The Company You Keep Season 1 Episode 3 Review: Against All Odds

Honesty plays a major role once again on The Company You Keep Season 1 Episode 3 “Against All Odds.” It’s an episode that asks, “Can you be in love with someone you’re lying to?” And maybe a better question: “Why are you lying to someone you love?”

These aren’t new questions from the show, but the newest con the Nicoletti family runs makes these questions explicit. 

We’re introduced to Jones Malone — Jonesy, they call him, such a good con man name — and it’s clear the Nicolettis aren’t big fans. There’s history there, Charlie, Birdie, and Jonesy having grown up together. 

Where there’s very little history though, is with Jonesy’s mark — Martha Pope, who we are told is “space travel kind of money” rich.

The plan? Jones is going to sell a racehorse (named Wicked Swift, which is actually the opposite of how quickly Jones figures out what’s going on as the episode continues) he doesn’t own to Martha and then take off with the money. 

The cut the Nicolettis will get doesn’t seem big enough to put up with someone they clearly don’t like or trust, and we’re reminded again just how desperate they are to be out from under Daphne’s hold. 

The look on Charlie’s face when Martha is introduced as Jonesy’s fiancé tells us so much about who Charlie is as a person and what exactly he’s struggling with in his new relationship with Emma. 

He might be a con man just like Jonesy, but they’re nothing alike. While Jonesy runs the same con over and over again, choosing his marks and faking the love, Charlie is all heart, maybe to a fault. 

It’s both refreshing and a little exasperating to know this so completely about a character we’ve only known for three episodes — we know he’s going to follow his heart no matter where it may lead, but we also know the show can’t quite let him do that yet. They have more stories to tell, and it just can’t be as easy as we wish it could be for Charlie and Emma or the Nicolettis in general. 

When the Nicolettis decide as a family that the vibes are off, this isn’t their kind of con, the real con takes shape: taking Jones Malone’s money, and maybe taking him down in the process. 

For as well as we know Charlie, his sister Birdie has been a little more of a mystery up til now, as guarded as she is. We know she’s protective — of Ollie, of Charlie, and of the secrets the family keeps.  

The way she leads the charge to protect Martha, starting with the way she eases into telling her the truth about Jones to every glance Sarah Wayne Callies delicately delivers with a protective edge as Martha joins their con, shows us a really lovely new side that keeps expanding as the hour continues. 

If the stakes of a con-within-a-con aren’t stressful enough (and let’s be real, with the ease with which the Nicoletti family runs cons, do they even seem that stressful?) Charlie and Emma get to navigate some new territory: meeting the parents. 

Or, rather, the whole Nicoletti family.

Plus some regulars in their busy bar. 

(It would be a lot for any new relationship, but the stakes feel astronomically high here. Charlie and Emma are brave beyond what their real jobs imply.)

The meeting also almost includes Daphne, who breezes in and out like she owns the place, having a quick exchange with Ollie (who we learn many times this episode is so smart and observant in a way that it seems her family is starting to realize) and Charlie, where once again, money (or Daphne’s lack thereof) is their main topic of conversation.

Felisha Terrell is so compelling to watch in Daphne’s scenes with Charlie, it’s sometimes hard to remember that in the Nicoletti family’s story, Daphne is the villain. 

Emma, on the other hand, is anything but a villain in their story — at least, as we know it now. By the time she walks into the bar, she’s already old friends with Ollie, and soon quick friends with Fran and Leo.

They are all so genuinely welcoming and warm toward her and it just highlights how remarkably good this show is at writing their family dynamic, and how remarkably good the Nicoletti family is in general. 

Birdie, though, is again (still? Is she ever not?) in protective mode, this time over Charlie. And she’s done her research on Emma. It’s such a protective big sister move, and absolutely one we can assume she’s pulled before. 

But Emma isn’t like Charlie’s past relationships. She gives as good as she gets, and over a game of darts we learn Birdie and Emma have more in common than they might think. They’re both protective of their brothers, something Emma again picks up on remarkably well from Birdie, who thus far feels like the most difficult Nicoletti to read. 

For as fiercely as she protects her family, Birdie guards herself, and her emotions, even more closely. 

It’s something else she and Emma have in common, but because we’ve seen moments of Emma opening up to Charlie, letting her own brother in on her work, it doesn’t hurt quite as much as seeing Birdie protect herself over and over again. 

