Lucky
Seven episodes, one heist that ends in a catastrophic disaster, bodies left and right that would give the bookkeeping in a crime syndicate pause, and a marriage that either died in a car accident or in a crypto wallet and now it’s finally all over. “All Good Things,” the season finale of the Lucky series, aired August 19th to bring an end to Anya Taylor-Joy’s twisty, little con-artist thriller. Yes, an end for good because Apple TV+ confirms this series to be a limited one and no season two is going to come around to make sense of it all. Before we delve into how each character comes to his/her end, here is a little recap of all the events that led to it because if you have been watching on Wednesdays, you need a little jog down memory lane before the finale begins.
Lucky Episodes 1-6 Recap: The Whole Messy Story
Episodes 1 & 2 : “No Shortcuts” and “Make ‘Em Dance”
The series starts with a chase through semi-trucks with Lucky fleeing an FBI agent and then moves backwards into explaining why that was necessary. Lucky and her husband, Cary, had just managed to pull off a robbery of $10 million from a very scary gangster called Wayne Whittaker at the behest of her con-artist father, John, who is in jail. This is definitely one of those things that the majority of us would try to steer well clear of, but then again everyone’s different. Before long, Cary and the money are both gone, and the agents have moved in to surround the hotel and trap Lucky within it. She will need to make her way through the crowd of people looking for her face using nothing but her charm.
Episodes 1 & 2 Recap: https://theblinkreview.com/lucky-episodes-1-2-breakdown-plus-episode-3-predictions-anya-taylor-joys-new-apple-tv-thriller-is-already-a-hot-mess-in-the-best-way/
Episode 3 : “Read the Room”
It is revealed through the use of flashbacks that John Armstrong had a scam involving biofuels that paid off for Priscilla while Agent Rand had been keeping tabs on the entire thing. Currently, Lucky has been hiding out at the back of a truck sent directly into Priscilla’s compound. It is there that Lucky watches Dutch, Priscilla’s enforcer, murder a document forger named Noah and takes his ID so that she could find Cary. At the same time, she has also crashed a child’s birthday party just so she could get some money, clothes, and a car, which happens to be the exact same move that her father taught her when she was only six years old.
Episode 3 Recap: https://theblinkreview.com/lucky-episode-3-recap-read-the-room-finally-puts-lucky-and-cary-in-the-same-zip-code/
Episode 4 : “Too Close to See It”
And this is the one which totally changes everything on the board. Cary tells the truth: he did not intend to betray Lucky at all; Priscilla had instructed him to steal the money because she knew about John’s betrayal, and Cary wanted to protect her, not to steal from her. Lucky also has a confession which she kept secret from her husband; she agreed to assist Agent Rand to destroy Priscilla without letting John know anything about it. For one short minute, they make their choice and try to escape together until they are surrounded by both FBI agents and Priscilla’s men and have to start running in their car with a gun fight going on. And Lucky awakes next to Cary to see that he had been killed by a bullet. He reveals to her that he never regretted spending his life with her and Lucky runs away from the police who will soon arrive there knowing about the location of the fortune but not knowing the crypto seed phrase.
Episode 4 Recap: https://theblinkreview.com/recap-of-lucky-episode-4/
Episode 5 : “Are We Bad People?”
With nowhere else to go and nobody there to protect her, Lucky discovers something truly valuable about Cary, who hid a tape inside his old teddy bear which holds the seed phrase, allowing Lucky to have access to almost $10 million. Priscilla gives a funeral service for Cary, which Wayne does not show up for, and then she tries to talk to him, but the man tells her very clearly that she cannot expect any pity from him because of her mourning, since he is after the money that he gave her. Agent Rand comes up with a brutal plan to get her money back; she has John released from prison ahead of time in order to lure Lucky. Her plan works, and by the end of the episode, Lucky and John give themselves up to the police.
Episode 5 Recap: https://theblinkreview.com/lucky-episode-5-recap-why-did-lucky-surrender/
Episode 6 : “Wherever You Go, There You Are”
The episode begins with the highlight of the season, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the story line: John gives a speech about robbing his first collection plate when he was a teenager, revealing all the principles that everyone is always trying to pull some kind of con. Following this event, Lucky and John decide to offer Rand immunity to Lucky and commutation to John if they will deliver Priscilla and Wayne to him. They agree, and the whole discussion leaves Lucky and John in an FBI-sponsored hotel room, where the real blow comes: Lucky reveals herself to be the person responsible for John’s imprisonment in the past because she made a deal with Rand that did not go through back then, and John apologizes for providing her with a traumatic experience in the name of adventure. Lucky decides to return the stolen money personally to Wayne, and goes to meet him in the place which he has chosen himself.
