Drive Away Dolls Lets Pedro Pascal Recreate His Greatest (And Most Famous) Onscreen Moment
This article contains spoilers for "Drive-Away Dolls."
Pedro Pascal has been acting professionally since the 1990s, but there's no denying he's been exploding in popularity over the last few years. Not only is he the titular star of "The Mandalorian," but he's also Joel Miller on "The Last Of Us," the new Reed Richards in Marvel's reboot of "Fantastic Four," and will also appear in Ridley Scott's highly-anticipated "Gladiator 2." But what makes Pascal such an endearing performer is that he's not limited to just playing huge roles — he also loves popping up into random movies and TV shows to have a little fun. One of the latest examples is in Tricia Cooke and Ethan Coen's "Drive-Away Dolls," where trailers depicted Pedro Pascal as Santos, a mysterious man carrying a briefcase who winds up as a "suave head in a hatbox."
Santos is introduced looking nervous and gripping the briefcase like a shipwrecked survivor with a piece of driftwood as a bartender eyeballs him from across the room. He decides to bail for some unknown reason, and as he runs away, the bartender follows him. With nowhere to turn, he runs down an alley. There, he is confronted by the bartender, who immediately stabs him in the neck with a corkscrew (inspiring the hilarious visual of Pascal trying to unscrew it out of his own neck). Alas, the bartender also stabs him in the neck with a metal speed pour spout, and just when it looks like he has finally met his demise, the bartender grabs him by the face and Pedro Pascal recreates the scene that made him a household name.
I'm, of course, talking about the death of Oberyn Martell in "Game of Thrones."
Another notch on the 'eye trauma' board for Pedro Pascal
Pascal's casting as Oberyn Martell aka the Red Viper of Dorne was, in my opinion, the best casting in the entirety of "Game of Thrones." Pascal emulated his character beyond any of our collective imaginations and played the barb-tongued, sexually fluid, passionately defensive leader of the unbowed, unbent, and unbroken with sheer perfection. This is why when he foolishly decided to battle The Mountain in a fight to the death, his inevitable demise had fans in a chokehold. There was no way this man could take down a Goliath fighter like The Mountain, but audiences were invested in the possibility that he could defy the odds. And for a brief moment, it looked like he had actually pulled it off.
Of course, The Mountain was not dead when it looked like he was, and he repaid Oberyn by jamming his thumbs in his eyes with such intensity that he completely smashed in his skull like a watermelon. It's a horrific death in a show made famous by shocking death after shocking death, but one that Pascal embraced. There are countless photos of him on red carpets holding his thumbs up to his eyes, and he's owned the fact his death traumatized millions. This makes "Drive-Away Dolls" hilariously meta because the bartender kills Santos in the alley by jamming his thumbs into his eyes.
Granted, he's nowhere near as strong as The Mountain, so Santos' head remains in one piece (but still decapitated) in the hat box. Nevertheless, there's a non-zero chance we're going to get a burst of new images of Pedro pretending to gouge his own eyes out on the red carpet. Bless Tricia Cooke and Ethan Coen for giving us this gift.
"Drive-Away Dolls" is now playing in theaters.