At the Halfway Point with No Direction

Duster episode 4 means we’re officially halfway through season one of HBO Max’s nostalgic crime thriller. Yet, we are still very much in the dark when it comes to plot points. This habit of merely teasing rising action as a way to stir anticipation for climatic payoff doesn’t work if you force your audience to wait too long.

For example, Breaking Bad starts off with a bang in the first episode but takes a bit of dedication to plow through the rest. However, by the second episode, the show thanks you for sticking with it, offering captivating suspense, engaging conflict, and fascinating character study.

Duster is four episodes deep, and I still don’t understand why I’m supposed to care about any of the characters besides cookie-cutter personality tropes I’ve seen in shows with smaller budgets and far better writing.

This episode continues its hamster wheel approach to storytelling, going around and around through drawn-out sequences of dull dialog and random action scenes that go nowhere while waiting for the hamster to get thrown off and deliver snippets of the plot.

The only reason I’m still watching is because I’m committed to reviewing this show.

Ankle Deep Character Depth

The show’s problem, among many, is the lack of character depth.


Duster Episode Four introduces Enrique the Blade, a professional hitman for Mexican cartel boss Mad Raoul, another character about whom we know nothing except that he’s a madman named Raoul.

Enrique the Blade could have been a fun character considering how he’s introduced, walking into a store unbothered by the blood on his suit and showing a sword tucked into the sleeve like a Mexican Samurai that he then uses to stab a… candy bar? Nevertheless, his notorious reputation as a hitman is enough to make Jim hallucinate from worry while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Yet, when we finally see Enrique and Jim meet face to face, they roll around in the bathroom without zipping up and stop fighting for no reason other than the screenplay demands they stop and bond over a warm bottle of Kentucky bourbon.

Duster Episode 4

We gain some insight into Awan’s character, who left the Navajo reservation to join the FBI. We learn his dad disapproved and disowned him. Sad, but again, why should we care? Was Awan’s dad a bad father prior to this? Was he a good father, and did Awan’s decision break their relationship? How long has it been since Awan talked to his father or visited the reservation? All valid questions with no answers.

Awan mentions his mother was a “white lady from Detriot,” making him a “half-breed,” another trope done to death, but no information as to how Awan’s father, who apparently spent his whole life on the reservation, ended up marrying someone from Detriot. Nor do we find out if she’s still alive or around.

This show loves to leave us in the dark with only a match stick to guide the way.

Saxton’s son Royce, who underwent a heart transplant less than a week ago, according to the show’s confusing timeline, is eating steak, watching movies, and running around. I had no idea modern medicine was so advanced in the early 1970s.

I think he’s 18, but he could be 28 for all I know, as the show doesn’t bother to mention a line of dialog about college or draft dodging to give us a clue as to what age he’s portraying. This character is the worst so far because we haven’t gotten any insight into how he’ll play into the story.

We know he had a bad heart and feels his crime boss father doesn’t respect him as a man as a result. But does he know his father is a crime boss or merely a “businessman” running a legitimate company?

Moreover, he says he wants to be taken seriously but folds like a paper bridge and whines like a child at the first sign of trouble. What’s the point of this character?

Howard Hughes Lincoln Model K Boattail Speedster

One pleasant surprise in this episode is a touch of accurate automotive history with Howard Hughes’s 1930s Lincoln Model K boattail speedster. Howard Hughes, the famous push-up bra inventing aviator, was known for personalizing his cars with aviation-inspired upgrades. By the early 70s, Hughes was buying hotels in California and Las Vegas to live in and would pass away by 1976.

Seeing a representation of his custom fuselage-inspired boattail speedster Lincoln limo with a flathead V12 was a great visual.

This was also the second time the show dropped an iconic figure of the era name without showing us an actor’s portrayal of them. Relying instead on revolving the story around a personal item they owned. This car, like every crumb of interesting plot devices, comes and goes by the end of the episode, but not without introducing two random antagonists.

Traveling Vacuum Salesmen Bandits

While on a joyride in Hughes’ Lincoln, Jim and Royce accidentally run a Ford Galaxie sedan off the road driven by two presumed traveling vacuum salesmen. I say presumed because the only clues we get are a bumper sticker that says “Vacuums Suck” and actually seeing a vacuum cleaner in the trunk, pushed to the far corner to make room for the dozen rifles and shotguns they carry.

These two young guys dressed like Mormons are bandits – apparently.


We never learn their names or why they have a trunk full of guns and dressed like 1960s salesmen in the 1970s. Their only role in the episode is to steal the Lincoln from Royce, who cries like a true nepo baby, prompting Jim and his new friend Enrique, the Blade, to chase after them.

Chase ends with Enrique pulling off a bull shit move by tossing a throwing knife across the interior of the Duster, past Jim’s face, into the bandit’s car, across that interior, and landing right between the eyes. Why Jim didn’t pull up on the other side so Enrique’s door was next to the bandit, I’ll never know.

The other bandit driving the Lincoln gives up immediately and is rewarded with a knife between the shoulder blades. So we’ve now seen Jim involved in three murders, but it’s okay because he’s the main character the show wants us to root for and cheer.

The One Interesting Plot Line

The only plot line of any interest in the show Duster lies with Izzy’s character. She’s a single mom working as a long-haul trucker in the early 1970s, a tough job made tougher by gender inequality. It’s not trying to be “woke” it merely points out the facts these women faced during this time in history.

She plans to start a movement within the truckers’ union to unite over 100 female truckers and secure fair treatment. That’s a great story! It’s compelling and historically accurate. The trucking industry during this time was approaching a critical shift from owner-operators ruling the road before corporations beat them into the submissive mules of the industry it has become today.

The 1970s saw dozens of movies showcasing truckers as rebellious heroes fighting against the establishment. Movies like White Line Fever (1976), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), and Convoy (1978), to name a few.

By the rate this show is going, I’m sure this interesting plot line will go nowhere aside from some protest scenes and finding out Izzy has some kind of cancer with the less-than-subtle foreshadowing the show keeps dropping.

A Chore to Watch

Duster has less than four hours to tie up a Twizzlers’ bag of plot lines. If the season ends with a teaser cliffhanger for season two, I’ll be furious. This show insists on dragging ass instead of hauling it and I’m losing my patience.


It shouldn’t take this long to get hooked on a show. This has officially become a chore to watch.