Don’t let the circumstantial parallels convince you of any fundamental similarities between the two lead characters of Smoke, Michelle and Dave. Beyond the ways fate has conspired to entangle them in similar messes, they could not be more different. That’s why the winner’s smile is on Michelle’s face in the final episode of Smoke. She’s never hurt anybody who didn’t need to be taken down. That’s the line that separates Michelle from her psychotic partner, Arson Investigator Dave Gudsen. In the final episode, it’s almost like Smoke’s sense of humor is mocking the nauseating grin on Dave’s face.
Spoiler Alert
Does Captain Pearson suspect Michelle?
The morning after accidentally killing her ex romantic partner and boss, Steven Burke, and mimicking Dave’s signature incendiary device to set his house aflame, the carousel of thoughts running through Michelle’s head are all morbid. Steven’s last gasp as he choked to death, her mother’s virtually unbothered face in a motel that she’d set on fire, and the flames shooting out of Steven’s windows. It’s an even more depressing shift when the scene cuts to Steven’s charred, warped body being taken away by the Columbia police. Captain Pearson doesn’t come to work to be popular. The task force that Steven’s been running to catch the Umberland arsonist is immediately dissolved. But that’s not because she’s suspicious of them. The police captain who was investigating an arsonist just died in a fire. Very obviously, the suspicion has fallen on Dave. But Ezra doesn’t play around either, no matter the blatant insults everyone from the department throws in his face every time they see him. Things are not that different with Pearson either. She knows Ezra. And she knows better than to trust him when he says that he had eyes on Dave the entire night, so it couldn’t have been him. But despite him being dismissed, which, to be honest, was done in the manner that mean people shoo away stray animals, Ezra has no reason or wish to go anywhere. It seems like Pearson used to get freaky in the back of a van that Ezra knew of. When you’re known in the department as the guy who makes spicy videos for his pals, you know what sort of things kinky people get up to. So Ezra has no problem reminding Pearson of the power he holds over her with the sarcastic mention of her safe word, “fraulein.” By the time Michelle drives in, terrified but composed, they’ve packed up Steven. The fact that Harvey’s noticed the heat between her and Steven isn’t a bad thing for her. If anything, he’s sympathetic, and that gives her the space to look as disturbed as she feels inside, but for a completely different reason than he knows. Michelle sure knows how to butter up a professional superior. She’s all compliments, mousy respect, and “ma’am” after every sentence she says to Pearson. As of now, the Columbia police are following a pretty standard structure to solve the case. As Pearson shares with Michelle, they’re looking into the people Steven put away who might have recently been let out, his estranged wife and her family, and anyone that Steven had a beef with in the department. That’s got to be very awkward for Michelle. Pearson may not be looking into her yet. But the guilty party is bound to be scared out of their wits after hearing about the “fecal holocaust” Pearson plans to rain down on the person who killed her Words with Friends nemesis, and very dear friend, Steven Burke. As of now, it’s all eyes on Dave. He’s the unpredictable lunatic with a licence to carry who had a fight with Steven recently. That’s the sort of stuff that prime suspects are made of. So Michelle’s in the clear for now.
How does Benji help Michelle?
