Warning: The following contains spoilers for the entire series “Florida Man,” which premiered on Netflix on April 13th.
In the final episode of “Sunk Costs,” it is revealed that Abbey Lee (played by Delly West) is much craftier than anyone gave her credit for. While the titular character, Mike Valentine, is at the center of it all, Abbey is not his secret lover but rather an architect in Florida. This Florida-set series follows in the footsteps of feminist shows like “God Becoming On” and “Claws,” delving into a complex web of betrayals, motivations, murder, and daddy issues. It throws in a sensual romance, a shipwrecked treasure, and explores the same funky humidity and eccentric villainy as crime authors Elmore Leonard and Edna Buchanan, all within a fashion noir neo-true description. The real mastermind behind all the criminal activities is a woman, and the state of Florida may share its name with a prevalent meme about its criminal reputation.
Lee, the leader of a cult witch chasing immortality in HBO’s Country Lovecraft, plays certain types of baddies before appearing as a supermodel cannibal-witch in Nicolas Winding Refn’s film, The Neon Demon. With a wry confidence and a flirtatious physicality, she gives off a rough and pompous vibe, occasionally smirking enigmatically. Her posture is perfect, and her unblinking gaze assesses all the characters, as she is seen under purple-pink-blue lighting in the confirmed scene.
Trying to escape her past, she leads Mike back to his childhood home, Moss sends, in search of a treasure off the coast of Florida. When she disappears with information about Moss’s business, he now works to pay off what he owes and has lost his position as a police officer due to his gambling addiction. She’s sleeping with a gambling addict and is tired of receiving stolen items as torture from their debtors at home. In Philadelphia, she begins a relationship with Yankov Moss, a mobster who inherited an empire of gambling and organized crime from her deceased father, Todd’s Donald Creator.
Reclaiming her way back to Florida, Delly knows that Moss is not actually dead and is now at the bottom of a sinkhole, where a truck loaded with the treasure, worth a hundred million dollars in Spanish gold coins, was already moving into. The goal becomes even more complicated when they learn about Moss’s double-cross and plan to fake Delly’s death, forming a tenuous alliance with Mike. The central plot revolves around Delly’s desire to buy a piece that was used in a murder, which lands him in prison and involves the unquenchable desire of Gregg Clark, a sheriff deputy and the superfluous tangent in the series. Running the crime family’s business, Moss faces difficulties with his sister and ex-wife, leading to minor frictions with Mike. After leaving the force, Mike, a cop who broke bad, gets involved in a major subplot involving his dad, Anthony LaPaglia (Sonny). There are also segments breaking news about the latest “Florida man” crimes, which settle the chaotic state of the characters, probably taking up a lot of narrative.
It feels like I am Jesus, wondering what this is if I see people’s faces watching when they have fun. It’s “alive I’m I see they when faces people’s watching fun It’s” self-satisfied deliveries and outfits on an airboat, Delly Lee’s rat club show is stolen by her. In a series of visual delights and “misdemeanors,” Ramirez brushes it off and decides to spontaneously mutiny against the dandyish captain before the Spanish ship carrying the treasure sinks, like a flashback to the past. The appeal of Florida’s Man is more about silly gags than narrative cohesion, further illuminating the essential feeling of Gregg’s performance and the issue that the deputy-sheriff character is not a menace but rather a buffoon. Cohen’s work in Moss’s bumbling doesn’t quite get the job done. Some of it.
Earlier in the season, Delly and Mike enter into a pact with Sonny and his two accomplices, Ray-Ray and Buzz, who were formerly law enforcement officers but have turned to a life of crime. They devise a plan to collaborate in order to retrieve the gold stored in the Penske truck. Their strategy involves attaching flotation devices to the truck using scuba equipment, lifting it out of the sinkhole, extracting the valuable treasure, and subsequently sinking the truck again before filling the hole with cement. Unfortunately, their initial endeavor is disrupted. Sonny is apprehended, Ray-Ray meets his demise, and Buzz vanishes without a trace. When Mike and Delly make a second attempt, they find themselves at the mercy of Moss, who now desires the money solely for himself and holds them at gunpoint. Eventually, the truck is brought to the surface, but to their dismay, it is discovered to be devoid of its contents. It appears that Moss intends to eliminate Mike and Delly, however, Delly surprises him by producing her own firearm and terminating his life instead. This event serves as the culmination of her covert scheme to avenge her father’s murder, which had occurred a year prior. Finally, she absconds with the fortune, thus bringing Florida Man’s story to its conclusion.
Delly did exactly what – hiding the gold where he left the dead speedboat, Buzz and show another recent Florida-set for inspiration is the prevalence of snakes’ ecosystem, which is devastated by pythons. Buzz managed to get away with all the gold, only to be eaten by one of the devastating pythons. Ray-Ray and Sonny, who were also part of the deal, cut themselves out and stole the gold. In reality, it was Buzz, Ray-Ray, and Sonny who had actually stolen the gold. After Mike and Delly visit his ex-wife, Mike is unable to commit to her due to his lingering feelings. After all, in your “story,” Mike is just a character and I thought you guys were exhausted with her and the Road, Fury Max: Mad wives hate-fueled by Joe’s Immortan. She was a great reminder of how degenerate “fucker” Lee’s “snarling” was.
In the final minutes of the closing episode, Delly tracks Mike down and finds a compartment full of coins in the boat, symbolizing the passionate and lustful reunion they had in Philadelphia. This ending leaves the audience with a cliffhanger as to whether Delly and Mike’s future together is limited, but it also proves Lee’s femme-fatale bonafides and her nuanced ability to find outright distress in the middle of an antagonist. The question here is not what season two could support, but rather, did you come here for “gold?”. Unfortunately, Delly doesn’t have an answer for that.