"I've been waiting all season for a Mayor of Kingstown episode like this week's "Belleville." Whatever this show's flaws, it has always proved capable of delivering - even if only once or twice a year - a taut, tense episode where some crisis unifies the action and propels the story. And that's what we get here: an electric 40 minutes (only 40 minutes!) in which Merle Callahan's escape rattles all of Kingstown."
"One small detail in "Belleville" that means a lot: the alarm that blares from the Kingstown prison, heard across the city, warning everyone to be wary. Even Sarah at the diner reflexively reaches for the gun under her counter when she hears the siren. Right from the start of the episode (or at least after the cold open), nearly all of the characters are connected by a mutual concern."
"Then she comes into work and finds that her Colombian intermediary, David Torres, has called in sick and that the guards she thought she had under tight control have let one of her most incorrigible inmates slip by. She has little patience left when Mike shows up and offers a helping hand, saying, "I'm not your enemy, I'm your future." She sighs and replies that the future doesn't exist. All she cares about is getting through today."
A single alarm from the Kingstown prison connects nearly every character and raises tension across the city. Sarah at the diner instinctively reaches for a gun when the siren sounds. Merle visits the Aryan HQ, grows annoyed by the alert, and punishes Todd by having arsonist Pete McDonough set him on fire. Warden Nina Hobbs arrives frazzled after a threat from the Colombian hit man Cortez and finds her intermediary ill and guards compromised. Mike offers assistance, declaring, "I'm not your enemy, I'm your future," while Nina insists the future doesn't exist and focuses on surviving today.
Read at Vulture
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