Smoke Episode 5 Recap: Size Matters

In episode 5 of Apple TV+’s ‘Smoke,‘ titled ‘Size Matters,’ both the main characters of the story make great strides on their respective journeys, although their conclusions come out remarkably different. In the previous episode, Dave Gudsen finds catharsis in betraying his family and sexually engaging with a stranger. At the same time, Michelle Calderon finds out that Dave had a partner before her, whose career took a hit when he figured out that Dave was an arsonist himself. This episode extends both of those ideas, putting the characters in a new setting and pairing them with characters who shed light on both their highs and lows. Meanwhile, Freddy is pushed to his limit and carries out a daring operation, but whether it heals him can hardly be ascertained. SPOILERS AHEAD.

Dave and Michelle Head For Their Respective Journeys

The episode begins with Dave Gudsen having a nightmare of the time he was trapped in a burning house. He is woken up by Captain Steven Burke, who states that he is at the station for a meeting with Commander Englehart. Dave thanks Steven for waking him up, as he is supposed to head for Leighton, where the annual Arson Investigators Conference is being held. The Captain taunts him about his recent failure to catch the two serial arsonists at large, but Englehart interrupts him. It turns out, the two don’t actually have a meeting scheduled, and Steven’s real aim is to put pressure on the latter to speed things up, even if it means getting rid of Gudsen. However, the Commander stands his ground, while in the background, Dave grows suspicious of the Captain.

The scene then cuts to Freddy, who enters Coop’s Chicken to find out that the outlet has a new manager, confirming the expected. Immediately, the manager points out Freddy’s appearance, asking him to cover his head. Elsewhere, Steven continues his investigation and calls Michelle after he locates Ezra Ezposito, Dave’s previous partner. She notes how he lives in a portable unit instead of a house, a hint of how odd her subsequent investigation is about to be. As she heads out, she is interrupted by Emette, who alleges that she is sleeping with his stepfather. When she refutes the claim, he cites the book Dave’s writing, which contains graphic depictions of her. He then sends her an audio file of the book, and the two part ways.

Michelle Comes Face to Face with an Eccentric Ally

A woman named Joy enters her car and has a considerable amount of alcohol in one go, before she begins driving. While Dave makes his way to the conference, elsewhere, Michelle, too, continues her journey by car, stopping right before Ezra’s house to spy on him, all the while trudging through Dave’s self-insert audiobook, in hopes of finding a lead. She sees a couple enter Ezra’s unit, while he himself stays in the car and sets up his laptop. Upon zooming in, Michelle discovers that Ezra is watching a recording of the couple having sex, which infuriates her. Meanwhile, Dave blends in with the rest of his peers at the convention, and they discuss how last year’s event ended with multiple fires being set at the center in Franconia. The incident served as a mockery of the system, and Dave is implied to be the person behind it.

Here, his attention shifts to a woman across the bar, who seems to look back. As he nears her seat, the two begin to talk; she is Reba, an insurance adjustor and a married woman. The two show immediate chemistry, but she has to leave early. Michelle’s investigation continues, but she is soon discovered by Ezra, who decides to toy with her. However, his expression soon changes when he realizes she is a cop; he fears that he is once again being targeted for his allegations against Dave, though his fears only turn out to be partially true, as he finds an ally in her regarding their shared suspicions about the arson investigator. Here, he reveals that he now owns a company that records professional pornography, a far cry from his decorated past.

Their discussion continues, with Ezra seemingly full of hate for his foreign partner. He reveals that his accident, which involved shooting himself in the foot, was caused by Dave, who did it out of spite. He claims that his trigger was messed with, which resulted in the mishap. The two talk later, where the former investigator explains that he came to his conclusions about the protagonist after observing how Dave seemed unnaturally good at his job, which would make sense with him engineering his cases himself. However, these cases don’t prove anything, and the same holds true for Dave’s book. Meanwhile, Brenda orders food at Coop’s, looking from a distance at Freddy, who seems lost in the memories of his recent letdowns, seemingly on the verge of snapping.

Dave’s Ego Takes a Massive Hit

Back at the conference, Dave gives another iteration of his infamous lecture, bearing the same traits as the one in the previous episode. However, his climactic pyrotechnics display is interrupted by a junior, who points out how she saw him premeditate the fire when no one was looking. She further criticizes him for making fire into a mythical entity that they have to conquer, rather than introducing a scientific pedagogy that can help them understand fire hazards better. When Dave tries to counter back, she confronts him with his egomania, which seeps through the tiniest of his actions, including this speech. While the protagonist appears to laugh the incident off, it is clear that he is burning up inside.

