Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency Season 2 Episode 3 Review: Two Broken Fingers

This Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency review contains spoilers.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency Season 2 Episode 3

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is always a joy to watch, but every good series has moments where it needs to pause to set up its mysteries and to establish burgeoning conflicts. Such is the case with “Two Broken Fingers,” which continues the joy of the team investigating with Tina and Hobbs but with more focus on placing other puzzle pieces on the board than getting the full picture. Things were a little bit more jumbled, but there were plenty of dramatic moments to keep viewers wanting more.

One thing that was confirmed in this episode, at least for the audience, was that the directive to “find the boy” refers to Farsen Dengdamoor, the lost son of Inglenook. The opening scenes of each episode so far have taken place in Wendimoor, but this one gave us our first look at how the Kellum Army of the Mage is taking advantage of the conflict between the Trosts and the Dengdamoors by selling to the pink-haired farmers guns, which are foreign weapons in these lands. All we need to know is that Dirk must arrive in time to avert all-out war, and the details we get each week from Wendimoor just dance around that prophecy with extra world-building elaborations.

Meanwhile, our suspicions about Suzanne were confirmed even as she played on our sympathies. Her situation with her husband, her son, and her late boss are still terrible, but clearly we didn’t have the full picture with which to judge her. A fallen prom queen injured while driving a carpool of kids while on Xanax puts a new spin on her magical makeover, and the mild amusement of the Mage as he tries to take back his wand shows that something else is at play between the two of them.

And since Panto Trost said that when the Mage finds his apprentice, no one can defeat him or his Army, we can only conclude that the apprentice must be Suzanne. But who are the “fierce foes” who must be united? What is the “great weapon” that must be retrieved? And who is “she who sees all” who will open a “door into a dream”? There’s still a lot more to this prophecy that must unfold in the actions of Dirk and his friends, thus the set-up episode idea.

Because of this, the episode felt a bit static: a minor but noticeable hiccup. Dirk’s discomfort throughout the episode clearly troubled Todd as much as it did the viewers. It’s charming in its own way that Dirk is upset about Todd’s pararibulitis, but it seems odd for the holistic detective to wish that things had been calmer. Todd offers the wonderful platitude, “Fate and chance don’t cancel each other out,” but it seems like Dirk should already know that. Maybe it’s the influence of having friends that has caused Dirk to change his perspective.

Because it’s true: he normally would have been interested in Hector’s corpse in the tree — so cool! It did feel a bit clumsy the way Farah dropped hints about the importance of the two holes in his skull and how they might relate to Marina’s two broken fingers that give the episode its title, almost as though the dialogue’s subtext were, “Hey audience, pay attention to these seemingly unimportant details!” Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is usually more subtle than that. That being said, Tina’s adventures with Farah were a delightful romp. The weed gummies, the Army Rangers/Power Rangers mixup, her being an empathic bisexual… Tina is wonderful.

Her frankness is almost as brash as Bart’s, and for the second time, we get some wonderfully matter-of-fact dialogue about killing people from the holistic assassin. She reminds us of her naivety about the world as she asks Tina, who knows a different Ken in Bergsberg, “There are two Kens?” It would be great if Bart were out and about, and we certainly hope for a reunion with Ken, but in the meantime, it’s great to have her character provide such hilarious reactions, especially at the end when Panto Trost impressively articulates the prophecy only to have her kill the moment by asking once again, “Do you know Ken?”

The other reunion that seemed much closer to fulfillment came with the arrival Amanda and Vogle in Bergsberg. Since their car was far from inconspicuous, it’s not surprising that Mr. Priest and Blackwing caught up with them, but it is surprising to have the pair so close to capture only for them to disappear in similar magical fashion to Dirk’s earlier escape. Amanda’s conviction as she and Vogle were cornered that this couldn’t be how it ends was inspirational. Saying, “I can die here, or things can change,” was like a rallying cry for the whole team. Now Ken just needs to get out of that taxi so he can hack the floppy disks and give us more details about Dirk’s back story.

So the enjoyment of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is in no way diminished by an episode that eddies and swirls like a spell about to be cast. It’s exciting in its own way. The jumping around from story to story in this episode didn’t feel quite as tight as usual, and certain threads had more oomph than others, but the overall effect is still incredibly entertaining. Hopefully next week, Dirk, like the show, will be back on his game.