For the longest time, crime mysteries have borne this self-inflicted burden of being broody and unfalteringly dark. They “handled” the need for originality by doubling down on what was already present in the necessary amount. Luckily, Dennis Lehane knew better than that. That’s why, no matter how dark and disturbing Smoke gets, there’s that much needed balance you can count on. That’s why AppleTV’s curiously bold arson mystery never comes off like yet another depressing metaphor for the human condition in a world that breeds evil. Smoke understands that real people are simply not designed to cope with all that without breaks. And because it writes about real people–be it an arsonist or a ne’er-do-well ex-cop, episode 6 has somehow achieved this almost impossible thing. It’s struck just the right balance between light-hearted humor and the darkest truths of a painful existence.
Spoiler Alert
Dave goes after Freddy
I wouldn’t say Dave’s lucky no matter how many lucky breaks he gets. When someone self-sabotages as hard as he does, nobody and nothing can ever really get them back on the right track. As a little boy, Dave didn’t deserve to have his heart shattered by his mom leaving him. Not even so much as a note. Considering that’s the point where Dave decided to bury himself in his rage and hate for the rest of his life, I don’t think his dad was the most responsible parent either. But Dave’s always kind of known what he was doing. If he can lie and pretend to be a solid guy, he knows the difference between right and wrong. And at that point, especially as an adult, it falls on Dave to recognize his privileges, choose his own path, and seek help. But Dave didn’t want help. He wanted the credit for being a good, reliable guy while secretly hurting the whole world. But while people like Dave may think they’re pulling off the act, they’re not even aware of the little ways they eviscerate the people who believe in them. That’s why he’s probably genuinely shocked that Ashley doesn’t seem too happy after finding out that he’s only sustained a few minor injuries from the car crash. Without context, you’d probably vilify the wife for not being over the moon that her husband survived. That’s basically the light in which Dave sees his marriage with Ashley. When it comes to Dave, he doesn’t see context. He doesn’t mind being a lying, cheating, verbally abusive, flighty husband to Ashley because, well, he does far worse things than people even hold him accountable for. So yeah. Accountability isn’t a crime that Dave Gudsen is guilty of. And he’s so self-destructive that, instead of apologizing when Ashley speaks up about what he’s been putting her through, he lets his ego take the driver’s seat. Good for Ashley, really. She’ll never have to wonder if she did the right thing by leaving Dave. Umberland is lucky that Dave has a better way to feel powerful for now. This divorce and the feeling of rejection would’ve made him burn his town to the ground had it not been for the other arsonist, Freddy. As Dave goes to the mirror with an ironic little limp in his right leg, his terrified, insecure eyes see a much older version of himself. We can’t have that, can we? Dave needs to feel good about himself. And what better way to do that than to actually try to be the hero he claims to be in his book? When he gets a bit too into character and cooks up a whole cool scenario about his discharge in his mind, he’s just Ken. But it’s actually kind of worked on him. It’s like he’s absorbed Ken Maddox’s super-arson-investigator traits. This psychotic break is bound to make it easier for him to catch Freddy “Milk Jug” Fasano.
Harvey’s seen the truth
Now that Michelle knows that her partner, Dave, is an arsonist, can you imagine how awkward it would’ve been for her to work with him on the Crawford arson case? So in a way, she gets to dodge that when the Crawford FD and PD make a massive misstep in the investigation. Turns out, Roger’s wife was a doctor, and she was going through a really bad malpractice lawsuit. With all the fingers pointing at the complainant, Freddy’s dodged a bullet. Michelle’s content with the copycat theory. She can’t possibly solve two cases at once anyway. I don’t think it was her plan to get Ezra to come down to Harvey’s office. She’s as blindsided by the visit as the Commander, but it gets the ball rolling for her. Ezra knew that he wouldn’t get a warm welcome. But meeting Michelle has given him the strength to go out and get the justice that he’s wanted for all these years. He’s looked into Dave again. Our firebug arson investigator has lit way more than the one fire we saw him drive past in the 5th episode of Smoke. Between his cheesy presentation, and a failed attempt at sleeping with his ex-wife, he’s managed to find the time to light five fires, all around Route 7. Ezra’s found the pattern between all the arson cases that happened around a bunch of arson conferences Dave’s been to. It’s not the kind of evidence that’s admissible in court, but it’s enough for Harvey to even take out his earplugs and listen to Ezra. Michelle’s done beating around the bush as well. She also knows that if Harvey blabs to Dave, and he gets a whiff of what’s brewing, he’ll mess everything up for them. So it’s time to show Harvey that his career isn’t bullet proof. And by threatening to make mincemeat of his life’s work if he gets too buddy buddy with Dave, Michelle does just that. Harvey’s reluctant, but the fact that Captain Steven Burk and ATF’s Special Agent Dawn Hudson are about to go neck deep into this operation, he knows that he’s got to comply. They hardly even have a lead to pursue. The only thing they do have is the incendiary device that Michelle found around the area where Dave had tried and failed to light a fire. It won’t get them anywhere in court. But if they do manage to match the DNA on it to Dave’s, they’ll at least