Dope Thief episode 1 recap: a robbery goes explosively wrong

Trouble is going down in Philadelphia in the new Apple TV Plus show Dope Thief, which began with a two-episode premiere on Friday, March 14.

Dope Thief is about two friends who rob drug dealers by pretending to be agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency. However an ill-planned robbery puts a target on their backs, and they need to fight for their lives against various foes.

We'll see all this happen and more in Dope Thief episode 1, called 'Jolly Ranchers', which was actually directed by movie legend Ridley Scott. It introduces the characters and puts them in their big predicament, with some explosions along the way.

If you've seen the episode and need a reminder as to what happened, here's our Dope Thief episode 1 recap.

Meeting our characters

As soon as Dope Thief begins, we're introduced to our two protagonists, Ray (Brian Tyree Henry) and Manny (Wagner Moura). They're staking out a suburban property, wearing DEA jackets, and they see signs that this house has something to do with a drug trade.

Splitting up to cover the front and back doors, Ray and Manny break into the house, a drug den, and take its inhabitants hostage. Manny searches the house to find guns, drugs and money, while Ray commands the hostages lying on the floor. They're fired upon by someone upstairs, and it emerges that it's a young child, but they convince him to drop the gun.

As Ray and Manny leave the house, they take off the jackets, and we learn that they're not actually DEA at all: this was just a trick. They count the money they stole, which is less than they were hoping for, while Manny says that he wants to bring a third person on their ventures. They pass a memorial on the road to someone Ray knows.

A day in the life of Ray

Some time later Ray visits Theresa (Kate Mulgrew), his surrogate mother who raised him, and notices that she's got lots of unopened bills and test results. She says that she needs $10,000 for something. Ray stashes some of his loot and Theresa seems to know what he does, although he insists that he's making money painting interiors. Theresa gives Ray a birthday cupcake as it's his birthday.

Ray is picked up by Manny and Rick, whom Ray was incarcerated with, and who will be their third guy on the jobs. Ray and Manny explain what they do (shaking down low-level drug pushers) and Rick says that they should run jobs in his neck of the woods, as they'll be less dangerous and more profitable. Once they leave, Ray agrees that they're running out of people to rob in Philadelphia, though it seems that Manny doesn't want to keep on working much longer.

Later that day, Ray goes to a house-warming party for Manny and his girlfriend Sherry, and we learn that he doesn't drink. He doesn't seem keen on the social gathering and he leaves, instead going home to watch old movies. He has flashbacks to something happening in high school.

The next day Ray scouts out a house Rick mentioned, in a rural area, and watches a woman (we'll later learn she's Mina (Marin Ireland)) practicing shooting a gun. He follows her to a gas station where she buys several containers of gas. Later, Ray goes to AA and talks about how he's been clean for 28 days, and mentions the girl he saw and how he recognized her as being an addict.

That evening Ray talks to his online contact Son, asking about the property. Son refers to it as "termite food" and says he doesn't know much about it, but tells Ray to "trust his instinct". Apparently in a bad state, Ray has a beer and cries about it, and then finds some weed to smoke. He has a flashback to smoking with a girl called Marletta. when he was younger, and then they go for a drive, but get into a car crash.

The robbery

It's the day of the heist. Early in the morning Ray, Manny and Rick drive to the property that the former has been staking out. Rick takes a hit of something to get amped, and Ray advises him to remain calm, giving him a gun but telling him not to use it (it's a drug lab with lots of explosive chemicals, after all).

The trio get into position and assault the house, taking a captive, but the three people in there quickly identify them as not being DEA. Rick shoots a captive they take so a gunfight ensues, which sees Rick shot in the abdomen and Ray shot in the arm, as well as a fire lit in one corner of the house. Rick dies in Ray's arms, but although Manny is traumatized, Ray insists they search the house.

Manny finds some yellow chemicals in aloe vera bottles (aloe is green) and Ray finds lots of money, but while they search one of the bodies (of Mina) disappears. Seeing that the house is in flames, Ray and Manny spread flammable liquid and then flee with the money and some boxes of aloe gel.

The two drive away, accidentally leaving a walkie-talkie behind. As they're driving away the house explodes, and they also see someone pull into the drive of the house, and they wonder if they were spotted. On their drive, they hit a deer, and then a mysterious voice begins to talk to them over the walkie-talkie. In a creepy drawl he tells them that the explosion would seem like a drug-manufacturing accident if not for the walkie left behind.

Manny says that the walkies only have a half-mile radius, so the speaker is near. The voice offers the duo to drop off the drugs and leave, but Ray just throws away the radio and they drive away. Some time later we see the mystery figure retrieve the tossed walkie.

Fire fighters explore the house some time later and find Mina still alive, and she's taken away to the hospital. Detectives talk to her and we learn that she's an undercover agent, infiltrating the drug gangs. She gives the investigators as much info as she can into the robbery and explosion, hinting that their actions have started a war.

In a motel somewhere, Ray removes the shotgun pellets from his arm while Manny counts their loot. It's loads more than they expected, and they're worried that they've robbed someone who could feasibly find them or their loved ones.