The Hook
Charlie faces her greatest challenge yet when she is caught in the crossfire of a deadly power play that puts her in the sights of two ruthless crime syndicates and the FBI.
This episode contains examples of:
- All for Nothing: In Cliff's eyes, the chase for Charlie turns into this when Sterling Sr. decides to spare her life. Another factor in why he turns on his old boss.
- Bodyguard Betrayal: Cliff sells out Sterling to the Five Families.
- Book Ends: The season starts with Charlie going on the run after having pissed off a mob boss, and ends the same way.
- Call-Back:
- Part of how Cliff spends his time in various motels during his chase of Charlie is watching episodes of Burn Notice, the show whose protagonist he compared Charlie to back in "Dead Man's Hand".
- The email Charlie sent to the FBI in the first episode is mentioned. Thanks to its role in bringing Kazimir Caine to justice, agent Luca Clark has been promoted.
- Casting Gag:
- Clea Duvall, famously cast as Natasha Lyonne's love interest in But I'm a Cheerleader, plays her sister here.
- After spending the whole season running from Sterling Sr., who is portrayed by Ron Perlman, Charlie finds herself on the run from another crime boss portrayed by another actor surnamed Perlman.
- Chekhov's Gun: A recorded conversation from the first episode ends up implicating Cliff in the murders of Natalie and her husband in that same episode.
- Did You Actually Believe...?: When checking out of the hospital, Charlie asks about a payment plan only to be told her bill has been paid since day one by "a private party." The clerk asks if Charlie honestly thinks the hospital would be putting her up in a nice room for two months if someone wasn't paying the bills.
- Dirty Cop: "Dead Man's Hand" had Sterling, Jr. say that he owned the Frost County cops, but this episode confirms that Sheriff Parker is definitely so, as he alerts Cliff to Charlie's (actually Morty's) death from the last episode.
- Double-Meaning Title: The episode's title is dropped by Cliff, in a Shout-Out to Blues Traveler's song "Hook", as a way to highlight the inevitability of the result of their chase. Out of universe, the title also hints to the fact that this episode picks up directly from the "hook" of the first episode, and also gives a Sequel Hook for a following season.
- Dramatic Irony: Charlie sets up a meeting with Cliff to build an Enemy Mine, attempting to appeal to his loyalty to Sterling Sr. By now, the audience is well aware that Cliff despises Sr and that she's walked right into Cliff's trap.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Sterling Sr. says he would have done the same thing Charlie did in regards to Kazimir Caine.
- Failure Montage: We see a flashback of Cliff tracking Charlie throughout the entire series, just missing her each and every time.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Emily absolutely sees her and Charlie as this. She softens it a little when saying goodbye to Charlie, saying she's probably helped some people, but she doesn't want herself or her daughter to have anything to do with Charlie's lifestyle.
- Frame-Up: Cliff's plan is to use a gun Charlie put her fingerprints on to set her up when he uses it to kill Sterling Sr. It works for a while, as Charlie is the main suspect everyone's looking for.
- Gilligan Cut: As Cliff informs Sterling that Charlie is effectively trapped in a hospital bed, Sterling informs him to wait however long it takes for Charlie to heal. Cliff snaps at this, ready to yell at his boss that if he thinks he's spending one more second in a shitty motel, he's nuts. Cue cut to him lying in a shitty motel bed midway through that sentence."... motherfucker."
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Charlie assumes, as Cliff expressed in an earlier monologue, that Cliff loved working for Sterling and tries to arrange an Enemy Mine to catch the real killer. She couldn't be more wrong.
- Greater-Scope Villain: After a season spent on the run from Sterling Frost, she ends up running afoul of Beatrix Hasp and the Five Families, who make Sterling Frost look like small potatoes.
- Here We Go Again!: By the end of the episode, Charlie is on the run from yet another mob boss, who apparently has more resources than the Sterlings.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: Cliff has grown to hate working for the Sterlings after so long, and sets Charlie up to take the fall for Sterling Sr.'s death.
- Hope Spot: Charlie is free of the season-long threat of the Sterlings and Cliff, until she gets a call from Beatrix Hasp...
- Ironic Echo: In "Dead Man's Hand", Sterling Jr. said his father told him three things upon taking over the casino: keep the carpets clean, keep Caine happy, and a third thing that he said didn't matter. When Charlie meets Sr. face to face, he says he told Jr. three things upon passing the casino down. He says the first two didn't matter, as long as he followed the third; keep Beatrix Hasp out. Evidently, Jr. didn't follow that instruction.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Cliff is finally arrested for killing Natalie and Jerry.
- The Last Straw: What finally pushes Cliff over the edge is when, after a year of hunting Charlie down, he finds her in a hospital bed, totally helpless, an easy kill... and Sterling Sr. tells him to wait months if need be for Charlie to be healthy to get her out.
- Lights Off, Somebody Dies: Beatrix Hasp arranges Cliff to receive a button that kills the lights in the casino long enough to shoot Sterling.
- Logical Weakness: Charlie can only tell when people are lying, so Cliff is able to navigate her power well by telling only true statements. It's to the point Charlie thinks he's on her side when it comes to clearing her name for Sterling Sr.'s murder.
- Lost in a Crowd: Charlie tries to leave the casino, only to find that security is on the lookout for her in her distinctive sequin dress. Luckily, a group of women on a bachelorette party pass by in similar dresses, allowing Charlie to blend in.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Cliff tells Beatrix Hasp that years of working for the Sterlings, especially with Sterling Sr. sending him on a hunt for Charlie for over a year, getting snippy with him about it, and ultimately making the whole damn thing pointless by sparing Charlie has put a sour taste in his mouth, thus making him willing indeed to kill Sr. off.
- Offscreen Karma: Special Agent Clark tells Charlie that after she told them about the email she tried to send the FBI back in the pilot about Kazimir Caine, the Bureau tracked her original email down and arrested him.
- The Oner: Cliff reciting a section of the song "Hook" is done in a single shot that is over a minute long during which the camera slowly pans from Cliff's side of the car to Charlie's.
- Sanity Slippage: It becomes clear throughout the montage of Cliff trying to track Charlie down that he is hating every single second of it.
- Stealth Pun: Emily's daughter is watching Hook on the TV.
- Waxing Lyrical: Cliff says "The hook brings you back," which is actually the hook from Blues Traveler's "Hook." He then recites the entire third verse of the song.Charlie: You really are the fucking worst.
- Wham Episode: Sterling Sr. is killed thanks to a setup from Cliff, Cliff gets arrested for Natalie's murder, and Beatrix Hasp has started her own mission to get Charlie.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Both Charlie and Cliff have this sort of reaction to finding out Sterling Sr. dropped his vendetta. Cliff... more so.
