The Captain Has Made a Devastating Ethical Choice and Nothing Will Ever Be The Same on THE SYMPATHIZER

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Everything about HBO’s THE SYMPATHIZER changed last weekend. Or at least, how viewers perceive the lead character changed. THE SYMPATHIZER is set in the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War, as a young man known only as The Captain, played impressively by Hoa Xuande, is living a secret life. The Captain is a longtime North Vietnam loyalist who has been secretly working as a spy in the South Vietnam army. But just as North Vietnam is on the verge of the victory that The Captain has been waiting for, he is stunned to learn that his handlers want him to continue the ruse by fleeing to the United States with an exiled South Vietnam general and his loyalists. With the fourth episode of THE SYMPATHIZER dropping on Sunday, May 5 on Crave, some important details about what occurred in the third episode are about to be discussed, so this is a SPOILER ALERT. The Captain has felt the pressure of potential exposure for years. But audiences now know just how far he’ll go to protect himself. Without getting into all the twists and turns, The Captain brutally murders a kind-hearted man who The Captain himself has set up as a fall guy. The Captain struggled with it, and will continue to struggle with it, but he still did it. During a recent visit to Bell Media headquarters in Toronto, Xuande agreed that nothing will be the same for The Captain – or for the viewers – as the series progresses. “Yes, I completely understand, and I think that’s the first time that we see The Captain really battling with his beliefs and his morals,” Xuande said. “He has been walking this fine line between doing the right thing, and also doing the things that he needs to do to complete his missions. But obviously, conducting it in a way that he can still stay intact, and still stay sane. And that really begins the unraveling of everything that he has to experience as the show goes forward. It’s kind of a wider metaphor for conflict. Have you really dealt with the morality of what it is that you’ve done, just for your own survival?” THE SYMPATHIZER, which also stars Robert Downey Jr. in four different roles, as well as Canadian Sandra Oh, is told from the perspective of The Captain. But especially given his recent actions, The Captain is not a heroic figure in the traditional narrative sense. “I really tried to make him as human as possible,” said Xuande, who is an Australian actor of Vietnamese descent. “We all have these flaws, and we all have this reassessing of our own belief systems and our morals, because nothing is ever black and white, or this and that, or this side and that side. All conflicts are complex, and they’re bolstered by so many different sides, that to make them binary is actually just to ignore the fact that humans aren’t simple. I just think a lot of times the Vietnamese perspective in shows when we portray the Vietnam War is missing. So, to see the struggles of so many different characters in this way, it makes it three-dimensional, and so much more. We found different ways to portray the trauma and the devastation of this conflict.” So as Xuande sees it, THE SYMPATHIZER has an important interlocking tale to tell. “It’s not just about conflict and war, it’s really about how we deal with our beliefs, and our cause, and our purpose, and how sometimes we have to constantly reassess ourselves, and adjust ourselves to what survival and struggle means,” he said. “You sometimes have to do things that you’re not proud of, and we see that portrayed, obviously, with The Captain, but also with so many other characters in this story.” On a much lighter note, Xuande was asked what it was like to work with four different versions of Downey. “That was actually just incredible, but it was funny because I would have to keep reminding myself, ‘hang on, which character is he playing today?’ ” Xuande recalled. “Because sometimes there would be body doubles who were standing in for him when he was playing his other parts. But he’s so fun and just goofy to hang around with. I also would have to remind myself that he was playing some very antagonistic characters, just because he made everything so much fun to do.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv