The Continental Episode 2 review: A gauntlet is thrown and alliances form

As the second episode of the John Wick spin-off series The Continental just aired, the stakes are higher and new friends are made. Here is our review.

John Wick’s spin-off series, The Continental, just premiered it’s second of three action-packed, heart-breaking episodes.

The show follows Winston Scott as he goes through increasingly dangerous and violent means to take over The Continental Hotel, an assassin-only place of business.

The second episode does a fantastic job giving fans an insight into how Scott, an eventual villain in the John Wick franchise, became the monster he was. Warning: Spoilers for The Continental below.

The final boss gets orders for higher powers

In The Continental Episode 2, Cormac, the owner of The Continental, is told by The Adjudicator that he has three days to find Winston and his friends or else The High Table will take everything he has.

This is an interesting development as The Continental itself is a three-episode mini-series, so this time frame suggests that everything will come to a head faster than Cormac and The High Table think.

Throwing down this gauntlet always raises a few eyebrows as The Adjudicator and her right hand already have Frankie’s accomplice in their hands, so why don’t they know where the coin press is?

Are they using this time frame to get Cormac to deliver the press so they may give it to The High Table themselves? Only time will tell.

Continental’s manager learns dark truth about their mentor

Charon may be the hotel’s eventual eyes and ears as its concierge but, for right now, he’s Cormac’s loyal right hand as Cormac has promised to bring his father to America and save him from the violence in their home country.

Unfortunately, though Charon believed Cormac was trustworthy for a while, Winston had no problem showing how evil Cormac could be, both wittingly and unwittingly.

When Winston realizes that Charon is a great way to get to Cormac faster, he corners him to tell him how deep Cormac’s evil nature goes as he recruited Winston and Frankie into the crime world as mere children.

At the same time as their conversation is taking place, Cormac murders Charon’s crush, a sweet cellist who wanted to take him to Ireland, because Cormac wanted to send Charon a message that he could never escape, even though he didn’t want to in the first place.

The entire scene is incredibly dark and tense, but it shows why Charon ends up taking Winston’s side in the John Wick franchise and betrayed Cormac, though we don’t know how he did so yet.

The Continental Episode 2 score: 3/5 stars

Episode 2 cements the war that will take place on Night 3 and sets up everyone’s motivations for their future actions, both in the series and in the John Wick franchise.

It’ll be interesting to see how the final episode wraps everything up and allows the series to set everything in place for the first John Wick movie.

The Continental Episodes 1-2 are now streaming through Peacock. In the meantime, check out our other John Wick coverage below:

John Wick: Chapter 4 review | Is John Wick true? | Killa explained | Ranking the movies | Is there a post-credits scene? | Marquis explained | Ballerina cameo | How long is Chapter 4? | Caine explained | Potential Chapter 5 | What happens to Charon? | 13 Best John Wick kills | Post-credit scene explained | Does the dog die? | Keanu Reeves on emotional ending | Is Chapter 5 streaming? | Movies to watch if you like JW | Will there be a Chapter 5? | Ballerina spinoff