Simon Says
Episode 3 of The Longest Night begins with us outside, as Ruso’s group approaches the fire truck. Up on the rooftop though, Hugo happens to be watching. Somehow Simon is unoccupied in the middle of all this and he breaks into the lab, opening up the drawer and bringing out a pair of scissors. I mean, out of all the people who should be watched here, why is Simon alone? Anyway, he begins stalking Nuria, intending to take her out given she knows all about his identity. Simon stalks through the hallways alone, while Nuria teams with Said and Javi to try and find a way out. Ali wakes up and finds herself alone too, with Guille taken away last episode by Cardenal. Now, the flashbacks this time around center on Cherokee, whom we see has quite the history, including a desire to be like his father. With two prosthetic legs, he’s had a rough upbringing. At the age of 16, he actually killed his foster parent. He’s a pretty dangerous inmate, but he also has a soft spot for Manuela too. When a creepy inmate called Rubio gets too close to her, he pounces and knocks him out. Back in the present, and outside in the yard, everything goes sideways. Ruso orders Richi to shoot all the firemen, prompting Macarena to open fire from the roof. None of Ruso’s group are killed though, and the duo eventually head down and find Sara – another of Lennon and Ruso’s mercenaries – in the security room. Hugo confronts her but Sara claims she doesn’t know anything about Hugo’s kids. She does, however, give some insight into exactly what Ruso’s group are doing here. (About time, that only took 3 episodes!) Apparently, they want Simon so he doesn’t testify in court. They don’t want him revealing some sort of truth about them, typified by that earlier scene where Simon was informed of what’s happening and deleted the files from his phone. The context beyond that though is still unknown, which I guess we’ll find out later in the series. Anyway, Sara is eventually saved by her group, prompting Hugo and Macarena to run. At the same time, Guille and Ali are reunited after finding the former in a cell with Cardenal. He vows he didn’t touch Guille, given they were both sitting and watching cartoons together. He claims this was all just one big mistake. As for Simon, the dangerous inmate is still left unattended (honestly, how stupid can these characters get?) and he ends up killing Said. At the same time, Cherokee takes control of the loudspeaker and announced to all the inmates that they’re no longer under control and should enact a fair and just republic, free from everyone. Only, Cardenal and his cronies show up and try to control the situation. Instead, Cherokee kills the guy in cold blood, calling him a pedo and crushing his skull. After, Cherokee organizes the rest of the inmates, intending to find Hugo’s kids so they can use them to negotiate with the police. Unfortunately it doesn’t take long for him to find the pair. Accompanied by his new lackey, Syringe, he takes the kids with him to the front of Red Block, forcing the guards to open up their doors. With little choice, they do just that but the inmates immediately pounce on the guards. Meanwhile, Ruso organizes his troops for round 2, while Hugo and Macarena eventually find Simon, with blood spattered up the walls. Simon tells Hugo matter-of-factly that he needs to get in touch with those who have taken Laura by 1am (which is about 4 hours away in terms of in-show time) otherwise shell die. As we soon find out, Laura survived her car crash and wakes up to find herself in the smashed up car, upside down. She manages to squeeze free and tries to find help. Laura scrambles for a car that stops by the side of the road and manages to get a lift from them. Only, they happen to be part of all this and a woman pops up from the backseat and sedates her. As the episode closes out, Ruso manages to break into the Green Block and prepare to attack, while the guards – led by Bastos – prepare to defend their position upstairs. At the same time, Cherokee continues to throw his weight around, intending to take over the prison.
The Episode Review
So the third episode drip-feeds a little bit of explanation regarding exactly what Ruso, Lennon and his group want but beyond a vague “we don’t want Simon to testify in court”, there’s not a whole lot more context. Now, it could be that the group are in collusion with Simon and this whole prison break is an elaborate red herring for something bigger, given we still need to see exactly how Laura being kidnapped plays into all this. There are a lot of moving parts in this show and as I said in the previous recap, we know very little about our main characters. Hell, we know more about Cherokee and Manuela – two inmates – than we do about Hugo! Not only that but for some reason Simon has just been left to his own devices and completely unattended for much of this episode. Why? He’s clearly the catalyst for all this and as Hugo and Macarena know that Ruso’s group are in the prison, disguised as guards no less, they should be sticking to this killer like glue to make sure he’s not captured. Little moments like this are disguised around a plot that moves at a breathless pace and the cynic in me almost feels like that’s deliberate to stop those sort of questions being asked. There’s definitely some potential here but right now it seems unlikely to reach that.
