Last week’s episode of The Crowded Room showed the time in Danny’s life when he went to his usual weed supplier, Angelo, to purchase a gun for Ariana. Why? According to Ariana, she constantly felt threatened that her abuser was going to return to her life and torment her all over again. So, Danny wanted her to feel safe, and he thought that giving her a gun was the best idea. The deal with Angelo went south because he wanted sexual pleasures from Danny, and Danny didn’t want to pay such a heavy price. So, he and Jonny knocked Angelo out and made a run for it with the gun. Ariana rejected Danny’s gift as she didn’t want something so violent. Later on, Angelo comes to retrieve the gun and take his revenge against Danny. He tried to harm Annabelle. But Yitzhak showed up to rescue Annabelle and Danny. That somehow led to the shooting at the Rockefeller Center, where Danny and Ariana’s victim was none other than Marlin (Danny’s stepfather). And in order to stay low for a while, Danny escaped to London.
Major Spoilers Ahead
Danny Meets Jack
We see Danny moving around in an airport in London like he’s one of the most wanted individuals on planet Earth, only for Rya to stop his narration and ask how he got there in the first place, that too without a passport when he had traveled beyond the borders of his town only once. Danny casually says that Yitzhak got one for him because he apparently knows how to acquire an illegal passport. When Danny says that he is in London to get in touch with his biological father, Pete Sullivan, Rya asks if Danny can give her some information about him. Danny predictably says that there’s not much to talk about him because he wasn’t around a lot of the time. Rya tries to show Danny that everything that he’s saying is too convenient to be true. But Danny isn’t ready to see that.
So Rya urges him to continue telling her about his adventures in London. Danny says that he met an individual named Jack at the Royal London Travel Agency since, as per Yitzhak, he was the one who knew Pete. He went to a posh restaurant with Jack, and they talked about Pete’s whereabouts. Of course, Jack had no idea about Pete because, despite being former business associates, they weren’t in touch. According to Danny, not only did Yitzhak know about Jack, who knew about Pete, but Jack also knew about Yitzhak. At this point, Rya pauses Danny’s narrative and requests him to consider the fact that everything that he’s saying isn’t making any sense. Danny puts up a paltry defense and then turns the story about meeting Jack into one about standing up to bullies. Yes, there’s a theme going on here, in case you haven’t noticed it already.
Danny Can’t Find Jack
After getting out of the pub, Jack apparently took Danny to a cheap hotel and then had a conversation with Yitzhak about some vague mission. Rya points out for the umpteenth time that Danny’s whole narrative is full of conjectures, and none of them sounds believable. Danny chalks up the faults in the chronology of his story to the drinks he had earlier that night and soldiers on. He says that the following day, he met Jack for fish and chips, and he gave him a little lesson on how to appear more confident.
Rya interjects by saying that she understands that Jack sounds like the person Danny needs at that moment. But that doesn’t make his existence, as well as that of Yitzhak and Ariana’s, plausible. Danny says that he has been used by all of these characters, and at the mere insinuation that it’s probably the other way around, he gets angry and yells at Rya. Then he continues with his story of helping Jack get back the money that a gangster called Reggie Silver owed to Pete Sullivan. Jack took him to the strip club that Reggie owned and directed Danny to go and ask him for the money while Jack waited for him outside. Reggie and his men didn’t take Danny’s threats seriously and simply flung him out of the club. When he looked around, Jack was nowhere to be found. So Danny started to look for him frantically and kept hitting dead ends.
Why Did Rya Meet Jack?
Eventually, Jack showed up at the hotel Danny was staying at, and he recontextualized the whole misadventure as a lesson about being courageous because that was something that Danny needed in order to face the long arm of the law. That said, he also helped Danny come to terms with the fact that his father had abandoned him and told Danny never to become like Pete. He essentially taught him to face the music that was waiting for him back home without any fear. In the present day, Rya asks Danny that when he returned from London, did he or did he not find out where Ariana and Yitzhak were. Danny says that he didn’t. Rya points out that it sounds a little weird that they’d just leave everything that they owned. Danny doesn’t question it, and we see in the flashback that, soon after returning to the ghost house, the police arrived, and he was arrested. When Rya repeats her question about Ariana and Yitzhak’s disappearances, Danny brings himself really close to her, as if to intimidate her, and cross-questions her about whether or not she thinks that he has killed them. And then, weirdly enough, Danny starts to talk about how none of his stories makes any sense, but only to justify that he hasn’t killed anyone. So, Rya tries to make a breakthrough by asking Danny about his twin brother, Adam. That causes Danny to end the conversation. With no other option left, Rya leaves for the day and goes through Danny’s notebook.
At the end of The Crowded Room, episode 4, as usual, Rya walks into the conference room to talk to Danny. However, instead of Danny, Jack is sitting at his place. Rya suggests that Danny should know the truth by now. Jack says that that’s going to be catastrophic. Rya responds by saying that the truth is the only thing that’s going to set Danny free. If it wasn’t apparent already, this episode pretty much confirms that Danny is making up his own stories. He never went to London or met someone called Jack. It’s all in his head. Jack is the character that helped him be courageous, and going by that last scene; he wants Danny to be under the impression that the people he had encountered actually exist. The other thing that is clear is that Rya wants to prove that Danny doesn’t have a sound mind and, hence, he’s innocent. Now, all this has been done before in movies. But the fact that we are in the fourth episode, and there are six more episodes left, is ridiculous. This miniseries has already revealed its hand, and all it’s going to do now is drag.