What does hurt though, in the best way, is how happy Emma and Charlie are later, as he tells her she passed with flying colors. The chemistry between Milo Ventimiglia and Catherine Haena Kim is subtly electric this entire episode — from dancing in the kitchen to teaching her signs while cuddled together to the automatic way he opens her car door as they say goodnight, Charlie and Emma’s ease with each other just radiates off the screen. 

For as nice as the brief “normal” girlfriend meets the family scene is, we’re reminded pretty quickly that the Nicolettis are in the middle of a con when Jonesy is waiting for Charlie behind the bar after Emma leaves.

He calls Martha “his masterpiece” and if we didn’t already know how smarmy this guy is, the grimace on Charlie’s face at the description, at the way Jones is treating a woman who clearly loves him, sells it. 

As the con wraps up the next day — a clever ploy where the odds are artificially influenced to favor Wicked Swift in the race, letting each Nicoletti use their skills (tech for Birdie, schmoozing from Leo, etc.) so well — we see Martha wrestle one last time with her understanding that Jones is not the guy she thought he was. 

It’s evident watching this is painful for Birdie and Charlie, but the pain they feel is fully for Martha, and when Jonesy predictably takes off with what he thinks is his money, all we feel is sympathy for Martha too. We’re left to wonder if the Nicoletti siblings always let themselves feel this strongly for people during their cons. 

And for Birdie in particular, does the call from Simon, Ollie’s absentee dad, have any connection? Was she conned just like Martha at one point too?

There’s a shared sense of joy when Jones calls to tell Charlie there was a mix-up with the money, but it doesn’t last long. Because even though Daphne gets her cut, we learn (thanks to Ollie, who might just be the most observant Nicoletti) she’s been meeting with other cartels. 

Also learning this (although in a much more high-tech way) is Emma, whose work life this episode hasn’t been near as edge-of-your-seat as watching her spy around a hotel room was the last episode, honestly. 

Instead of going after Daphne, though, Emma decides to focus on the source of the income being sent to the Ireland Maguires. 

And that puts us right back in the thick of it. 

As good as they all are, as welcoming as they were, we know eventually Emma and the Nicolettis are going to truly meet each other. 

Secrets are going to come out, lies are going to be exposed. 

“It’s gotta hurt having somebody lie to you like that. I mean, you’ve been there, you know.” Birdie’s words cut deep for Charlie, in that way that a sibling who knows you exceedingly well can cut right to the quick without warning, or without even realizing it sometimes. 

More than anyone else on the show, Charlie is struggling with all the lies. 

The message he leaves Emma as he’s exiting the bar that night goes a long way to convincing us he wants to come clean — or at least make a clean break of things before the lies continue adding up, maybe.) 

Is it the smartest move? Probably not for his family or Emma’s career. 

But is it a move that solidifies what a good heart Charlie has? Absolutely. 

But we don’t get to see what exactly that move is, because Charlie is snatched and dragged fighting and screaming into a nondescript van as the episode fades to black, once again leaving us with so many lingering questions. 

Here are some questions I can’t wait for answers to as the season plays out:

• Simon, Ollie’s absentee father… his call must be foreshadowing him showing up sometime, right? Wouldn’t it be wild if he was somehow connected to Emma or even Daphne? (Charlie’s “at least he’s trying” — this man still tries to see the best in everyone, even if he knows firsthand it isn’t always possible.)
• Respectfully, can I call Father Diego Hot Priest? 
• “Big Gemini energy.” Ouch, Fran. Ouch. Emma being a Gemini has to help sway her a little, right? Or will Fran double down on the air signs as the season goes on and secrets come out? 
• Who exactly is Claire Fox and how is she going to inevitably cause problems for David and the Hill family? And speaking of the Hills, how nice (if not a little sad, for the contrast with the Nicolettis) was their super brief “normal family” moment? 
• Now that Emma has charmed the Nicolettis, how excited are you to see Charlie meet the Hills? He’s otherworldly charming, but will that charm work on Emma’s image-focused mother? 

Do you have any answers for us or theories of your own? Share those and your thoughts on this episode of The Company You Keep in the comments below!

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The Company You Keep airs Sunday at 10/9c on ABC.

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