City On Fire – Episode 4 “Land of a Thousand Dances” Recap & Review

Land of a Thousand Dances

Episode 4 of City on Fire begins with us in the past, with Sam and Charlie out buying presents for Christmas. When Sam picks up a subjective book about cucks, Charlie shows bits of a jealous streak bleed through, pointing out that she’s never bought him a book.

Fast forward to the present, and Charlie hands out flyers for the team. However, he ends up spooked when he notices Wanted posters up in the store with his name on. As he races out, William does too as cops find him trying to score drugs by giving fellatio in the toilets. While Charlie manages to get away, William does not.

William is detained downtown and asks for Detective Parsa. Parsa shows up and tries to strike a deal with William. In exchange for dropping the prostitution charges, William suggests he’ll help try and solve the case of who shot Sam. He knows a fair amount too, given he’s right in the thick of all this, and after drawing up some connections, he points out the issues with his family. It’s enough for Parsa to hand over some case files and promise to try and drop William’s charges.

While Regan is called into work thanks to an incriminating fax that could change everything. She rings Keith once she knows about William, but he’s up at the hospital like a creep, constantly trying to check on Sam. That doesn’t go unnoticed and between the receptionist up there telling him to leave, and Nicky’s guys following him, Keith is bringing way too much attention to himself.

When Keith heads back home, Regan realizes the laptop is missing the L key, meaning it matches up with the keystrokes from the letter reading “He’s 1ying to you.” It seems this is Will, who knows about the affair. Sam came to the apartment once and that seems to be the moment when Will found out. Their son Will, not Mercer’s William!

William is a man possessed and he ends up in his gallery, obsessed with Sam’s shooting. He’s basically substituting one addiction for another, and believes that he’s the key to figuring everything out. Mercer tries to talk some sense into him but he’s having none of it.

Charlie is also looking into Sam’s shooting too and after getting a haircut, courtesy of Lorraine (Sewer Girl), he questions Sam’s camera and whether there could be a connection there. Nicky is acting suspiciously though, dodging Charlie’s questions and heading out, where he ends up meeting Amory. Unbeknownst to them, William actually happens to be following.

It turns out Nicky is working with Amory, who’s orchestrating these fires for some reason. Quite what the reason is remains a mystery though, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon. When Nicky brings up Sam being shot, Amory says “If I shot someone, they’d be dead.”

Keith finds himself in a spot of trouble when Sol shows up at the cinema and beats him down. He takes off with Keith’s wallet and watch, telling him that they’ve got fired and have no way of paying the bills.

At the office, Regan finally opens up her desk and looks at the fax we learned about early on in the episode. It’s from the Mayor and intending to go to Amory. The Hamilton-Sweeney Group’s application for a Blight Decree has been suspended. It’s a dirty tactic so Regan phones her father and suggests he look into this and try to find a solution.

Detective Parsa shows up at Regan’s office and begins asking questions about her divorce and Keith, but it’s Amory of all people who shows and stops them. He tells the cops that Regan is not going to say anything without a lawyer, and leaves. Of course, we know that Amory has his fingers in many honeypots here, including that of Keith’s affair.

Meanwhile, Charlie finds Sam’s old cuck book she picked up at Christmas and decodes a message that reads “look behind the horse”. He interprets this as a car and looking at the poster up on the wall, finds a camera roll stashed there. He snatches it up and stuffs it down his pants. Charlie rushes out the back and runs for it, while Nicky heads back to the group and tells them that there’s a new plan to get revenge on Amory. One could deduce that this is their next point of attack.

As the episode closes out, Keith tries to explain himself to his son. However, that doesn’t go to plan when Detective Parsa shows up at the door.

The Episode Review

City on Fire is back and once again, we get absolutely nothing about the investigation into Charlie, nor do we see anything about the crime scene either. It seems Parsa has just completely forgotten about the urine-soaked trousers and this only reflects badly on the writing of this show, which has been a consistent level of bad.

There’s absolutely no redeeming characters here either, with the exception of perhaps Mercer, and everyone else essentially plays out as an unlikable, mixed bag of caricatures. It’s a shame because the overall idea is quite good but one can’t help but feel this would have worked so much better as a streamlined movie.

Still, the ending might just be enough to entice you back next week but this is definitely becoming a hard sell!