be able to get Harvey to fully come on board. They really should’ve had a plan, at least when it came to what they’d say to Dave for the time being. They fumble so hard when Dave calls Harvey that, if he wasn’t fully consumed by thoughts of the Milk Jug arsonist, he would’ve seen right through their lies. It’s got to be frustrating for Harvey to waste his time watching Ezra make his slimy moves on Dawn. He plays along as long as he can. He even fixes Ezra’s mess and convinces Leighton PD to share the security footage around the fires on Route 7. But when the results of the DNA test return inconclusive, and he’s expected to just trust Michelle’s instincts, he feels like he’s betraying his friend. If he wasn’t stopped by a passage in Dave’s book playing in the background, Harvey would’ve walked right out and not looked back. It’s the same part of Dave’s book that convinced Michelle that he’d been the arsonist behind the old Sully’s fire. But something else has caught Harvey’s attention. When Dave wrote about the old Sully’s fire, he mentioned the flavor of ice cream the Sandersons had gotten for their grandkid, “Stpachio.” That’s how the 3 year old kid pronounced pistachio. But the problem is, Dave wasn’t supposed to know this. He got too excited and added a detail in his book that only Harvey knew. After the fire had killed his wife and grandson, the grandfather told Harvey about the ice cream. Harvey never included that in any reports. The only way Dave could’ve known this is if he’d watched them. That’s enough to make Harvey’s world come crumbling down around him.
Why does Freddy let Lee go?
Freddy may be completely unstable, but even he knows that after pulling the stunt that he did, his life’s kind of over. Normally, his days start with his job at a Coop’s branch and end with porn or fire. But Coop’s not his place anymore. Maybe for the first time ever, Freddy hasn’t shown up for work. Who does it fall to to make sure he shows up? Lee, of course. When Lee calls him, Freddy already has his mind set on going to the amusement park. He doesn’t mind letting Lee tag along. He’s the only person who hasn’t let Freddy’s quirks stand in the way of their friendship. He doesn’t need Freddy to act like most people. He’s just happy to be around the guy. So why wouldn’t Lee take up the offer to play hooky and polish off a six pack with Freddy? The park’s closed for the season, so the setting’s practically perfect for a hang. But Freddy’s got other plans. When he stops and stares at le jongleur de feu playing with fire on the poster, you wonder if this is where it all started for Freddy. Come to think of it, when Lee arrives, Freddy does tell him that he was once happy here. But Freddy has a rather grim reason to be back here. When he dumps his Coop’s handbook, all his IDs, birth certificate, childhood pictures and fat wads of cash into an enormous cup, and molotov cocktails every last speck of his existence, you know it can only be for one reason. Freddy’s decided to end his life. When you watch him walk Lee through the park and tell him every bit of trivia about all the rides, you’re bound to wonder if he once worked here. Even Lee thinks that Freddy’s come here often. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Freddy was only here once, when he was a little boy. But because happiness has eluded him all his life, Freddy remembers every little detail about the only happy day he’s spent in his life like it was yesterday. It’s a walk he must’ve repeated in his mind countless times in the hope that his life would top that someday. But nothing ever changed for Freddy. Now that he’s made up his mind about ending his painful existence, it makes sense that Freddy doesn’t want to hide his crimes anymore. He didn’t ask Lee to come here so he could scare him. He only wanted somebody to know all about his happy place. In his mind, he’s far gone enough to not even have the urge to look back. And even if he did look back, he wouldn’t do so with fear and regret. So when Lee tells him about how Dev pushes him around, and Freddy gives him his address and asks him to burn him while he sleeps, he thinks he’s giving his friend solid advice. It’s the only advice he’s ever really believed and acted upon anyway. But this whole thing is understandably terrifying for Lee. He’s in a deserted amusement park with an arsonist who’s basically just confessed to having killed Coop’s HR manager. He masks his fear as long as he can, but Freddy doesn’t want him to pretend either. Freddy doesn’t have any inhibitions anymore. Yet all he can think about are the mice they find stuck in the traps at Coop’s. More than he could ever relate to the people that he worked with and saw in his daily life, Freddy must’ve seen his own existence reflected in the miserable mice with broken spines. They’re only looking for food–trying to survive–claiming an inch of the planet that they have every right to. But just like Freddy is punished for being who he is and wanting things that only “normal people” can dare to want, he’s been stepped on and shunned from every place he has tried to make his own. Who knows how Freddy feels about Lee’s honesty? Maybe he feels that Lee’s cruel to kill them. Or maybe he appreciates Lee’s act of putting them out of their misery when they’re already halfway there. He doesn’t want to hurt Lee. What Freddy wants now is for Lee to go away and not make trouble for him. He’s got plans. Plans he’ll get to once he takes Lee’s keys and phone and walks him out of the park. With the cans he crushed stuck under his shoes, making this clip clop sound as he walks behind Lee, Freddy’s making sure that he actually leaves. He’s not trying to keep Lee from telling everyone about him. They’ll find out soon enough anyway. He only wants to slow Lee down so that he can get to the next and final part of his plan without the police coming after him.
