Kaleidoscope – “Green” Recap & Review

Green

Kaleidoscope’s Green episode jumps back in time, seven years before the heist as we catch up with Leo. He’s in prison and reveals that criminals come in all shapes and sizes. Stan is there too, also behind bars and actually happens to be his cellmate.

Leo’s plight comes from the face he was betrayed, which explains why he’s behind bars. He and Stan work together and have a good operation going, using their outside gal, Judy, to ferry goods inside. She has ties to Stan and he believes she’s the one.

There are some who aren’t happy with this deal, especially when Stan sells a phone belonging to the Peckerwoods, a gang in the prison. There’s three of them, and after smacking Stan upside the head with a rolling pin in the kitchen, leave him bleeding profusely. Leo shows and manages to save him from a nasty outcome.

Leo though, is not completely well. Seeing the doctor, he points out that he has Parkinson’s. This explains the quip in the Yellow episode about “the shakes” and this diagnosis is not good. As a result, Leo decides to make a move, thinking clearly and already formulating an idea for a heist.

At the prison, Stan meets Judy’s right-hand man, Bob. He’s just as obnoxious as ever, and when he riles up Stan, he struggles to compose himself. However, Bob agrees to get him the cards he needs. When they leave, Stan decides to go all-in on Leo’s plan.

Leo manages to get an imprint of the guard’s key thanks to some flamboyant coughing and grabbing the guard’s hip, while Stan spikes the food, sending the entire mess into raptures. When all the security detail leave to check what’s going on, they leave Leo and Stan alone in the medical bay.

Leo breaks free from his cuffs but Stan is caught before he can escape. Leo manages to bust out through the parking lot, evading the guards as they show up in their droves.

Back inside, the doctor shrugs off the prisoner condition, claiming it’s just magic mushrooms and they’ll be fine in a few hours, joking that they should just throw on some Pink Floyd instead. They don’t do roll call or anything, and as a result Leo is able to bust out and escape.

Leo heads to see Ava, where he reveals his Parkinson diagnosis to her. Next, he visits Hannah and tries to explain himself. It’s here we learn that Hannah is actually Leo’s daughter. While they’re together, the police realize Leo is missing (finally) and decide to try and find him.

Leo has his sights set on Roger Salas though, a man who’s closely aligned to Hannah at SLS. When a burning corpse is found by the police, it’s perceived to be Ray Vernon (Leo’s real name) and as a result, Leo is given a brand new identity to push forward with.

The Episode Review

Aesthetically, it’s interesting that the dominant colour here is green and we’ll have to watch and see if that’s a recurring visual motif. Beyond that, we see more of Leo and Stan’s history, which makes sense given the prediction we made after the Yellow episode that everything would be fleshing out the past.

However, the writing is sloppy and anyone with any sort of knowledge of prisons or have watched prison dramas in the past know that Leo’s escape would be nigh-on impossible. No roll call and the doctor just shrugging off the drugged inmates? Without even checking the food? And all of this comes off the back of Leo smuggling himself in the trunk of the doctor’s car, where he must have been there for a while.

These sort of sloppy narrative issues hold this back from being a better heist series, and the gimmick of switching to different episodes can only sustain this one for so long. Hopefully this is just a blip along the way.