With Black Rabbit, right from the jump we had suspicions about who perpetrated the brazen robbery in the VIP. And we were sort of right. But how Episode 6 shows us, how it reaches the moment where Jake’s got a gun in his face, Wes is getting shot, and a million dollars’ worth of bejeweled wristwear is walking out the restaurant’s door, is busier than a Saturday night service. We’ll break down all five perspectives in play. But first, a flashback. 

We’re in the Friedkin house, the one that just got arson’d, and little boy versions of Jake and Vince are sneaking looks at Playboys by flashlight when their dad (Walker Hare) enters the bedroom. He has gold watches for both of them, and as they hang loosely on the boys’ thin wrists, Young Jake asks if they’re the real thing. “Big Dick” fixes them a stare and delivers a line that feels formative for what we’ve learned about the Friedken brothers. “They’re as real as you tell people they are.”   

Now it’s the day after he was almost executed, and Jake begins the more-or-less official portion of his romance with Estelle by lying to her about where he’s been all night. He also meets with Junior and Babbitt to make his wild play to save himself really official: the timing for their robbery of his restaurant, and the combination to his safe. (Junior: “Guy thinks he’s Danny Ocean all of the sudden.”) At the same time, Jake receives a visitor. It’s another succinct, crisp appearance from Morgan Spector as Cambpell the fixer, who delivers an NDA for Jake to sign and something more: “500,000 reasons” why he should feel compelled to honor the nondisclosure and delete any footage of Jules Zablonski dosing Anna Dixon’s drink.   

The fat check enables Jake to make a bolder play on top of his already desperate one. He drops the entire amount on Mancuso – Vince’s original debt plus a load of good faith interest – in a tense meeting full of the loan shark’s anger over his son Junior taking on the robbery idea without authorization. “Are we done? Is it over?” Are the Friedkens free of Mancuso? The shark gestures in the affirmative, as long as there’s no more bullshit. And he’ll have a word with Junior. 

Elsewhere, we follow Wes, who’s following Estelle and Jake, who are entertaining Naveen and some investors at the Pool Room. Wes is possessive, jealous, and vindictive, and he applies these traits to destroying his friend and former music business manager. He has his own money people lap Jake’s in the race for the Pool Room lease, and then offers millions in payouts to Naveen and the others for their 33% share in the Black Rabbit. This is done in the VIP at the Rabbit, in accordance with Roxie, his new chef-partner. “My food, Wes’s orbit,” Rox says. Patrons will follow them anywhere. And while Naveen throws down a few WTFs, he reads the writing on the wall and agrees. Wes smiles coldly. “We’re taking over here, and at the Pool Room. Jake’s out.”

Even further elsewhere, Ep 6 of Black Rabbit sets up what Tony the sous chef was doing in the days before the robbery. An angry Rox tells him how Anna was raped by Jules at their workplace, did not find support among the high-level staff, and then died in a terrible accident. (“How cruel is the world where that’s somebody’s story?”) But Tony says he doesn’t buy it, and it’s time they do something about it. 

When Tony and Roxie go to Detective Seung and explain what happened from Anna’s perspective, she stops them. “Hold on, Jake Friedken knew about Anna’s assault?” Later, she will question Jake at the Rabbit during Anna’s memorial service. She asks to see any relevant footage from the Rabbit’s security cams. And while he actively deleted it, he says the restaurant didn’t even save it. Lying to the cops, just like Campbell’s 500,000 reasons inspired him to do.

But we aren’t done with the perspective shifts. We also visit Junior’s life. It’s the morning of the heist, and he’s practicing being a robber in the mirror like a low-rent Travis Bickle. Until his dad Mancuso shows up, calls his son an “idiot shitbomb,” and banishes him to their loan shark operation in Florida for even considering the “cascade of stupidity” that would’ve been the robbery.

Notice we haven’t mentioned Vince yet? After the near-execution and latest blowout with his brother, Vin was set to bounce from NYC on the Megabus. He even said his goodbyes to Gen during a rambling tattoo session. Blood is not thicker than water. “Fuck blood.” Vince, set to re-enter his hustler’s life, couldn’t see his estranged daughter tearing up as she completed the tat on the back of his neck. Be Back Soon.       

Vince, drunk again, ended up missing his bus. And that’s the fateful moment where all of these perspectives coalesce. Instead of leaving town himself, Junior swore revenge on Jake for embarrassing him with his father. And when Babbitt wouldn’t help him, he intercepted Vince for heist help while his lowest and most angry. Vince, who still has keys to the Black Rabbit’s service entrance. “I’m in, Junior. Fuck Jake. Jake’s got it coming to him.” 

We’re back at the Black Rabbit, inside the very moment of the robbery. Junior collects all the jewelry in the room while his forced (but willing) accomplice holds a gun on Jake, who suddenly understands it’s his own brother behind the ski mask. “Vince?” And maybe it would’ve gone different right from there if hothead Junior hadn’t shot Wes, which set off a chain reaction of violence. The jeweler’s security guard fired at Junior, but hit his hostage, Tony, in the neck. Junior shot that guy. And then he stood over Jake and made him kneel in submission. Junior was about to murder him when his “Attafuckinboy” catchphrase got cut off by Vince’s bullet going through his skull. 

As a masked Vince flees the scene with the sack of VIP loot and custom jeweled watches, no one but Jake seems to know his brother just helped orchestrate a bloody robbery of the bar he co-founded. After Episode 6, with Wes and Tony critically wounded, Junior dead, a major robbery at the spot, and the police already targeting Jake’s lies about Anna, what happens to the Black Rabbit – and on Black Rabbit – will be from an entirely new perspective.

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.