‘Lucky’ Episode 2 Sees Luciana Take Control Of Her Dire Situation

Lucky Uses Lita To Get Ahead Of The FBI

Injured from the car accident and the attack she endured in “No Shortcuts,” Lucky stumbles through the desert with only her Caesar’s Place bomber jacket to protect her from the sun. When she comes upon Lita’s house, she takes the opportunity that presents itself.

Lucky kills the rattlesnake that was threatening Lita’s granddaughters, assesses that the woman isn’t someone to trifle with when her immediate response is to aim a shotgun at her, and settles into the story that best fits someone like Lita.

The con woman saw it when Lita, short for abuelita, tended to her wounds. While the explanation that she used to work as a nurse’s aide in a high school gives reason for how Lita knows how to properly attend to Lucky’s bruises and cuts, there’s a sadness to her that Lucky realizes she can exploit.

Lita is all alone in the desert with her granddaughters. She talks about her daughter with a heaviness, and she was initially suspicious and wary of Lucky until she learned she had nothing and no one. Lucky leads Lita to believe that her name is Rachel and she’s stranded in the desert because her husband pushed her out of the car when they got into a fight.

She portrays herself as still being in disbelief, grappling with the idea that the man she loves would do that to her. But she won’t blame him, she blames herself. The story hits close to home because Lita’s daughter died at the hands of an abusive husband. He’s the reason she and the girls are living out in the middle of nowhere.

But Lucky’s defense of Rachel’s husband to sell her story is a reflection of her own conflicted feelings about Cary (Drew Starkey). This is the second time she’s weaponized an imaginary man’s abuse to survive, and it sets up a metaphor for how Lucky feels emotionally.

Cary has left her to reap the consequences of moving the money John stole from the government and Wayne Whittaker (William Fichtner). She is reeling from being left for dead just like her persona and she’s unable to reconcile the love she has for her husband with the actions he’s taken. Lucky gets one over on Lita because there’s a kernel of truth to what she’s saying.

Cleaned up and enjoying a home cooked meal, Lucky has no choice but to ignore her father’s check-in call. She plays it off by letting Lita assume it’s Rachel’s husband, and decides to “be strong” like she’s told to. The lie lasts until nightfall when Billie comes knocking at the door.

Lucky tells Lita that Billie is one of her husband’s friends. It’s a flimsy lie, and she knows it. That’s why she grabs a knife and Lita’s keys from her belt loop after hugging her. She keeps track of the conversation between the two women and notices quickly that her story has unraveled. Lucky had told Lita her husband is a cop, but Billie is an FBI agent and would have no reason to be out in the middle of the desert to do the dirty work of dragging a local cop’s wife back home.

Billie, like Lucky, is also good at reading people. Lita’s granddaughters mean more to her than world and casting the con woman as a clear and present danger immediately shifts Lita’s allegiance. She doesn’t know Lucky, and she left her alone with her girls. But Lucky has a soft spot for the two, and she simply hugs them both before slipping out of the room with a promise to come back.

As Billie searches the premises, Lucky makes her way outside through a window. She swipes money from Lita’s wallet, puts the knife in Billie’s tire, and speeds away in Lita’s truck as Billie runs after her yelling for her to stop and Lita runs, too, while yelling insults at her in Spanish. But it’s to no avail, she’s off into the night.

Outmaneuvering Dutch

Lucky isn’t on the road long when the truck signals it’s running out of gas, forcing her to stop at a nearby gas station. She misses that she passed Dutch, who’d made a sharp U-turn when his radio picked up a BOLO fitting Lucky and the truck’s description.

Dutch had been on his way to Lita’s house. Billie had initially used a search dog to track Lucky from the site of episode 1’s car crash. Though the dog had lost the scent due to a dead coyote, she was close enough to spot Lita’s home off in the distance. Dutch had a different strategy. He used satellite footage for his search, looking in a 20 mile radius from the crash in each direction until he landed on Lita’s place.

It was serendipitous for him run across Lucky. Once he does, he doesn’t waste time. Dutch walks in behind her at the gas station, only giving her enough time to put $40 on the pump before she sees him. Lucky hides behind the shelves, but Dutch spots her on the surveillance camera and shoots in her direction, scaring the gas station clerk and the customer ahead of him.

The cashier calls 9-1-1 but neither Lucky nor Dutch are paying him any mind. Lucky slips on the lamp oil fuel spilling from the bottles Dutch shot through when he was aiming at her. It gives the two a chance to talk, getting Lucky up to speed on Cary. Like her, Dutch and Priscilla don’t know where he is. Dutch asks her about Long Beach, the location Priscilla had tracked Cary’s car down, too, but Lucky doesn’t seem to know anything about it.

Dutch tells her that she should think about getting on the “right side” of the situation she’s in and that there may be a way out for her. Lucky knows he’s trying to play her and uses John’s lighter to set fire to the oil so she can get away. Dutch’s boots and pants catch fire, but he doesn’t panic. He calmly walks over to a fire extinguisher and uses it to put himself out. He ignores the cashier’s pleas to put the flames in the aisle out, too.

At first, Dutch looks for Lucky outside in an area with abandoned cars, but when he hears sirens in the distance, he gives up the chase. He goes to get his scratch offs and then gets in his truck, unaware that Lucky got in the truck bed and is evading the police along with him.

John’s Hubris Puts Lucky In Danger

Earlier in the episode, Priscilla paid John a visit. She wanted him to pass along a message to Lucky. Priscilla wants her to play ball otherwise she will kill her. She warned John that Lucky is running out of time, and he needs to let her know that.

He has been so confident in his daughter’s ability to navigate the mess he put her in because he’s the one who taught her everything she knows. It’s his voice in her head, guiding her as she gets out of sticky situation after sticky situation. Lucky’s using his lessons to remain in control, it’s how she’s keeping up morale. If she’s not running, then she’s not in danger.

Lucky believes she has command of the board because she is staying ahead of everyone she encounters. But she has a rhythm, too, and her weakness is Cary. That’s likely to be exploited especially since Dutch and Priscilla are on the hunt for him, too.

It appears Cary might not have the same training as Lucky. He’s in the wind for now, but he’ll eventually be found. Lucky might be the very person who winds up leading Dutch and Priscilla straight to him and in doing so land them both in Whittaker’s crosshairs, if Billie doesn’t get to them first. He wants his money, but he’ll settle for their lives.

New episodes of Lucky stream Wednesdays on Apple TV. Follow Sabrina Reed on Forbes for weekly coverage of the series and news about the business of TV.