How Does Dave Catch Freddy?
This might ruffle some feathers, but Dave couldn’t have gotten too far in his search for the Milk Jug arsonist if it wasn’t for Michelle. The department hardly had the budget to support Michelle and Dave’s investigation. But their unique perspectives complemented each other; Dave’s breakdown of the burned jugs they collected from the torched houses and Michelle’s shrewd move to attach bird tags to the plastic bags basically solved the case. So I’d say that Michelle is owed some credit, even though she’s too busy trying to build a case against her arsonist partner to actually take part in the final process. Besides, he wants the win and all the applause for himself anyway. Writing cringey fantasy fiction scenarios about Michelle is about as far as he likes her. So he lies to Harvey about taking a break and goes off to Crawford to achieve his dream. It doesn’t phase him a bit when the Crawford arson investigator tells him that their suspect is some guy who had some beef with Roger Tillman’s wife. All Dave really needed to hear was the mention of a fast food chain. So when he gets to know that the husband, Roger Tillman, was HR manager for Coop’s, the smile on his face can barely be contained. Dave’s done it. He’s figured out where the Milk Jug Killer works. But this is more than a personal goal for him. To truly get the appreciation he so desperately craves, he needs to follow the right procedure and build a solid case.
His second stop in the process is the Crawford evidence room. However much he may want to be Ken Maddox and scare the living hell out of the guy working there, he knows his limits. He bribes his way into getting his hands on the six burned milk jugs. And what do you know? One of them has the numbered bird tag that Dave can now follow up on. It’s really too bad for the grocery store guy that Dave’s an arson investigator and can’t help him with his tickets. I bet Dave would’ve really liked having that kind of pull too. But it’s not all bad. The security footage gets him another step ahead in the case when it shows the hooded suspect buying the milk jug that he’d use to burn Roger Tillman and his wife to death. Dave doesn’t know his name yet, but the guy in the footage matches the police sketch.
The picture gets clearer for him when he shows up at Coop’s and asks around. Not only does he learn the arsonist’s name, but when the employee makes a tasteless joke about how Freddy didn’t have the right face for the company, he gets a little bit of clarity about why he went off the rails. On some level, Dave actually sympathizes with Freddy. Maybe because they’re both arsonists, but Dave feels the kind of empathy for Freddy that we’ve not known him to feel for anybody else. I mean, he’s still Dave. So he can’t really picture Freddy beyond his idea of an unstable man pushed to his limits. That’s why he asks Dev if Freddy was erratic and moody when he goes over to his workplace. But Freddy wasn’t anything like that. Dave’s projecting here. It’s like he’s kind of identified with Freddy. So it does affect him when Dev says that Freddy was “nothing.” When Dave digs up bits and pieces of Freddy’s childhood at the child services office, he finds a fundamental similarity they share. They were both rejected when they were kids. But Dave’s always been a lot more privileged than Freddy. As a White man who can pass himself off as “normal” and even “smart,” Dave’s never had to worry about doors being shut on his face. Freddy’s life was quite the opposite. As a kid growing up in the system, he was rejected by families 27 times! Freddy’s perceivable intellectual disabilities must’ve made it all the more confusing and excruciating for him. He needed someone to accept him. But until the age of 16 and a half, he hadn’t known what a home was. Even then, once he turned 19 and the checks dried up, the family he wanted to be a part of kicked him out. It must’ve really shattered his worldview when he was abandoned right as he was starting to believe in the stability of his life. Since then, he’s been on his own in a world that doesn’t want anything to do with him. The first fire Freddy ever lit was at his last “home,” six months after he’d been made to leave the place. He killed six people, including two kids, but it didn’t bother him the way it should’ve. He wanted to kill people for having things that he wanted. And he’s gotten really good at that since then.
