Ride or Die on Amazon Prime, is about a woman (a MP's wife) who discovers that her "ride or die" (close friend) is a spy. There's bound to be a gay-subtext romance between them, and probably a gay friend in there somewhere. Or at least some beefcake.
Scene 1: Austria. A group of people dancing and hetero-flirting outside in the snow. A sniper zooms on on Oleg (Pavel Konstantyn). Her handler tells her to take the shot, but she refuses. Instead, she skiis down and stabs him, then skiis away with Russians in hot pursuit. She crashes or eludes them, and takes off her mask: It's Judith (Hannah Waddingham)!
Scene 2: At the chalet that night. People dancing, drinking, and hetero-flirting. Judith wins the hammering-a-nail-while-drunk contest, then asks Hans the Bartender (Taylor Napier) for another drink "or nine."
When he gets off work, they bounce and crash into her hotel room to smoochify. Darn, I thought she was a lesbian. Nice chest shot of the Bartender as Judith is slowly unhooking her bra.
She gets up in the early morning hours. "So, can I call you?"
"Scoff, scoff. Absolutely not!" So he's not an ongoing character, just there to identify Judith as not gay?.
"Who the fuck are you?" He asks as she walks away.
Good question, she ponders. Her passport says that she's a forensic accountant, but that's just a boring cover to avoid follow-up questions. She's actually an assassin.
Scene 3: London. A closeup of a woman's wedding ring (heterosexual identity established immediately) as she drives, listening to a true crime podcast. She inches her way into a parking space, but now she's blocked in,so she has to climb out through the window. It's Debbie (Octavia Spencer)!
Assassin Judith calls, pretending that she was at an accounting conference, but she'll be back in time for Book Club, and pick her up an apothecary cabinet at the Antique Warehouse.
It's like Black Friday in the U.S., crowds jostling and running over each other to get in. Real-life celebrity antique dealer Drew Pritchard and his boyfriend rush toward the apothecary cabinet, but Debbie beat them to it! They fume with jealousy. Wait -- the real-life guy is straight. They just gave him a boyfriend on the show to queerbait.
"Who the hell is that?" The Boyfriend asks. I agree. What does this scene have to do with anything?
Debbie ponders it. I made law review at Yale, fell in love, moved to England. I have two grown children. My husband is David Claybourne, Member of Parliament, who will be the next Prime Minister. But I have a secret -- one that would tear my life apart. Are you and Judith secretly girlfriends? No, it's Book Club tomorrow,a nd she hasn't read the book, har har.
Scene 4: London. Assassin Judith arrives at a fancy restaurant for lunch with Sam (Calam Lynch), her Handler, who demands to know why she stabbed the last mark instead of shooting him, resulting in 100 witnesses.
"You used to follow the rules, but now every case turns into chaos. You're acting out, getting sloppy, and putting us all in danger." He gives her another assignment, but "no mistakes, or you're gone."
The Mark is the hunky Billy Donovan (Ed Skrein), a crime boss. It's to be done at the Water Relief Gala, the charity that Billy launders his money through.
"And poison him. No high tech gadgets."
Scene 5: At home, the MP (Jamie Parker) is upset because the Book Club is all ladies, giggling and carrying on in a gender-stereotyped fashion, and because Debbie bought too much junk at the Antiques Fair. But she assuages him by cooking him dinner and offering to go over his speech.
Tomorrow he's meeting a client at a charity event. Uh-oh. Debbie insists on going with him. "But it's business, not political." "I don't care, I'm going." He snorts "Fine!" and stomps out. Why don't you want her there? Is something sinister going on? Isn't that the same meeting where Judith's hit is?
Judith enters with wine. They discuss the book, ladies with weird hair, Debbie living in her husband's shadow, and makeup, while a mysterious figure watches from outside the window.
Scene 6: In the morning, Debbie heads to Parliament to give the Railroad Chairman (Ben Bradshaw) a Zambian terracotta pig that she bought at the antique place yesterday. "And by the way, could you sign the Transport Bill?" Bribing the old guy, har har.
Meanwhile, Assassin Judith heads to a shop called Williams and Daughter, where she gets her fake ids, guns, knives, crossbows, and high-tech gadgets. But today she just needs some poison, two vials to hide in her shoe.
After Judith leaves, Daughter calls Handler Sam, flirts with him, and reports that she bought 220 miligrams of aconite. (wolfsbane). Dang, I was hoping that he would be gay.
More after the break. Caution: Explicit.