The night before, Michelle had to take care of business and get out of there as fast as she could. It’s shocking that she even remembered to drop Dave’s gloves in Steven’s backyard to solidify the whole narrative that Dave killed him. She certainly didn’t have the time to even think about the loose ends, let alone tie them up. Now that she’s back at the scene, and the bone-chilling sight of the neighbor’s security camera threatens to end her life and career, Michelle’s got to think fast. The camera’s got to have picked up Michelle’s late night murder and arson escapades. What buys her some time to take care of this mess is the neighbor being out of town. But a certain Detective Kehoe has Pearson’s direct order to follow up on the neighbor, so Michelle’s got to be quick on her feet. Her first move is buying a whole bunch of burner phones. I doubt that she’s as excited to call Benji up from one of the burners as he is to get this call. His warrior of a sister is hitting him up and asking for his help to clean up her mess? That’s the kind of stuff that Benji’s dreams are made of. From what we’ve seen of Benji, he certainly seems like someone who’s comfortable with felonies. So he should have no trouble taking care of the security footage situation for his sister. The circumstances around this whole mess have gotten out of hand in a way that’s both good and bad for Michelle. The fire that she lit to erase her accidental crime might’ve been the source of the fires in the woods behind Steven’s house. It’s been a windy day, that much is clear from this almost “Final Destination-esque” game of fate and death that takes shape right before our eyes. You see, someone did find and bag the glove with Dave’s DNA from Steven’s yard. But when the wind knocks the baggy out of his hand, that’s what foreshadows the chaos to follow. The embers from the fire had spread to the woods and lit a whole bunch of small fires, and that’s led to this huge sawmill combusting and starting this all-engulfing wildfire that’s put the city in a state of emergency. That inadvertently falls into Benji’s lap as the excuse that he uses to make sure that Steven’s neighbor stays put at the airport when he pretends to be Kehoe and calls her up. As far as we know Benji, he shouldn’t run into any trouble in his efforts to break into the neighbor’s house. And after he pulls that off, he does what his sister asked him to do, but not before he takes a little something for himself. Before deleting the footage, Benji’s face lights up at the sight of Michelle committing a crime. So he does what any crook would do and downloads a copy of the footage before erasing it. I doubt that he wants to use it to hurt Michelle. But he’s certainly going to keep it in his back pocket to intimidate Michelle and get her to help him out should the need arise. Benji now has major leverage over Michelle. Even though they’re family, this doesn’t bode well for Detective Michelle Calderone.
Who started the lab fire?
The night after their very weird sexual encounter, which seems to be pretty regular for them, Dave didn’t expect to turn on the TV and watch himself get framed. So Reba might be well within her rights to claim that Dave’s lost his mind when he says that he’s about to be framed, but this is the one time he’s not exaggerating or being crazy. But it should be easy for him to speak up for himself. He was with Reba all night long, so he’s got an alibi. But Reba’s not naive. She knows better than to risk her family, her reputation, and her freedom by trying to defend her ex who just confessed to being an arsonist the night before. Even if Reba believes that Dave stayed put after she passed out, confirming that for the police would be impossible without admitting to the affair they’ve been having. So no matter how much it irks Dave, Reba won’t stand beside him and agree to be his alibi. So Dave doesn’t have much to do other than getting on with his day like he’s all innocent. Well, he is innocent when it comes to Steven’s murder and the fire that ate up his house, but that’s not an adjective that fits him in any way. When he shows up to work and heads straight into Harvey’s office to make his case to his old friend, Harvey doesn’t have the bandwidth to fake it anymore. The person he thought was his best friend is a kid killer and a compulsive liar. A lesser man than Harvey would’ve feared the repercussions of going against someone like Dave, someone who knows information about him that could destroy everything he’s worked his whole life to build. And it’s not like Dave isn’t all up on his face with his “if I go down, you go down” threats. But Harvey’s heard enough. He’s also had enough of Dave denying all the crimes he’s committed under the garb of a solid citizen and a supposed protector of people. Granted, the crime Harvey holds against him now is the one thing he’s not guilty of. But that doesn’t erase all the pain that Dave has caused in the wake of his psychotic rage against the world. When he can’t budge Harvey, Dave points his intimidation tactics at Michelle. The one logical aspect of all the confidence that he exudes is the fact that Michelle and the rest of the task force has no evidence on him that will hold up in court. So he might as well get in the car with her, flash his pearly whites, and accompany her to the lab that’s gone up in flames under mysterious circumstances. The lab technician who gets them privy to the research they were conducting is certain that the fire was no accident. The research team worked with hydrogen, a highly combustible gas, and for safety, the temperature was always maintained at a strict 66 degrees. No one other than the lab technician had remote access to the thermostat, which means someone had to have hacked into it and remotely increased the temperature to make the lab go boom. Dave’s fascination with this isn’t fake. He couldn’t have pulled this off, so I don’t think there’s any point going down that road. But he has to be tremendously impressed by whoever hacked into the thermostat, burned down the lab and the studio on the ground floor, and left no trace behind. Since I have to go with my gut here, I don’t think the arsonist behind the lab fire is anyone we know. This seems like a mystery that only a 2nd season of Smoke can solve, should Apple TV greenlight it.
