NOTE: This post contains spoilers for The Company You Keep episode 6, “The Real Thing.”
“The Real Thing” picks up immediately where last week’s episode, “The Spy Who Loved Me,” concluded. Having just told Emma (Catherine Haena Kim) that he’s a career con man who has also been working for Daphne (Felisha Terrell), Charlie waits for the undercover CIA agent to respond.
She does by accusing him of lying to her. Charlie (Milo Ventimiglia) insists that’s not true, he just didn’t tell her everything. He then adds that he’s only ever stolen from people who deserved it, that he’s been trying to stop his criminal activities, and that he’s only still doing it because Daphne found him and his family.
Even though Charlie warned her about Daphne’s plans to blackmail her and her family, Emma is so hurt by his deception that she doesn’t want anything to do with him. As she walks away, Charlie laments that he put his family on the line to help her, but Emma doesn’t care and they, for all intents and purposes, split up.
What makes things even worse for Charlie is that Daphne has ordered a meeting with him. She wants Charlie, Birdie (Sarah Wayne Callies), Leo (William Fichtner), and Fran (Polly Draper) to steal a painting worth $2 million from Russian oligarch Gregor Abramov (Mark Ivanir) for her.
Charlie knows the perfect man to connect them with Gregor, too. Birdie’s ex-boyfriend Simon Norris (Geoff Stults) doesn’t just work in the New York art world, he is also the father of Ollie (Shaylee Mansfield). It also helps that Simon has repeatedly been calling Birdie in recent months, as he hasn’t spoken to her for 10 years and also has never met Ollie.
Birdie finally agrees to meet Simon, during which time we learn that he’s a former drug addict who is willing to do anything to rebuild their relationship. This includes connecting her with Abramov. Birdie and Simon attend a lavish party in Abramov’s penthouse apartment, where she learns that all of the seemingly expensive art pieces on display are actually fake.
Simon explains that Abramov keeps the real-ones in a high-security storage unit that he has access to. Charlie pick-pockets Simon’s card to enter the building, but Birdie soon receives a phone call from him saying that wasn’t necessary and he’s willing to help out. At the event, Charlie even overhears Gregor telling someone on the phone the day and time they’ll be selling the $2 million painting, too.
Simon sneaks Charlie and Birdie into the storage unit, hiding them in a huge box, while also disabling the door so they can sneak out when the deed is complete. Just as Gregor and his buyer are making the deal, a package dropped off by Leo explodes, forcing everyone to vacate the building. Charlie and Birdie then trade the real $2 million painting for a fake, and, after exiting, blend in with the firefighters outside.
Little does Charlie know that Emma’s fellow CIA agent Mason (Courtney Taylor) has also been tracking Gregor. She was tipped off that he’d met up with Daphne and left her furious because he didn’t want to make a deal with her.
Mason followed Gregor to the storage unit and, after a little digging, discovered that the buyer of his painting is Brad Wilford (Michael Gladis), who works for the American armory, a company that manufactures military-grade weapons. He’s also working with Gregor and Daphne wants to be involved so that she can start trading guns.
Mason passes this information on to Emma, which just increases her already burning desire to bring Daphne to justice. Especially since, earlier in the episode, she finally received the evidence that Daphne plans to blackmail her with. It’s photos of Emma’s father Joseph Hill (James Saito) having an affair with political advisor Claire Fox (Marin Hinkle), who is now working with his son David (Tim Chiou) as he attempts to get reelected to the senate.
Emma even goes to meet Daphne, who insists that the CIA and politicians are as criminal as she is, before telling her to back off or she’ll release the photos and destroy her political family. Seemingly stuck between either protecting her family or letting Daphne win, Emma decides there’s another person who could help her.
She gets back in contact with Charlie. At the bar, Emma tells Charlie that she wants him come and work for her to help bring Daphne down and protect her family. In return, she’ll make sure that Charlie and his family don’t go to prison for their crimes.
Charlie agrees and the episode concludes with him going to see Daphne. He demands more responsibility from her so that he can help her defeat Connor and take over the Maguire crime family, which would then leave them completely square. She smiles back at him, seemingly agreeing to do so.
Meanwhile, after confronting her dad about the affair, Joseph figures out that Emma doesn’t work in logistics and is actually an undercover agent. Also, while dropping off the real painting, Simon bumps into Ollie. She realizes that he’s her dad, leading to a beautiful moment between Ollie and Birdie, which unfolds entirely in ASL, where she finally admits to her daughter that the family are con artists.
“The Real Thing” isn’t one of The Company You Keep’s most engrossing episodes. But the broadening of Birdie’s character, as well as the ending of Emma and Charlie’s relationship while still keeping them close, undoubtedly increases our affection for the characters.
This will be all the more important as The Company You Keep gets closer to the end of its first season and the tension, drama, and danger increase. Especially now that Daphne is involved in both the gun and drug trades and Charlie is working undercover for her.
New episodes of The Company You Keep air Sundays on ABC and then are available to stream the next day on Hulu.