Michelle and Ezra continue their conversation at a bar, where the latter asks her if he has attempted to charm her yet. Michelle remains confident in her ability not to get swayed by guys like Dave, whom she describes as a mediocre individual who expresses his tantrums by hurting others. However, Ezra questions her understanding of the arsonist, showing that there is clearly more to Dave’s twisted psychology. At a different bar, far away in Leighton, Dave strikes up another conversation with Reba, probing into her marriage. She explains that while she loves her husband, she is not exactly happy in her marriage, before claiming that it is the natural state of being for most people. Dave then begins to mock that lifestyle, before referring to her as special. Soon after, they get intimate.

Dave is Put to the Stand

Meanwhile, Michelle makes her way to Ezra’s cabin, where she finds photographs of the man’s former pets. To this, he brings up how, after a certain incident involving Dave, he has stopped keeping pets. That incident, which Dave referred to as an initiation, is stored in Ezra’s video files, and he asks Michelle to have a look. There, she sees the duo in front of what appears to be an abandoned unit, with Dave encouraging his partner to set it on fire. However, soon enough, the sounds of dogs are heard from the inside. Soon, it was too late to protect them. Ezra watches the scene, hopeless. In the present, he tells Michelle that he is sure that Dave knew the lot wasn’t empty that day, which gives another glimpse at his malevolent psychology.

The scene then returns to Dave, who struggles to get an erection. Here we learn that Reba is actually Dave’s ex-wife, and role-play was a staple of their sexual routine. The protagonist explains that he is simply distracted because of his earlier presentation, for which Reba was an audience member. She urges him to be in touch with his feelings and admit that the girl who interrupted him got under his skin. Dave’s ego holds him back from saying that, and their conversation soon turns into a full-blown argument. While Reba points at his fragile masculinity and hatred for women, Dave attacks her vanity and narcissism, and soon, all prospects of their night being fun go up in dust. Dave is asked to leave, which leaves him more frustrated than ever.

Freddy’s Actions Have Far-Reaching Consequences

Elsewhere, Freddy gets into action, carrying a heavy bag full of all the jugs he previously prepared. The load gets to be too much for him, and he drops it, which leads to one of the jugs breaking open. Upset, Freddy returns to the departmental store for an emergency purchase, and his order is put in the characteristic black polythene. Quickly, he replaces his old jug with the new one and heads to his destination. Brenda, cleaning her dishes, watches out of her window in paranoia, still spooked by the change in Freddy’s demeanor; her scenes are juxtaposed with scenes from the house of Freddy’s interviewer, Roger Tillman, who rejected him. The latter appears to be Freddy’s target, as he sets fire using multiple jugs as various ignition points, burning the house down from all corners.

The next morning, both Michelle and Ezra wake up hungover. As she prepares to leave for work, the former investigator tries to tag along, explaining that she has become his friend overnight, his first since Dave ruined his life to pieces. As she leaves, Ezra gives her one more piece of warning: she must not let Dave realize that she is onto him, as he will waste no time neutralizing her. Dave wakes up to alarming news with the Commander informing him of the Milk Jug Arsonist’s latest work: the murder of a white couple at Crawford, straying away from his usual pattern. It turns out that both Tillman and his wife, a reputed doctor, are dead, which has escalated the case severely. However, the news only seems to make Dave elated, as he realizes that the intensity of the crime points to a personal angle.

Michelle Finds a Breakthrough at the Unlikeliest of Places

As Dave packs up and leaves, Michelle finally makes her way back home and relaxes. In the background, a recording of Dave’s book continues to play, seemingly describing a fire at another departmental store. However, towards the end, a particular line stands out, where he writes that his character, as a part of his profession, declares the cause of the fire to be faulty electrical wiring. This line directly draws from the description of the fire at Old Sully’s, another example he gave in the previous episode. Michelle soon realizes that the book can become her ultimate guide in mapping out Dave’s criminal history, and although it does not have value as evidence in and of itself, all it has to do is point out a single error on the protagonist’s part.

On the other hand, Dave’s story takes a sharp turn for the worse, as while making his way back to Umberland in high spirits, his car is suddenly struck from the side by a speeding car, which hits with enough force to fly over him, eventually landing far away. The driver of the other car is revealed to be none other than the woman at the start of the episode, who was driving drunk. While we have no indication of who she is, a wild guess, based on the dog toy in her car, is that she might be the owner of the pet dogs who died during Dave’s scheme, and his car is hit in a strange turn of Karma. While he manages to escape the brunt of the blow due to his airbags deploying at the right moment, things still seem grim for Dave, with the accident possibly marking the tipping point for his simmering rage.