“Eidolon” was a much more restrained, and therefore better, episode of The Bridge than was last week’s “Rakshasa.” This show is at its best when it strikes a more contemplative tone, especially in this second season, which is so much darker than the first, both visually and thematically (I maintain that Eleanor Nacht is one of the best TV villains since Fargo‘s Lorne Malvo).
“Eidolon” is all about the fallout from last week’s bloodbath, and is ably directed by Colin Bucksey (who directed “Buridan’s Ass,” one of the best and bloodiest episodes of Fargo). Bucksey is an inspired choice, and he does a great job of balancing the blood and brutality with the more meditative character beats. For instance, I think Jaime has quietly become one of The Bridge‘s most tragic characters – look at him in the cop car, sobbing like a child, only stopping to smile at the memory of the candy he had at Red Ridge.
Hank continues his escape, determinedly pushing Eleanor’s ledger ahead of him. These shots really bring out the dry dustiness of southern Texas, and Ted Levine, without saying a word, easily conveys just how difficult this journey is. He only makes it about twenty feet out of the house before Cesar catches up to him; luckily Hank was able to hide the ledger before being taken.
Hank ends up at the same back-alley doctor that Monty took Eleanor to. Monty has always been one of my favorite characters on this show, and I absolutely love the detail that he keeps a spare cowboy hat in his trunk where his spare tire should be. Anyway, Eleanor and Hank both get patched up, more or less, and since Hank is refusing to tell her where the ledger is, she sticks her finger in his wound, which I thought was a nice nod (even if it was unintentional) to the way Brad Pitt interrogated Diane Kruger in Inglourious Basterds.
Of course Sonya and Marco catch up to Eleanor, as they must, but it doesn’t feel rote; rather, it feels almost cathartic, like a deeply satisfying exhalation, and the reason it feels like that is because you’ve been holding your breath for almost the entire episode.
For me, the biggest revelation came from the CIA agent (Buckley) whom Frye and Adriana followed. They don’t hear him say it, but he and his cohorts talk about replacing Fausto Galvan, revealing that Buckley was the one who propped him up in the first place. Whether Fausto knows this or not is up for debate, as “Eidolon” sees him kidnapping Romina Cerisola, so he certainly thinks that his power is his own. He might have no idea that he lives and dies at the whims of pepole he’ll never meet. I think that plays into the episode’s title as well (“eidolon” refers to a specter or phantom, or an idealized person or thing). Fausto isn’t his own man; Eleanor wasn’t, in the end, his woman; one wonders how much of life we’re just idealizing. Fausto puts Romina’s life into his own hands, even as his life is in the CIA’s. It’s an interesting dichotomy, and posing these heady questions is just one thing that The Bridge is doing right this season.
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