If You Play With Fire
Episode 5 of Snabba Cash begins with Leya and Sami moving into a new house. Only, Sami accidentally spills milk all over their new sofa. This is quite the contrast to their previous accommodation, with their new property armed with chained fences and a security system. It also means a brand new start for Sami, who’s not happy about being away from his old friends and school. After dropping him off, Leya rings Salim and warns him about the upcoming delivery. However, she’s immediately interrupted by Dani and his men, who snatch her up and bundle the girl into his car. They call her a snake and demand that she stay in line. Meanwhile, Salim drives Tim to the hideout where they’re about to do their delivery. Only, it’s clear things are about to kick off. Anyway, Ravy arms his men and they prepare to roll out. Among those in attendance is Hakis, Ravy’s brother. The suspense is suffocating, with a choking tension gripping the ride up to the pick-up point. While the group begin ferrying their goods, gunfire rips through the air, immediately leading to a big shootout. With Leya still in the car, she tries to flee with her phone in hand but she’s stopped before she can go. Eventually this leads to her held up at gunpoint. Salim saves the girl and urges Leya to flee and run to safety. Salim and Tim take off, with police en-route to the scene of the shootout. Leya phones Tomas but she’s clearly suffering from serious stress, struggling to keep her mind on the job at hand. With blood over her sleeve, she picks up Sami from school and takes off. Back home, she encourages Fatima to look after Sami for the time being, giving her strict instructions not to open the door to anyone. Back at work, Leya is immediately berated by Tomas for her lateness. Leya apologizes softly, trying her best to get back to normality. While she does, Nala and the rest of the gang meet up in a store and reflect on their losses. They’ve lost two bags in the ensuing conflict and now Ravy has new orders. He wants them all to find Dani and bring him back alive. With Ravy’s crew closing in on Dani’s location, Leya starts to panic. She meets up with Salim and encourages him to drive. While he speeds down the road, Tomas rings her and gives Leya a new task to handle. Things are clearly starting to bubble up and they threaten to drown Leya in overwhelming stress at any moment. Leya arrives at the apartment block and heads in to speak to Dani alone. She tells him to leave, despite having a gun to her face, and eventually shoots Dani in the neck. With blood lining the walls, Salim and Tim head down to meet Ravy while Leya hides up on the next floor. With Dani dead, Ravy instead turns his attention to Dani’s flat-mate, Amina. He wants to find out just who the snitch is. This is, of course, Leya. Nala smashes the girl’s knees in with a hammer as she wails in agony. Eventually she blurts out that it was a girl involved – but she doesn’t know her name. Tim watches on from afar, shocked by what he’s seen and clearly shaken up. In the car with Salim, our protagonist tells Tim he should have walked away from this line of work when he had the chance. Tim struggles to compose himself, eventually finding himself making a choice about his future. Handling the burner phone, he decides to ditch it and throw the phone straight in the water. On the back of Dani’s death, Ravy meets Marko and asks for more time to pay him back. Marko refuses to budge though and tells the man he needs to pay up. Ravy is in big trouble. Speaking of trouble, Salim heads over to check on Leya. After greeting her, they’re interrupted by Ravy appearing at her door. Salim is forced to flee upstairs as Ravy barges inside. He asks for a loan in advance which Leya agrees to give him. Only, Sami mentions “Slim”, which of course is referencing Salim upstairs. Ravy is suspicious but thankfully leaves before arousing any more suspicion. He avoids detection and breathes deeply, something we can all do after that intense, pressure-cooker of an episode!
The Episode Review
Well, I take back what I said last episode. Snabba Cash comes storming out the gates with an intense chapter full of action and drama. With Leya’s secret out in the open and lots of that bubbling tension spilling out, there’s lots of intriguing and well written segments here to unpack. The early scenes showing the juxtaposition between Leya’s fortunes early on in life to now speaks volumes, and it’s a shame actually that the show hasn’t doubled down on this division between rich and poor more. Instead, the deceptively slippery slope to crime is echoed through Tim, who makes a big decision this episode to walk away from this life. Seeing Nala smash in Amina’s knees with a hammer was incredibly difficult to watch but necessary to scare Tim into submission. Seeing him throw the burner phone away was a great moment and certainly a step forward for his character development. Meanwhile, this situation between Ravy and Salim looks set to explode in the final episode – especially when the former learns that Leya is the snitch. So far though, Snabba Cash has done an excellent job building all of this up to the home stretch. Despite a bit of a rocky road to get here, this episode has been excellent.
