Recap Smoke ‘Whitewashed Tombs’: Give Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine all the awards

Smoke Season 1 Episode 7 Recap and Review

Trigger Warning: This recap mentions suicide. Please take care while reading, and reach out for support if you need it.

I have been singing Mr. Mwine’s praises in these Smoke recaps from the beginning, and my word, he kept that phenomenal performance as Freddy Fasano to the very end. It helped that the direction, the camera work, the writing, the music – everything was at their artful best in Freddy’s scenes in this episode. Dark, tragic, insightful, pathetic – stirringly, insistently human, even through his actions that were most definitely not humane – Freddy Fasano is a character for the ages. Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, thank you. 

Freddy Fasano has refused to talk to Crawford PD the whole time he had been incarcerated there. He only perked up when one of his interrogators mentioned the man who caught him. Freddy told the police that he would speak to Dave Gudsen.

It was a scene that the show had been building toward since the beginning, this face off between the Milk Jug arsonist and D&C. It was also a study of contrasts, of Freddy’s stillness to Dave’s fidgety energy, of Freddy’s desire to talk frankly to Dave’s continued performance of his role as Investigator Gudsen. With Michelle and some Crawford PD detectives watching from outside, Freddy asked Dave who the woman was who made him who he was. 

Dave bragged about how he got his profile of Freddy right except for the hair (Dave is full of it, the hair came from a witness at the bar, not his profile), whilst Freddy expertly read him. “Your mother. Why didn’t she love you?” The camera work through that interrogation scene was outstanding; that, along with the sound effects, mimicked a climb as Freddy leaned in toward Dave. Dave tried to play it cool – that small smile was some very good work by Taron  Egerton – but soon after he finally wrested his self away from Freddy’s dark bonding, he threw up.

Perhaps it was always going to end here for Freddy. With The Parting Glass by boygenius & Ye Vagabonds providing a somber, haunting background, Freddy was shown inside his cell, hugging his blanket, which he then started tearing up. The scene was lit with the golden light of a setting sun, the dust caught in the light bathed in gold and dancing. There were flashbacks of the handful – way too few – happy memories of Freddy’s life – of the rare kindness of getting his hair washed, of a loving woman who was his last foster mother, of the carousel on that one joyful day of his life in the park. There was an image of Christ in his bloodshot eyes as tears fell down his cheeks. There were more images – toys, a lake, a child, a smiling woman – the final memories that flashed as he hung himself.    

Dave’s capture of the notorious Milk Jug arsonist turned him into a local celebrity. His TV interview caught the eye of literary agent Erica Boswell, who was furious at her assistant Jason for previously turning down Dave’s book. When Erica tried to reach Dave, she instead got the taskforce. Captain Burke along with Esposito and Michelle struck a deal with her to try and lure Dave into a trap.

Along with Agent Dawn posing as her assistant Hillary Milton, Erica met up with Dave at a restaurant, with Esposito manning a surveillance van nearby. They plied him with champagne and good food and compliments, but though Dave gave a hint of the dark creature within him, he was too smart to give them anything they could use to arrest and prosecute him. 

Michelle, for her part, went a different way in her effort to catch the D&C arsonist – she went to Dave’s wife Ashley’s gym and concocted a scenario so they could speak. Ashley was initially hostile toward Michelle, whom she believed was having an affair with Dave based on his book, but she softened when Michelle made it clear there was no affair and that she was investigating Dave of a crime. Ashley spoke of how Dave was gone most nights so she thought he was cheating (he was). She also mentioned this thing living inside of Dave, and that he was into rough sex, and that he had fantasies, including assaulting her in a burning building and filming it. 

Michelle knew of one person in Dave’s life who liked to film, Esposito, who admitted to her that yes, he had a couple of DVDs of Dave, but his partner in the scenes, his second wife Reba, was into it. Michelle went to Reba’s rather nice house plying the lie that Dave was getting an award, but got nothing from his ex-wife. Reba was very obviously protecting Dave.

At the party thrown for Dave, he and Burke got into each other’s nerves, to the point where Dave provoked Burke into sucker punching him. Dave stormed off as he realised what was happening. He found the tracker in his car and threw it off his window as he drove recklessly and shook his tail. He went to his office and Harvey’s office, looking for something, and broke the photo of Harvey’s lake house. He later saw Esposito with Agent Dawn outside of the work space that Harvey got for them, Agent Dawn whom he met as the literary agent’s assistant. 

Just as Dave was soaking in his newfound celebrity, he realised that he was under investigation – and by his partner and his friend. How would a man who had gotten away with letting his Chaos out for so long react to being the pursued?

Rating: A-

Strays

🧑‍🚒Word of the episode: ignominy - disgrace, dishonor, public contempt

🧑‍🚒Michelle was talking over the phone with Burke about her mother. Hmm. Michelle also had breakfast with her sister in law Rose, who had agreed to let her mother stay at her house with her husband Benji (Michelle’s brother) and their children. This is the seventh episode and we haven’t met Michelle’s mother yet. Does this mean Smoke is not a miniseries and there are plans for a second season? 

🧑‍🚒When Gudsen was cooking in Ashley’s house, the shift from a man expressing his love to his wife to the evil Dave within made me frightened for Ashley.

You can access Recap Lab’s coverage of Smoke via this link.

Episode Title: Whitewashed Tombs

Episode Teleplay by: Dennis Lehane & Molly Miller 

Episode Story by: Steven Hanna & Adriane McCray

Episode Director: Joe Chappelle

Original Air Date: August 1, 2025

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