Dave breaks into Freddy’s home, real cool and everything. I’m sure he would’ve liked to find something on his computer, but there’s nothing there. The closet’s a whole other story. All those milk jugs kept neat and tidy reaffirm Dave’s faith in his journey. He’s on the right track. If he didn’t find the clue in the trash can, Dave probably would’ve waited for Freddy to come home. But lucky for Brenda, Dave finds the card for her salon in Freddy’s trash. How does Brenda factor into all this? In the 5th episode, there was this paranoid juxtaposition between Brenda and the Tillmans. She was shaking like a leaf the whole time, worried sick that Freddy would come after her. On the surface, Freddy has no reason to want to hurt Brenda. Her life’s been far from easy and happy. But her fear wasn’t all that unreasonable after all.
In Smoke episode 6’s ending, Freddy’s lost the last speck of sanity that was keeping him going. He’s defeated by his pain. When he tells a terrified Brenda all about his frustration with people who laugh at unfunny things, he isn’t really talking to Brenda. As he stands in the gasoline-drenched house with a lighter in his hand, Freddy’s become the same boy he was on the day he was asked to leave the first home he ever knew. He’s now seeing Brenda as the woman who was supposed to be his mother. He’s not exaggerating a bit when he says that his life never went past the aimlessness that he felt that day. He was handed a couple hundred dollars and told to figure out his way on his own. But the world never let Freddy move on from that pain. That’s why, now that he’s decided to kill himself, he’s convinced himself that Brenda’s house is his last home. That’s how his pain comes full circle.
But here’s the thing. What happens hereon is going to make it really hard for you to remember that Dave Gudsen is a psychotic serial killer and an arsonist who’s set over 200 fires. So let’s talk about that a little bit before we get to his heroics. Something that usually goes unsaid in a conversation around a criminal who’s fooled everyone around them is the betrayal their loved ones feel. Seeing as Harvey has a picture of Dave and himself on his wall of mementos–sitting by a fire, ironically–Dave was like family to him. So you can imagine how heartbroken he must feel now that he knows that Dave Gudsen couldn’t be further from the man he thought he was. As his daughter tends to his bleeding hand, courtesy of the punch that picture frame took, all he can think about is how blind he’s been. But why wouldn’t he think that Dave’s a great guy? He’s always done a pretty convincing job pretending to be a man with a beating heart. It’s really difficult for Harvey to digest the fact that the man he thought of as a kind friend was actually the kind of psychopath who’d hug the grieving mother of a 3-year-old he’d killed. I don’t know how Harvey will ever recover from this. But he sure as hell won’t stand in Michelle’s way anymore. If anything, what he needs to do to purge his guilt is help her out. And knowing Harvey, I think he’ll do just that. Michelle’s going to need all the help that she can get now anyway. She’s about to go through something she’s been trying to avoid for all her life. Her mother’s coming home. And that’s about to send her down a terrible spiral. But she can only be held back for so long. I have a feeling that she’ll end up dealing with both her demons at the same time. Speaking of demons, before he faces the consequences of his actions, Dave gets to experience his one true heroic moment. The thing is, the whole sequence looks very much like something he’d write in his book. It’ll be a bummer if he’s imagining this whole thing. But I think he’s actually done it. He’s apprehended as a serial arsonist. Just as Freddy was about to light himself and Brenda on fire, Dave busted in with his gun. He may not be able to fire at him, but he finds a way to actually put his gun to use by dropping the magazine and throwing the gun at Freddy. That’s not enough to actually stop him. So Dave gets to bring the cool factor even higher when he envelops the flame coming out of Freddy’s lighter with a quick spray from the fire extinguisher. You wanna know why I think he’s really done this? The answer lies in what we, and by that I mean Freddy, Brenda, and the audience, collectively see when the camera focuses on a part of Dave that doesn’t usually work too well. What do you know? I guess he really needed to feel like a hero to feel like a man. I bet the thoughts of getting to tell Brenda that she’s safe now will keep him going for a long time. But repeat after me. It’s 2025. We don’t find abusive, narcissistic, child and dog-killing maniacs cool anymore.