Episode 6 Recap: https://theblinkreview.com/lucky-episode-6-recap-lucky-faces-her-past/
Lucky Finale Recap: “All Good Things”
And just as expected, the episode begins right where it was supposed to – at the meeting planned by Wayne, where Lucky is wired up and instructed to make him confess something that would prove to be damning, hopefully something connected to the same gas scheme that has been plaguing the show all season. In fact, she even has a safe word – “genius”, which is, quite delightfully, one of the two choices that the writers could have chosen in order to make fun of themselves, or the most on-brand password any con man could possibly have. Wayne brings along Priscilla, while leaving Dutch behind. Rand and her partner Kershaw install a microphone on an oil tank near Wayne’s location.
And none of them are. As soon as the discussion begins, it’s quite clear that everybody in the room knows a lot more than they seem to be saying. If Wayne hadn’t already known that there might be something fishy about the FBI’s role, he wouldn’t have chosen such an isolated place. That means that the revelation that Kershaw had actually been working with Wayne from the very beginning comes out not with a bang but with a collective shrug, since it wasn’t really much of a shocker. However, what does catch Lucky by surprise is the leverage Wayne has; apparently, he has managed to kidnap John from the hotel and take him somewhere else, explaining who it was that broke into his room at the end of Episode 6. While Wayne’s henchman beats up John in order to pressure Lucky, Rand fights Kershaw on top of the oil tanker.
Finally comes the point that everyone has been waiting for during the whole season: Priscilla points her gun at Wayne. Of course, it is not a surprise to see Wayne treat the death of his son with total indifference during the beginning of the episode, as this scene pretty much predicts Priscilla’s reaction to the news of her son’s death. And once she gets mad, Dutch emerges to finish the job on Wayne’s men, killing one of them by throwing him into a pool of oil, which is probably the most horrific murder in a series that was not afraid to have some horrific murders. This provides an opportunity for Lucky and an injured John to run away from there.
But here’s the thing – Priscilla does not actually want to seek vengeance. Regardless of what feelings may remain as a result of Lucky and Cary’s genuine relationship, they seem to be sufficient to cause her to free both Lucky and John and even allow them to keep their money. It may be that Priscilla makes this decision out of the belief that it is what her son would have wanted. While Rand manages to kill Kershaw, he comes to their meeting place too late and is met with Wayne’s death, everyone running away and her getting nothing but a vague promise of revenge someday.
This particular ending is not about Lucky and John at all, though. Rather, the finale gives Lucky and John a proper one. From the very first episode, the audience was led to expect that this relationship, no matter how strong it is, will never work in its current form. Lucky clearly wants nothing more to do with the criminal world, whereas John has proved to be an expert of the criminal life time after time. This girl realizes it way before showing the bear to John with the hidden seed phrase belonging to Cary. And, sure enough, in the morning Lucky finds out that John is gone along with the bear, which is a clear reference to the opening scene of this season but this time Lucky had seen it coming and managed to control the situation herself. Inside the bear, she had left a new message for John, explaining the reason why she and John cannot stay together anymore, namely that he was always ready to jeopardize her life just for another deal, which Lucky will not accept anymore.
After all is said and done, Lucky receives precisely what she has desired since the start of the season: a clear separation from the family business and the return of her life. The added benefit of receiving a sizable chunk of money is a nice reward for a happy ending.
Was the Lucky Finale Any Good?
Now, before moving on, it is worth being straight about the general critical reception of the finale. A number of critics, including Ready Steady Cut, found that “All Good Things” was rather predictable in its developments considering the build-up of the past six episodes; Priscilla’s confrontation with Wayne comes across as expected, while Kershaw’s betrayal loses the intended shocking effect. The only thing that works well in the finale is the more tragic ending of Lucky and John’s story, which provides an honest closure for their entire relationship.
At the same time, Apple has officially announced the limited series status for the show, which means that Lucky Armstrong will not see another season. Thus, after seven episodes, one heist, several deaths, and one teddy bear, Lucky is finally able to leave everything behind. In fact, having put her entire family through so much pain, she definitely deserves that.
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