The Continental Finally Addresses The Biggest Mystery Of The John Wick Universe
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the premiere episode of "The Continental."
"Rules. Without them, we live with the animals," hotel manager Winston Scott (Ian McShane) once memorably stated in "John Wick: Chapter 2." The Keanu Reeves-starring movies seamlessly established the official guidelines and regulations that various characters in the assassin underworld, both hero and villain alike, were bound to follow. But rules are made to be broken, as the saying goes, and Peacock's spin-off/prequel series "The Continental" flouts more than a few of them while bringing the world of John Wick to streaming.
Not only did the premiere of "The Continental" on Peacock shed quite a bit of light on the origins of the enigmatic Winston during the 1970s (now played by Colin Woodell), building out an entirely new adventure based around the relationship with his troubled brother Frankie (Ben Robson) and their vendetta against current manager of the Continental Cormac (Mel Gibson), but it also provided viewers a never-before-seen look into one of the biggest and most amusing mysteries of the entire Wick-verse.
With the exception of a single moment in the original "John Wick" (and a brief follow-up in the sequel), when a police officer named Jimmy hesitantly checks in on Wick about a "noise complaint" in the aftermath of some rather noticeable carnage, the films have intentionally shied away from a core question: What's the general public's perspective on this underworld of trigger-happy assassins? Proponents of the movies would likely praise the decision to keep this pesky little detail unexplained, defending it as one of the franchise's many strange quirks that works best, frankly, if audiences just go along with it. But, for better or worse, "The Continental" takes a sharp left turn from tradition and addresses this central mystery from the point of view of a couple of cops.
Off the beaten path
In the present day of the "Wick" franchise, the various comings and goings at the Continental hotel in New York occur without any interference from the outside world whatsoever. While most audiences probably never even had this cross their mind, some of the more logic-obsessed audience members out there might wonder how that's even possible in a city with one of the most highly-funded police departments in the country. Well, "The Continental" creators Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward, and Shawn Simmons apparently found this question worth answering in their prequel series.
Early on, we're introduced to a key subplot that will reverberate throughout the episode (and the following two, as well). Detectives KD (Mishel Prada) and Mayhew (Jeremy Bobb) quickly find themselves caught up in a situation far more complicated than their own sexual history together. When an investigation into a local buyer of contraband leads KD right to the doorstep of the Continental itself, Mayhew recklessly breaks protocol to prevent his subordinate from physically entering the hotel grounds. His urgent warnings to her practically drip with innuendo about what actually goes on inside the secretive Flatiron Building, though he refuses to elaborate beyond the fact that they simply "...have no authority there."
Naturally, KD disregards these orders and marches straight into the Continental anyway later on. Her inexperience is readily apparent to the trained killers all around her, making her stick out like a sore thumb and putting her in danger like no other scene in the "Wick" franchise has ever done to an outsider. Clearly, the local cops and probably even civilians in the surrounding area (a safe assumption, given the bodies that have a tendency of falling onto the streets below) know something shady is going on, but "The Continental" doesn't stop there.
Rumor mill
It's one thing for the local police to know about the Continental (or, more accurately, its reputation), but what about other criminals in the area? "The Continental" plunges headfirst into the seedy underbelly of 1970s New York City in more ways than one. Winston's desperate search for his missing brother Frankie takes him from Cormac's threats in the Continental itself to the lawless neighborhoods of Chinatown, where word on the street is that Frankie used to do some illegal gun-running with a small team based out of a dojo.
In one scene, we receive an even more in-depth look at how outsiders perceive the notorious Continental. Here, Winston meets the siblings Miles (Hubert Point-Du Jour) and Lou (Jessica Allain), who once ran in the same circles as Frankie in the years after the Vietnam War. After taking a little while to warm up and get acquainted with one another, Winston finally gets everyone to put down their guns and have a chat about what happened to Frankie. In whispered voices and hushed tones, Miles admits that a shell-shocked Frankie eventually cut out his newfound criminal friends entirely and eventually "moved into a hotel." Although they can't fully grasp the kind of clientele that the Continental houses, it's obvious that word of the assassins' talent for killing has traveled far and wide.
From these examples, viewers shouldn't be surprised if/when later episodes delve even deeper and strip even more of the once-impenetrable mystique surrounding the Continental. The early returns feel decidedly mixed, making it debatable whether the tradeoff between expanding the world-building at the cost of watering things down was truly worth it or not. Stay tuned to see how the rest of the series handles this tricky balance.
New episodes of "The Continental" stream on Peacock every Friday.