Heels Review: Dusty Finish (Season 1 Episode 2)

On Heels Season 1 Episode 2, “Dusty Finish,” Jack and Ace deal with the fallout from their shocking main event.

After the disappointing ending to Jack and Ace’s championship match, the DWL is in serious trouble. Jack can’t figure out where the story goes next, Ace’s big break disappears, and the local competition is pushing hard to buy the league.

This is a tale of two episodes. While the focus is Jack mending his relationship with Ace, and deciding where to take the DWL, the real highlight is the women supporting them.

The story with Jack and Ace’s fractured relationship feels somewhat predictable, as we know deep down they’ll reconcile at some point, which they do by episode’s end.

The moments with Staci and Crystal are where the episode shines, and honestly, it’s what keeps us engaged in “Dusty Finish.”

It’s not necessarily filler, but it definitely builds to an anti-climactic finish that leaves us feeling a little like it’s incomplete in some way.

Stephen Amell’s heroic TV past makes us automatically inclined to like his character. For the most part, Jack is a genuinely good guy. He loves his wife and son, but his devotion to the business leads him to constantly let them down.

A point Staci makes crystal clear when she sleeps on the couch, because he bought a pyrotechnic system instead of a new mattress.

Later, when she’s forced to quietly shoot a squirrel in the attic, then finally mow the lawn so Thomas can play soccer, we get early warning signs of the trouble to come for her and Jack.

What makes Jack so frustrating is that he knows he’s a disappointment, but he doesn’t seem to do anything to change. We may be early in the story, but it’s obvious Staci passed her breaking point a while back, and Jack still hasn’t tried to fix things.

Heels Season 1 Episode 1, “Kayfabe,” establishes how emotionally immature Ace is. He’s been handed everything, with Jack and his mother cleaning up all his messes. At the first real sign of adversity, he doesn’t know how to deal.

It’s obvious to everyone but Ace that he’s a heel. The episode ends with him and Jack coming to an understanding about how they work together in the future, so maybe that realization will occur later in the season.

Much like Jack and Staci, it’s not Ace that drives his story, it’s his girlfriend Crystal. She supports Ace through his crisis, swallows insults and disrespect from his mother, and even protects the boys in a bar fight.

The way Kelli Berglund is slowly unraveling the layers of Crystal’s life is captivating to watch. We’re desperate to know more about her life with her siblings, how she takes care of her family, whether she truly cares about Ace, and most of all, how she learned to wrestle.

However, like the build for a match months in the making, we don’t want these revelations to come too fast, because Berglund is doing such an amazing job of making us wait for them.

Though we’re only two episodes in, one growing frustration is the lack of real development for the other wrestlers in the company.

Apocalypse and Rooster have a fascinating conversation about Rooster feeling slighted by Jack, and it’s the most real-life, outside-the-ring personality we’ve seen from them so far.

As the older experienced guy, Apocalypse preaches patience, but Rooster is young and doesn’t want his prime to pass him by while he waits for Jack to see his value.

Coming from opposite ends of the same journey, they’re both right, and we need to see more of their friend/mentor relationship, as well as how Jack and Ace’s never-ending sibling rivalry impacts their lives.

Heels might be the Spade family drama, but it’s only as good as the characters surrounding them.

What did you think of this episode of Heels? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Heels airs Sundays at 9/8c on STARZ.

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