The Crowded Room – Season 1 Episode 4 “London” Recap & Review

London

Episode 4 of The Crowded Room begins with Danny reaching London and making his way to the Royal Travel Agency. This is the place his father, Pete Sullivan, purported to work. On enquiring, Danny finds that Pete never worked at the place, until Jack walks from the back room and recognizes Danny as the spitting image of his father. Jack takes him to a bar and explains that he doesn’t know where Pete is. They were business partners previously but Pete went his own way when a deal went awry.

At the bar, they run into trouble as one of the customers calls Danny a “wanker.” Jack takes offence to this and confronts him head-on, forcing him to apologize to Danny, which he does. We see Yitzhak calling Jack in private and saying that Jack must “prepare Danny for the mission.” That is why he has been sent to London. Danny explains to Professor Rya that Ariana, Jack, and Yitzhak schemed to use Danny for their ulterior ends, including the shooting of Marlin.

Rya continuously asks Danny questions about the coherence of his narration. He does not see that everything that is happening to him is too much of a coincidence to be true. Jack lays the works on Danny and offers him 3k pounds to complete the job. All he has to do is square up to a guy named Reggie Silver and ask for the money he owes Jack and Pete. Jack cannot go himself so Danny must go on his behalf. Danny is enticed by the proposition as the money would give him more time to lay low as the police back in New York make sense of the case.

When he goes to Reggie, the old man laughs him off and asks his bouncers to throw Danny out of the club. He rejects the existence of any financial prerequisite or obligation to Pete or Jack. Danny panics when he cannot find Jack anywhere. He goes to all the places they went the previous night and even calls the travel agency. But Jack is nowhere to be found. He eventually shows up at Danny’s hotel room and beseeches him to go back and confront the challenges in front of him.

Danny takes a flight back to New York and goes to the boarding house, where he doesn’t find any signs of Yitzhak or Ariana. We see him getting arrested soon after. Danny gets agitated and visibly stressed when Rya once again accuses Danny of being the “mastermind” behind this operation. He pleads his innocence and says that he had nothing to do with Ariana or Yitzhak’s disappearance. He himself is a victim in this situation.

We see Rya coming into her session with Danny the next morning. But this time she does not find him; she finds Jack, who has “taken over” from Danny for the time being. When Rya suggests they tell the truth to Danny, Jack rejects her idea and says it would be “catastrophic” for Danny.

The Episode Review

It is quite clear by now that everything Danny narrates to Rya is in his head. Ariana, Yitzhak, and Jack, among others, are fixtures of his imagination. But even now, The Crowded Room is hesitant to say it out loud. Someone had to realize that it would be alright for the narrative to recognize that and give us insight into how Danny got to that stage.

I guess the real tragedy is that Danny himself doesn’t realize what is happening to him. As Jack said, telling him the truth would be “catastrophic.” He is clueless about his condition and that breeds fear and paranoia in his mind about others.

Holland has been consistently brilliant in manifesting those emotions and feelings. Following him as he explores Danny’s story is a more rewarding exercise than following the series through the eyes of its creators. As of now, despite the shocking underlying true story of Sullivan, The Crowded Room has failed to impress.