of fact: this is another major divergence from the novel, where Lucky’s biological mother is still alive and [spoiler!] actually present in her life.)

Priscilla: You always were the clever one.

Lucky: I just wasn’t willing to be played. 

Priscilla: Oh, honey, your father’s been playing you your entire life.

Lucky: At least he didn’t steal from me.

Priscilla: No, it was Cary who did that to you, wasn’t it? So, we’ve established that we both have a blind spot for lesser men.

Lucky: He was your son.

Priscilla: Yeah, I loved him. But let’s be honest, he was out of his depth with you.

Priscilla seems to have moved on from grieving Cary to seeing him in a rather cold, calculating light. Lucky’s luck really ran out with her draw on mother-in-laws.

We’ve had a glimpse of what Agent Rand’s relationship is like with her daughter on Lucky Season 1 Episode 5, “Are We Bad People?” and she’s clearly compartmentalized that from her work life.

I suspect Gates’s death will hit her hard. She’s had him at her back and under her wing for this entire series.

What do you think, Fanatics? How will the finale play out? Who will walk away alive? More importantly, who will walk away with the $10 million?

Vote on who you think will come out on top in the poll below and drop your hottest takes on the series in the comment section!

TV Fanatic is searching for passionate contributors to share their voices across various article types. Think you have what it takes to be a TV Fanatic? Click here for more information and next steps.