Does Michelle arrest Dave?
You know Dave Gudsen can’t have work on his mind right now. The enormous cloud of smoke spouting from a corner of the horizon has told Dave that the emergency evacuation alert that was just broadcasted isn’t a joke. This should terrify normal people. But neither Dave nor Michelle can ever be held accountable for normalcy. In Dave’s case, the giant smoke is the igniter of a passion that’s consumed his life. For Michelle, it’s the formidable sign of the impending aggravation of all her crises. She knows Dave’s got something sinister on his mind when he drives Michelle toward the flaming sawmill, where every spark is an incendiary device that Dave didn’t make, but he’s absolutely appreciative of. All he apparently wants to do is talk. But no matter how much he tries to trivialize his parental issues, Dave’s not fooling anyone. What he does reveal in the process though, is his undying love for fire, something that was sparked by the fire that engulfed his neighbor’s house when he was 12. Funny how he was the same age as Michelle when they first experienced devastating fires, and yet he wasn’t traumatized by it; it poured new life into him. Michelle doesn’t hate fire either. But unlike Dave, Michelle internalized the volatility of fire as a strength, not a crazy obsession. The crazy one is driving the car straight into the core of the fire. No amount of roars from Michelle can stop him now. Not even her gun scares him, because, well, he doesn’t quite know Michelle as well as he thinks. He thinks he’s in charge of the chaos. But the fire he’s driven inside isn’t anything like the little trick ones he lights at the arson conferences. Michelle’s a war vet who’s survived far more chaos than a wildfire and a deranged firebug combined. Dave’s plan was probably to kill Michelle or leave her at the mercy of the wildfire. That’s something he could’ve lied his way out of. But what he seriously downplayed as a wildly sexist guy was Michelle’s perseverance. When he throws her out of his speeding rental, he expects Michelle to at least be injured enough to be eaten alive by the burning forest. But Michelle’s made of sterner things. She’s not just survived the terrifying fall; she’s also picked herself up, got her hair out of the way, and pointed the gun at Dave with a look in her face that scares the living hell out of him. Dude really loves totalling his cars, doesn’t he? Right after getting Michelle out, he drove straight into a boulder, being saved by the airbag for the second time in Smoke. But he’s kind of out of it. And faced with Michelle’s bone-chilling wrath and the bullets she shoots in his general direction without the wish to kill him, Dave is nothing. Despite his grin, which I think is about the submissive, kinky side he has, he’s a terrified man who’s accepted that he can’t get out of this. But the kink’s not just Dave’s. I’m sure I don’t need to get all crass for you to understand the meaning of the look on Michelle’s face as she shoves the gun into Dave’s mouth and reads him his rights. But not before she kicks him where it’d hurt the most. Boy does this show know how to get freaky! When Michelle’s arrests Dave for attempted murder of a police detective, the rain pouring down and dousing the wildfire represents her win over him. They could’ve gotten away with naming the episode Metaphor Metaphor instead. He’s still rather smug until Ezra meets up with them and delivers the news that is music to Michelle’s ears and horror to Dave’s. The DNA on the glove they found on Steven’s yard turned out to be a perfect match for Dave’s. Surprise surprise!
Does Dave Have Split Personality Disorder?
