It isn’t easy to make new friends as an adult. In True Lies 1×04 “Rival Companions,” Helen (Ginger Gonzaga) goes looking for friendship where she perhaps shouldn’t. Putting her husband Harry (Steve Howey) on edge. And possibly in the line of fire.
Helen and the Wolf
As a construct of the show, the Tasker dynamic pairs the grizzled veteran of spycraft with the more naive, trusting newbie to the field. He’s more experienced but also more cynical. She’s green, but this helps her to see possibilities that others might miss. For the most part, this dynamic works well enough to suit the show’s purposes. However, “Rival Companions” strains the boundaries of this dichotomy. Almost to a breaking point.
This week’s setup makes sense for the characters. Helen is still new to the world of spying. She is, in fact, Omega Sector’s only trainee at present. (This seems terribly short-sighted for a spy organization, where the loss of life and limb can’t be entirely unheard of. You mean to tell me that if a couple people die in the field, Omega Sector has to start from scratch to recruit replacements? That just doesn’t seem very forward-thinking.) Anyway, the failings of Omega Sector’s HR department aren’t the point. What matters is that Helen is feeling like an outsider, struggling to learn everything she needs to know.
Enter The Wolf (Matthew Lillard). Okay, he wasn’t brought onto the team to be Helen’s friend and confidante. In fact, he’s an assassin. A very good one that Omega Sector has called upon to take care of a little job. The two outsiders are more or less drawn to each other, becoming fast friends.
There’s something almost likable and endearing about Lillard, even when he’s playing a remorseless killer. So at first blush, it makes some degree of sense that Helen would latch onto her newfound friend. Particularly when he seems to listen to her in a way her husband currently isn’t. Helping her with some things she’s struggling with in training.
It’s at the point where the Wolf admits to experiencing no negative emotion or remorse about his job that the show teeters towards incredulity. Helen barely misses a beat before she decides that he’s good at heart and, you know, that “lack of remorse about murder” thing isn’t really a big deal. On the other side of the coin, Harry comes out hard in his anti-Wolf stance, not wanting anything to do with the man.
Making Friends and Enemies
In an odd way, both of their stances ring hollow and don’t quite seem to work. For her part, Helen is just a little too trusting and babe-in-the-woods. Yeah, she’s supposed to be a good person. And she is. I even buy that she sees the good in people where her husband might take longer to warm up to a person. (Not that I think the Wolf is a safe person to warm up to.) But she’s remarkably cavalier about an assassin showing up at her house. Where her kids sleep. Evading their security. And she defends her friendship with said cold-blooded assassin. Up until the point when the Wolf and Harry are paired up in the mission and she begins to worry that her new bestie might actually murder her husband.
I’m not saying that her little pep talk didn’t save Harry’s life. It absolutely did. But I am saying that, if you genuinely think your BFF might kill your husband once your back is turned…I don’t know. Maybe re-evaluate your friendships? At the very least, maybe don’t go so “ride or die” for your friend when your husband points out that maybe – just maybe – your friendship might be unwise.
At the same time, Harry’s emphatic aversion to the Wolf also seems somewhat strange. Harry’s a spy, and, as Helen rightly points out, it’s not like he’s never killed people. Of course, the distinction for Harry is that he feels bad about murdering people (sometimes?). The Wolf doesn’t.
And, okay, it’s a television show. We’re here for entertainment, not a real-world look into the life of a spy. But still, it just seems weird to me that the Wolf is the first person Harry’s come across who has no moral compunction against what he does for a living. Frankly, while it might make him a good person, I would have to think that a strong moral compass (specifically against inflicting death and dismemberment) would be something of a liability in Harry’s line of work. It certainly would be in the Wolf’s, for whom “death and dismemberment” is basically his entire job description.
If the Wolf – or other assassins working at the behest of the Omega Sector – were plagued with feelings of guilt over doing their jobs, they wouldn’t be likely to hold those jobs for very long. And, as we already discussed, Omega Sector doesn’t exactly have replacements waiting in the wings. Where would they be then?
True Lies 1×04 “Rival Companions” has its fun moments. Particularly with Lillard, who sells the awkward, cold-blooded killer while also being someone you could see Helen befriending. (At least at first.) But from a character standpoint, the dynamics don’t entirely work. Giving Helen and Harry both somewhat baffling perspectives. While it was largely still an enjoyable hour of television, it ultimately felt like a missed opportunity to explore Helen’s feelings about the dramatic changes to her life. Discovering that her mild-mannered computer salesman husband has also killed people. And recognizing tthat the day ma come when she’s called upon to do the same.
