Florida Manis everything you’d expect a show with that moniker to be. The newest Netflix limited series starsEdgar Ramirezas Mike Valentine andAbbey Leeas Delly West. The two get caught up in an absolutely wild escape-turned-treasure hunt down in the Sunshine State as the seven-episode series doesn’t hold anything back — including a scene with a man dying in a porta potty explosion. It’s a fast-paced, easy to binge-watch that isn’t going to win any awards but will make for a fun weekend’s worth of content.
The show begins by introducing us to Mike, who is currently in Philadelphia working as a collector to pay off his own debts to a man named Moss Yankov (Emory Cohen). While doing so, we see that Moss’ girlfriend, Delly, is sleeping around with Mike on the side. She’s ready to move on, pitches Mike an idea about “finding a highway,” and getting out of this arrangement. Mike resists but Delly, and the new Porsche gifted to her by Moss, head toward Florida, and Mike is assigned to track her down. From there the story is a wild goose chase where Delly fakes her own death, works with Mike to find the treasure that’s supposedly in the area, all while avoiding being caught by Moss and his men. With so many moving parts, it’s no wonder the ending contained so much action as we headed toward the finish line.
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What’s the Deal With That Truck?
Early in the show, we see a man named Gil Franco (Nick Basta) die at the hands of Moss but not before discussing a treasure offthe coast of Central Floridafollowing a sunken ship in 1715 that could be worth up to $1 million. Delly is the one who overhears this, which is how her and Mike end up involved in this treasure hunt. When Mike realizes where the street names lead them, he realizes the Penske truck is where the treasure actually is. The only issue is that it’s submerged in the sinkhole that’s been headline news in Coronado Beach.
We see multiple attempts at diving and getting this truck to the surface, but it’s not until the finale when the mission is complete. Unfortunately it’s done so with Moss present. That’s because he finds Delly and eventually Mike, joining Mike’s family for dinner before taking Delly and Mike to the sinkhole. The truck’s door is unlatched, and it’s revealed that nothing is inside it. A total bummer for Mike and Delly as Moss laughs at them for going all this way for nothing. The two men brawl it out before Delly fires a gun and avenges her father’s death (as we previously discovered) by killing Moss.
The Clark Gregg Plot Was… Interesting
A recognizable face inClark Greggemerges in minor scenes scattered throughout the series. He’s playing Sheriff Ketcher, who hails from Durham County and is visiting Florida (specifically Walt Disney World) with his family. We see in Episode 1, “The Realest Goddamned Place on Earth,” that Mike grabs a random weapon box off the luggage cart. We previously heard him tell Moss he’ll find a gun when he arrives, which he promptly does. The gun, of course, was Ketcher’s. He is beside himself that his weapon is missing and feels naked without one. We see him getting restless while waiting to board the Magical Express to visit the Happiest Place on Earth, eventually leaving his family to go and find a gun as the show is really trying to emphasize how over-the-top this character is.
The whole series sees Ketcher pursuing his lost belonging for seemingly no real purpose until it all comes together at the end. He shows up at the sinkhole just after Moss is shot dead, demanding his gun back. Mike reminds him that this is now a murder weapon, but Ketcher doesn’t care. It’s an absurd storyline that ends up seeing the men find the bullet that killed Moss (which could be traced back to Ketcher) before his gun is returned. His final parting gift is helping Mike lift the deceased body into the truck, which plummets to the bottom of the sinkhole that is conveniently going to be filled in with concrete the next day.
We reach a three-week time jump. Mike’s sister, Patsy (Otmara Marrero) has divorced from her husband since their marriage was seen dwindling and reached a breaking point during the dinner with Moss. Mike is working the bar that Sonny (Anthony LaPaglia) owns. In a way onlyFlorida Mancould, it’s revealed to Mike that his father had found the treasure first. A local broadcast shows a local man died hunting snakes, and the video showed him wearing alligator boots, which Mike realizes were exactly what Sonny’s friend, Buzz, said he would buy when they find the gold. His dad confesses they carried the plan out the night before when no one was around, and that he was never going to tell his son he had found it.
Back at the docks,Mike does some diggingas he sees Delly’s initials carved in a pole above his (which he did so back when he was young). Taking it as a sign from her, he sees Sonny’s boat is missing, looks up the craft’s registration number, and is able to geolocate its whereabouts. He heads out, finding the boat and inside it, Delly. There’s also the treasure chest they had been longing for, which his father has found and stored on his boat, apparently. We get one of Delly’s best lines here, and the one that leaves us with an ambiguous ending, “So, Mike, did you come here for me or for the gold?”
We only get a lasting shot of Mike staring at the woman he clearly has a thing for before the credits kick in. Whether his intentions were the gold or Delly doesn’t actually matter because at that moment, he has both. The ending tied up all of its plot points, though we never really got to dig into Iris (Lex Scott Davis) and her backstory with Mike as much as we could have. We know she’s recovering in the hospital after being shot in her pursuit of Moss, but her character felt like it had more to offer. That being said, everything came together at the end ofFlorida Man, including that ridiculous Clark Gregg narrative. The limited series isn’t anything that’ll move the needle or offer any self-reflection, but it’s quirky enough that it makes for an enjoyable quick binge.
All seven episodes ofFlorida Manare now available to stream on Netflix.
