The Continental episode 1 review: "A slog with none of John Wick's glossy magic"

John Wick has one incredible hook. There's no faster way to get everyone on the side of your protagonist than to kill his dog while he's grieving his late wife, after all. It's a powerful – and simple – motivator.  

The Continental Night 1, the first episode of the first spin-off show from the Wick-verse (with much more to come), does not have such a clean hook. We open with a very young Winston crying in a police interrogation room as someone – later revealed to be his older brother, Frankie (the adult version played by Ben Robson) – consoles him. Later, we jump forward in time to a raucous, hedonistic party in the New York Continental Hotel. Winston's older brother is pulling off an audacious heist beneath the festivities, conducting business on hotel grounds (a big no no, you may remember). It's this act that drags Winston, overseas in London and charming wealthy people out of their cash, back into the shadowy criminal underground. Mel Gibson's Cormac, a figure from Winston and Frankie's past and the current manager of the NYC Continental, desperately wants back what Frankie stole, and he tasks Winston with tracking down his missing brother. 

Unfortunately, none of this hits the mark. The characters are all sketched too thinly for their vaguely referenced histories or familial bonds to be compelling, and what Frankie has stolen is only revealed in the most vague terms – if you have knowledge of the Wick-verse, you can guess at its significance, but even then, it's too much of a mystery to get us really invested. This doesn't change across the course of the episode, either, which ends on a cliff-hanger that only serves to make the preceding 1 hour and 26 minutes feel like set-up for the next episode. 

Burning down the wick

Naturally, a prequel that bills itself as "from the world of John Wick" invites these comparisons to the films, especially when creators Chad Stahelski, Derek Kolstad, and David Leitch are on-board as executive producers. Winston, played by Colin Woodell, is world's apart from his big screen counterpart (Ian McShane), which may be intentional but still feels bizarre. The two versions of the characters have practically nothing in common, leaving an odd distance between prequel and original with a distance that feels too vast to bridge in three episodes. 

That isn't to say Woodell is doing a bad job – he gives a solid performance, but unfortunately he doesn't have much to work with beyond that obliquely referenced tragic backstory, which is too threadbare to be engaging. 

The Continental also veers far away from the John Wick series' style and tone, visually much drabber – though there are plenty of glowing neon signs piercing the gloom – with characters who speak like hardboiled detectives. Some of the dialogue is stilted and cliché (a betrayal is met with "you sure you wanna do this?" while a female character tells her male co-worker, "I'm still a woman. My male superior's an asshole") and the awkward one liners never land, particularly Gibson's. 

On the subject of Gibson, it would be remiss not to acknowledge how controversial a casting choice this is. Whatever your thoughts on the matter, the bottom line is Gibson doesn't give a performance unique or inspired enough to explain his involvement. In Night 1, Cormac is a whacky-but-evil one note villain. I'm sure more about him will unspool as the show goes on, but, again, there's just not enough to sink your teeth into now – which is especially egregious for an almost 90 minute opening episode. 

The bumper runtime also isn't justified, with a sizable amount of time spent with characters and subplots that feel extraneous. The meat of the show is clearly going to be Winston vs. Cormac, so why are we spending so much time troubling with a myriad of other stories? The worst offender of the bunch is two NYPD detectives, Mishel Prada's KD and Jeremy Bobb's Mayhew. KD is on a collision course with the Continental, but one of the major defining characteristics of the Wick series is its aura of mystery – we're only ever told as much as we need to know. A regular Joe crossing the boundary between the normal and criminal world in a quest for the truth feels too much like pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz and ruining the magic. 

Of course, another defining characteristic of the Wick-verse is its stunning action. Sadly, in The Continental, the vast majority of it disappoints. The first action scene, a gunfight down a stairwell, is dimly lit and filmed with a far too shaky cam. Then there's a car chase only shown to us in snapshots, nothing like the breath-taking car fu of John Wick 4. Some hand-to-hand action is showcased effectively towards the end of the episode, however, with Nhung Kate's Yen pulling off an inventive kill after a tense kitchen fight. 

The episode also looks very expensive, as much as the dreary color palette and low lighting masks the quality; The Continental reportedly had an eye-watering budget north of $20 million per episode. The hotel itself is a suitably lavish location and the production design is of a consistently high standard. 

The rest of your stay 

There is still potential here, though. We're very briefly introduced to a young Charon, the late Lance Reddick's loyal concierge in the movies, here ably played by Ayomide Adegun. He's an early stand-out, but we only get a glimpse of him. Still, it's a reminder that there is a decent foundation to build on if the second episode can pick up some momentum and finally justify why the series is setting out to answer questions no one has really asked. 

Luckily, Night 1 does end in such a promising place, albeit with a hackneyed call-back to a line of dialogue in the movies, just in case you forgot this series is from the world of John Wick – which, after 90 minutes of slogging through The Continental Night 1, you may well have. 

The Continental drops weekly on Peacock in the US and Prime Video internationally. You can fill out your watchlist with our guide to the best shows on Amazon Prime Video.