Dave wasn’t prepared for the arrest. He must’ve thought that their case against him was so weak that even if he was arrested, he would’ve been out on bail in a flash. He thought he could actually outsmart and outpower Michelle, an experienced war vet with all kinds of combat and tactical training. The way he’s treated by the cops at the Columbia police department is an expression of their hatred of the alleged cop-killer. Don’t forget that Pearson is aching to charge Dave with the murder of Captain Steven Burke. Even if she had a sliver of doubt about him, the stunt he’s just pulled by trying to kill Michelle has convinced her that he’s their guy. As a man who’s passively sympathetic about the kick that Dave took to his privates, Lieutenant Durrell isn’t a fan of Michelle. But she is their best shot at cracking the nutcase arsonist who they think has killed one of their own. When alone, Michelle’s haunted by Steven’s wisecracking ghost for two reasons. For starters, she’s obviously still traumatized by his death, and especially by the way it happened. And secondly, she has all the reasons to contemplate a future where Steven’s buddies start looking in the right place. Everything that Steven’s ghost tells her is basically her own mind terrifying her with the very real possibilities of her getting caught for the murder she did commit. There must be tracks that lead to her that she can’t remember right now. But that doesn’t mean that Steven’s cop friends won’t draw the obvious conclusions in due time. The only thing keeping them from suspecting Michelle is the fact that they don’t know about her relationship with Burke. How long till they find out?
Michelle’s got to get Dave to confess not just for justice. Dave’s conviction would assuage the rage that’s taken over the police department. They hate when they feel powerless against criminals. So someone as influential and sharp as Steven getting murdered is bound to make them blow a gasket. The sooner Dave is convicted, the sooner Michelle can finally breathe normal. With a steady head, she hits just the right points in her interrogation of Dave Gudsen, still in his Arson Investigator uniform. Michelle doesn’t want to waste time talking about the cases that she knows Dave will excuse his way out of. That’s why there’s no mention of the Old Sully’s fire. The fire she brings up instead is the one that burned down the Hancock Hardware Store. In his book, Dave detailed the improvised incendiary device that his fictional arsonist Donald used to light that fire; a piece of paper and some charcoal dust. It just so happens that when Dave investigated the fire, his findings were conveniently “inconclusive.” But even if he could excuse that, he couldn’t possibly explain how he knew exactly what device was used unless he did it himself. That’s where Michelle’s got Dave. There was a private investigation into the fire, and the detectives found the exact incendiary device that Dave has described in his book. But you know Dave. He’s never going to acknowledge anything bad he’s done, because he doesn’t actually believe that he did it. But before we get to that, let’s back up a little first.
Ezra was never wanted in any space that he’s ever been in, and Pearson’s investigation is no different. But at the end of the day, it’s Ezra who thinks of the one thing that didn’t cross anyone else’s mind. No one has checked the one place where there might be a whole lot of evidence connecting Dave to the fires; his car. Dawn believes in him, and she has enough pull to get a warrant at a moment’s notice. Off they go to the place Harvey likes to call “the totaled car emporium.” And what do you know? Once Ezra and Dawn locate the glove box that moved in the crash, they get the overcoat, the cap and everything else that the D and C arsonist was caught wearing when he’d limped his way to the potato chips aisles. That is just the thing that they needed to make the case presentable to court. Along with the DNA and all the circumstantial evidence tying to all the fires that he’s “solved,” David Gudsen is hopefully cooked. But that’s not the big reveal. We’ve known Dave’s truth all along.
The huge shocker that Smoke’s final episode ends with is the truth that even Dave doesn’t know about himself, or more accurately, he’s in a very deranged amount of denial. Dave Gudsen isn’t the man that we’ve been seeing throughout the duration of the show, except for a glimpse in the hospital where he was being treated after his car crash. If we’re to believe the mirror he looks into and the pictures of him at Ashley’s place, the handsome guy with a chiseled face and a charming smile we’ve seen so far isn’t Dave Gudsen. He’s the much heavier, full-faced, balding man we saw for a flicker when Dave looked into the mirror at the hospital. His tapping feet are a sign that he’s terrified of facing his own truth when Michelle shows him the evidence Ezra and Dawn found. We don’t see Dave’s conventionally handsome version after that point, but when he gets his smirk back, and still calls himself a hero, we know there’s something seriously wrong with Dave. He’s clearly created this illusion of a version of himself he thinks people would like more. And somewhere down the line, he’s become Ken Maddox. In Dave’s story, he will always be the hero no matter the evidence or whatever the court decides when the case goes to trial.
