Booking
War
The Sympathizer’s best dual identity trick was its last one
The Sympathizer is full of twists and turns — and why wouldn’t it be? It’s a show (based on a book of the same name by Viet Thanh Nguyen) that follows a Viet Cong double agent from the end of the Vietnam War to life as a refugee in America as he works to secure the Viet Cong’s victory. All the while, the show wrestles with themes of self and identity, as filtered through The Captain (Hoa Xuande), said double agent; his Vietnamese community in 1970s Los Angeles; and the variety of white men he works for (all played by Robert Downey Jr.).