“Continental’s worst choice? Mel Gibson.

Spoilers follow Continental: From the World of John Wickthe third and final episode of which aired on October 6.

John Wick The world is driven by maximalism: more guns, more bullets, more Keanu-Keanu. There’s an art to it, so even when the show uses powerful headshots, dogs attacking male genitals, or a hardcover book being used to break someone’s neck, there’s a sense of grace to it as well. Most of these killers and antagonists have well-thought-out backstories that give them motivations beyond simple murder; most of these performers act calm, confident, and even dignified as they chase John Wick around the world. Continental

The sprint through a set of action sequences in the final Theater of Pain is one of the few aspects of the franchise’s continuity that the spinoff gets right. But what this prequel can’t get past is its biggest mistake and most distracting departure from the point. John Wick Sublime Villainy Mode: Mel Gibson as villain Cormac O’Connor.

Gibson Continentalmost sought after actor, and his O’Connor is supposed to be New York’s pre-eminent titan, who rose through the city’s dark underground of organized crime and ran the titular hotel for decades. The series is primarily about how brothers Winston and Frankie Scott, frightened as children by O’Connor’s service, rebel against him, and this forward momentum means the series doesn’t spend much time looking back at how why O’Connor became who he is. This avoidance is detrimental to the series because it means Continental relies on Gibson to give the character depth, which he doesn’t do. At no point does O’Connor feel like a man with a past or an inner world; Gibson conveys no inner life. Quicker, Continental credits O’Connor with opinions, quirks, and dialogue that seem purposefully reminiscent of Gibson’s real-life failures. Perhaps this is storytelling shorthand, a way Continental to devote more time to the style of the 70s era. But it also creates a rough viewing experience in which Continental encourages us to connect the dots with Gibson’s actual bad behavior instead of making his character special or at least more in keeping with the established flow of the film. John Wick.

Since Gibson’s public image of rugged masculinity and devoted piety began to crumble following his 2006 drunk driving arrest and accompanying anti-Semitic tirade, he has quite cleverly used the next phase of his filmography to improve his troubled off-screen reputation by showing qualities. in these scandals, which took on a fraudulent but principled tone in his work after 2010. (See: Gibson as a brutal cop who robs drug dealers to support his family in Dragged on concreteor as a fighter pilot who breaks laws to connect with his estranged son in Dad’s house 2.) Gibson’s characters now tend to be characterized by a capacity for cruelty, an often mistaken belief in their own persecution, and an intimidating sense of humor based on insulting others. It’s a neat, boring formula designed to make viewers feel like they’re making a joke at their own expense, which Gibson lets loose. Continental

The worst choice is not just to accommodate this performative routine, but to satisfy it.

The intensity and tone of Gibson’s lines as O’Connor, all smirking taunts and hysterical screams, are reminiscent of the 2010 recordings of him berating, threatening and insulting his former partner Oksana Grigorieva. O’Connor’s overwhelming paranoia that everyone is working against him seems an ugly parallel to a 2006 arrest that the arresting officer called “belligerent” and his 2012 altercation with screenwriter Joe Eszterhas. O’Connor smashing a supposed gay man’s head with a golf club and then beating him to death is the series’ most grotesque and drawn-out scene, and evokes memories of the time Gibson told Grigorieva she needed “fucking sex.” with a bat to the head” and allegedly accused Winona Ryder’s gay friend of having AIDS. (Let’s also include in this category the time O’Connor cheekily calls himself a “tramp” and accuses other men of being “jerks.”) And the character’s devout Christianity and dependence on a combination of drugs he calls “my medicine.” seems to also come from Gibson’s own past.

It’s impossible to say how many viewers remember the ins and outs of Gibson’s legal issues, so perhaps most of these comparisons are left untouched. But O’Connor is so assured, and Gibson’s stunts are such a caricature of his own crimes, that all these similarities accumulate in an atmosphere of disgusting hatred, but not in a way that makes the character any more compelling. Because Gibson never turned O’Connor from a parody into the man Winston calls the scariest man he’s ever seen. Continental is never really as intense as it should be for the four-plus hours of viewer time it demands. There are so many other actors who could have inspired O’Connor with their nastiness and complexity without pointing a finger in our face about what they were getting away with. (Some suggestions: Michael Wincott, Ron Perlman, Colm Meaney, Holt McCallany, Liam Cunningham, Paul Ben-Victor.) It’s not an insult for an actor to be typecast and nod to his real-life personality in his fictional work. What offensive, but that’s how it is Continental was satisfied with what Gibson did only What.