User Reviews

I was ready to give up on "Chance" after its lackluster debut. Ethan Suplee's overwrought character was beginning to wear thin, and D owned the Season 2 premiere. Wow, am I glad I watched--and watched again--episodes two and three. This third episode is one of the most tightly scripted, well-edited, suspenseful--and even comical--of the series. Everyone changes in this episode...and yet nothing changes. I hate it when television series or movies refer to outside sources that viewers have no reason to and should not be required to understand. Nevertheless, this episode's pretentious title, "The Flitcraft Parable," a story-within-a-story of Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon," explains exactly why episode 3 is so great. "The Flitcraft Parable" is a curious segue by Hammett in "The Maltese Falcon" to a parable about a rich man who deserts his life, his wife, his golf clubs...just to move to another town and start another life, marry another wife, and get more golf clubs. The significance to "Chance" here probably, or possibly: everything changes for him when he's nearly creamed by a city bus, realizes he almost died...but then immediately returns to his risk-taking new life with the psycho-du-jour, Winter, and the quite possibly even more psychotic Kevin Hynes. There's a bit of breaking the fourth wall in episode 3. For example, Hynes turns off D's death-metal in a car ride during which he, D, and Chance become three inept musketeers; and Hynes asks how long he has to listen to this crap. The subplot with Chance's daughter isn't at all annoying, despite the actress' uncanny resemblance to the similarly troubled daughter in "Homeland." (It's as if all troubled teenage girls have to have naturally curly hair, slightly pug faces, and look nothing like their parents.) But she too has a "Flitcraft Parable" story arc: she first appeared last year as a very troubled kid who inherited her father's mental illness, and she definitely ends the episode the same way. So much development occurs within her--yet it's all for naught when she does something very foolish in a situation D has meddled in. No matter. All the strands of the story tie together so effortlessly-- more than any, Hynes' increasingly mysterious motives in going after Winter. A careful viewing of the episode will NOT make it clear who the bad guy really is. The best and most touching line of the episode comes at the end, when a new character tells D the reason for a non- reaction to finding D in a place where he most certainly doesn't belong: "You didn't look scary." D is stunned. It's important that psychos don't rule this series; and Winter is already cliché and boring. The great thing about episode 3 is that, unlike Gretchen Mol in last year's "Chance," the script doesn't make too much at all of Winter. If you don't think Season 2 isn't better than Season 1 already-- Well, you're not watching the same show I am. "Chance" is fantastic.

I loved the daughter actually hitting her now rival with the book. TV history indicated they would tease us with it but not follow through, but give the show credit for breaking the mold.

This was another good episode of a horribly underrated show. They have done a much better job casting the main villain this season too.