All in all, I still love this show, but the Mathesons (especially Luke) have never really held my interest or worked for me as characters. An episode that focused mainly on them was naturally going to be one of my least favorites of the season. But the episode still held a lot of laughs and good moments, and I can't wait for the finale next week.
Set in late-2000s small-town Pennsylvania, Out Of The Furnace is an autumnal melodrama about poor life choices, bare-knuckle fighting, poverty and revenge. It's a film full of heavyweight acting, heavy themes, and a deathly serious atmosphere that weighs it down like a pair of lead boots.
Christian Bale is gaunt and sullen as Russell Baze, a steel mill worker who’s wracked with guilt over his involvement in a fatal car accident, while Casey Affleck is chiselled and confrontational as his younger brother Rodney, an ex-soldier left traumatised and embittered following the war in Iraq.
Out Of The Furnace is hard to fault technically or in terms of acting. Even the smallest supporting roles are filled with welcome faces. Forest Whitaker appears as a gruff, well-meaning small town cop. Zoe Saldana plays Bale’s estranged lover. Willem Dafoe plays a bar owner in hock to Woody Harrelson’s vicious fight organiser and all-round low-life, Harlan De Groat.