Smoking & Drinking Habits
Has anybody made the comparison between Porsche’s smoking habit and Kinn’s drinking habit yet? It’s interesting because we see both Kinn and Porsche drinking and smoking for what I believe are two reasons that change significantly between episodes 1 and 5.
This is most apparent in Ep1, and it’s connected to their efforts to keep up appearances (more so for Kinn, but I see it for Porsche too). Starting with Kinn, we see him drink multiple times throughout Ep1, and it’s almost always in a way that presents him as domineering. I don’t think I need to remind anybody of the sheer hotness power emanating from Kinn in his conversation with Porsche at the bar, but I’m going to include some gifs anyway because I can’t resist:
It was very intentional for Kinn to drink so much in Ep1, not for the drinking itself, but for the way he does it. It’s suavity at its finest. It’s presenting the perfect picture of what a mafia boss should be. (And let’s also not forget about the way that Kinn looks at Porsche while he’s drinking in the giffed scene). The not-so-subtle recurrance of Kinn’s drinking is equal parts intimidating, strong, and uncompromising, just as he intends it.
Now to Porsche. Porsche also radiates power through smoking, but not with the same careful intention as Kinn. That’s not to say that Porsche doesn’t use smoking to uphold a certain kind of appearance (I’d imagine it’s part of what attracts so many women at the bar), but I don’t think he’s doing it as purposefully as Kinn. I like this fact, because it shows how Kinn is constantly making efforts to control the way he is seen by others, while Porsche naturally captures others’ attention. Porsche is in his element at the bar and he turns this comfortability into suavity. Contrast this with Kinn: while Kinn is smooth and in control, his calculated appearance and movement make it clear to us later that he doesn’t truly belong in the mafia world. In other words, he’s not as well-adapted as he hopes to be. What seems comfortable to us is really forced on Kinn’s part (at least, that’s how I’ve chosen to interpret it after the vulnerability we’ve seen from him following Ep1).
Here’s a gif of Porsche smoking in Ep1:
Even though there’s no one around to witness Porsche here, it’s all a way of establishing a sense of control. The audience grows to understand Porsche in the bar setting as comfortable, charismatic, and above all, suave. It’s clearly not calculated like it is for Kinn (he’s also clearly made it into an unbreakable habit), but it is a facet of his outward appearance that is not without purpose. Porsche likes to be the center of attention, and he’ll do anything to be seen in a positive light. This was necessary to solidify so early because it helps us understand why Porsche values Kinn’s attention so much later on. It’s less to do with Kinn personally and more to do with his status as the boss, but that’ll certainly start to change more as we proceed.
Now, all of this brings me to our second reason...
We see both Kinn and Porsche start to lean into the drinking and smoking, respectively, in Ep5. This gives us deeper insight into their internal struggles, but more importantly, it provides a nice contrast with the people they were in Ep1. Starting with Kinn again, in Ep5 we see him in turmoil: he’s being forced to suppress his emotions in favor of his mafia duties. He’s just had a very intimate, emotional moment with Porsche that doesn’t allow him to simply brush these feelings aside--if anything, it has strengthened them. To cope, we see him drinking throughout the episode (I couldn’t find gifs for these, so I’ll just post screenshots):
The key point here is that in both scenes, Kinn is drinking alone. People enter as the scenes go on, but he clearly isn’t drinking to make any kind of power statement. He’s having a crisis, and he knows there’s no easy solution. This isn’t a facade, it’s just what he needs (or thinks he needs) to clear his head.
Onto Porsche. The two most notable smoking occurrences in Ep5 are in the bathroom-flashback scene and the failed hookup scene:
We’ve seen Porsche turn to smoking in times of distress at other points, but it stands out in this episode because he is truly in a dark place. He’s alone and no one understands or even knows about what he’s going through. It’s not for comedic purposes like in Ep2; in fact, the emphasis on fire with his lighter in the bathroom-flashback scene draws more negative attention to it.
I think these coping mechanisms are worth exploring because they make each character more real to us. Through these details, we can see their struggles without so much as a word. Smoking and drinking plus the actors’ careful expressions make their turmoil in Ep5 heartbreakingly obvious. I’m glad they chose to include these details because it rounds out the visuals in Ep5 and, as I’ve pointed out, delivers a nice contrast to the very different characters we saw in Ep1.
