Warning! Spoilers ahead for Black Bird.
Black Bird episode 2 reveals that Lauren is considering someone other than Jimmy for the Springfield job — but it's unclear whether she's really interviewing other candidates, or if it's just one of her strategies to prepare Jimmy for the job. Written by Dennis Lehane, also known for Clint Eastwood's Mystic River and Leonardo DiCaprio's Shutter Island, Black Bird is a taut prison drama that greatly benefits from its mini-series format. In its first two episodes, the show gradually unravels the tapestry around its overarching mystery while closely studying its characters through a non-judgemental lens.
Adapting James Keene's nonfiction book, In With the Devil: A Fallen Hero, A Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption, Black Bird recounts the story of the author, who gets a 10-year prison sentence for petty crimes. When Keene realizes that spending a decade behind bars would mean missing out on spending time with his sick father during his final days, he accepts Detective Lauren McCauley's proposal of shifting to a dangerous prison to elicit a confession from an alleged serial killer named Larry Hall (played by Paul Walter Hauser, Stingray from Cobra Kai). Before taking on the job, Jimmy Keene is extremely apprehensive about moving to the maximum-security facility, but Lauren does an incredible job at convincing and preparing him.
When Jimmy finally accepts the proposal, Lauren informs him that he is not the only one being considered for it. While it could be possible that Lauren and her team were actually interviewing multiple candidates for the Springfield mission, it seems likely that Lauren was playing mind games with Jimmy to ensure he honestly answers her questions and takes the case seriously. This is further hammered down in the next interview in which Lauren briefly quizzes Jimmy Keene (played by Taron Egerton) about the case, tells him about Larry's twin brother, and then, without thinking twice, asks him to pack his bags for the transfer.
Why Black Bird's Jimmy Was The Only Man For The Springfield Job
From their first interaction, Lauren keeps taking a dig at Jimmy's ego. As a detective, she seems to have a keen eye for deception, which allows her to figure that Jimmy hides trauma and pain under his stoic demeanor. By outwitting him into believing that his competition is better than him, she breaks his ego and makes him open up about his childhood anxiety and loneliness surrounding his parents' separation. This is in tandem with a previous Mindhunter-esque realistic police procedural scene where Larry confesses he dreams about killing women because they often ostracize him and make him feel lonely. Taking this as a cue, Lauren understands that Jimmy's charm and sharp wit alone will not be enough for him to get close to Larry Hall. Therefore, she tells him he has competition only to shatter his self-image and, in turn, hack into his suppressed feelings of loneliness and separation. She encourages him to tap into the same underlying emotions to find some common ground with Larry and rightfully fill his twin brother's place.
In some ways, Black Bird's Jimmy comes off as an echo of DiCaprio's final lines in Shutter Island's ending scene: "Which would be worse–to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?" Jimmy confronts the same conundrum throughout the first two episodes and wonders if he should risk it all for freedom. However, he eventually sheds his selfish outlook and puts his life on the line to someday "die as a good man" instead of living "as a monster."
Episodes of Black Bird air Fridays on Apple TV+