Main cast: Michael Landes (Hooten), Ophelia Lovibond (Lady Alexandra Lindo-Parker), Jessica Hynes (Ella Bond), Shaun Parkes (Clive Stephenson), Jonathan Bailey (Edward), and Vincent Regan (Kane)
Director: Daniel O’Hara
Remember how by the end of the first episode, a naked Hooten sells off a diamond and then, after putting on his clothes, delivers the cash to what seems like a church?
Well, the answer to that enigma is not revealed in Cambodia. Maybe that whole thing was just an excuse to show off Michael Landes’s butt, and you know what, I’m perfectly alright with that.
Anyway, we now know that there is a villain that killed his sweetheart and, presumably, his mentor in the previous episode is such an all-reaching mastermind that he has to go into hiding, hence him being a much shorter version of Nathan Drake. Hey, a guy has to make money somehow, after all.
So, eight weeks or so after their Moscow adventure, Hooten is in Cambodia doing his thing and trying avoid Alex, who is trying to see if he’s okay after their not-so-pleasant goodbye back there in Russia.
Too bad that Hooten needs Ella’s expertise on some recent relic he is after, and Ella, accidentally I’m sure, lets slip to her boss where Hooten is. Alex decides to drop by and say hello, much to Hooten’s consternation.
She knows what he is after—the wish-fulfilling Cintamani Jewel, located somewhere in Shambala—and since she is grounded, thanks to her mother’s machinations, she has nothing better to do so she’d look for it too.
Unfortunately, the big bad villain is also looking for it!
This episode is another one with far better character development than actual plot. More about Hooten’s angst is revealed: the villain murdered his sweetheart and kid, and he was Hooten’s former cell mate turned business partner that didn’t take too well Hooten’s eventual decampment and the revelation that Hooten decamped with this villain’s wife.
Of course, he deals with his angst in a rather asshole-to-keep-you-safe way, and he gets what he deserves when Alex just as annoyingly keeps prodding and poking at him to find out more about his angst.
Oh, I have to laugh, because these two are equally fond of and very annoyed by one another, and there’s a realism to this relationship that I find adorable. I’m especially glad that there is no love thing brewing between Alex and Hooten; if anything, Alex’s fiancé is quite the doll because he seems genuinely supportive of Alex’s constant traipsing around the globe to search for things.
Yes, yes, a cynical person may argue that perhaps he’s delighted to have a wife that is always away, perhaps because he’d would like the opportunity to have fun on the low down with other women or men or whatever, but hey, as long as everyone’s happy!
This episode falters considerably, however, with several unnecessary detours. The whole thing with the Cambodia riffraff feels like filler, for example, and I feel that these scenes could have been taken out to flesh out the big bad villain’s plots and machinations.
Worst of all is that villain. He shows up, and then the show just does away with him… like that? Why make the Palpatine of Hooten’s life into a five-minute scene filler?
This episode takes me one step closer to the grand finale, but it still falters now and then when it comes to knocking me off of my feet.
Still, compared to the earlier parts of the season, things are starting to come together nicely!
