WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for The Sympathizer episode 3.
The Sympathizer episode 3 titled “Love It or Leave It” was released exclusively on HBO and MAX on April 28, 2024. The third episode of the seven-part miniseries, The Sympathizer episode 3 featured the union of all four of Robert Downey Jr.’s characters in the same scene. Since releasing on April 14, 2024, The Sympthzier has earned an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score and is widely considered one of the best new miniseries on television. The acclaimed series stars Downey Jr. in his first major acting role since 2023’s Oppenheimer as well as Hoa Xuande, Toan Le, Fred Nguyen Khan, and Sandra Oh.
Following The Sympathizer episode 2, The Sympathizer episode 3 “Love It or Leave It” picks up in the aftermath of The Captain’s (Xuande) next big objective. After successfully making it to the United States at the end of The Sympathizer episode 1, The Captain was instructed to keep tabs on The General (Toan Le), whose paranoia was increasing even after safely escaping to the safe haven of Los Angeles. Now in the United States with a group of The General’s military supporters that were handpicked by The Captain, The Captain must continue secretly communicating with Man and the Viet Cong from the other side of the world.
Although The Captain appears to be quite charismatic over the course of the first few episodes of The Sympathizer, he is faced with an enormously difficult challenge trying to deal with The Major, who is more or less completely innocent. The Captain implicated The Major as the sympathizing spy within The General’s ranks in order to save his own skin, and as a result, was instructed to take him out by The General and Claude. Much of The Sympathizer episode 3 sees The Captain struggling to build up the courage to take The Major out, although the previously traumatized Bon makes his interesting past known and becomes of great service to The Captain.
Bon, who has become much more talkative since losing his wife and young child at the end of The Sympathizer episode 1, comes clean to The Captain about his true role in the Viet Cong army back in Vietnam. Bon reveals that he was secretly an F-6 agent, someone who was very highly trained and dangerous among the Viet Cong. Like other F-6 agents, Bon was assigned to take out other members of the Viet Cong, but was authorized to do so, sort of like a “blade runner” type of agent whose purpose was to take out members of their own kind. The Captain is quite stunned to learn this of Bon, who up until that point seemed like he had lost all purpose and direction in his life, but now proves to be useful in helping The Captain plot The Major’s assassination.
At the end of The Sympathizer episode 2, it appears that The Captain was not willing to wait around for Man’s official orders back in Vietnam to take out The Major, burning a napkin with his transcribed code outside a Los Angeles burger joint. As it turns out, The Captain did end up asking Man for authorization but did not hear back with the next coded message, creating an unusual ambiguity between them. Since Man is well aware of The Captain’s status as a mole and double agent, it’s strange that he did not address the issue of taking out The Major, which ended up forcing The Captain to take matters into his own hands. Bon, however, was very on board with the mission to take out The Major and proved to be a loyal friend and accomplice to The Captain without any resistance or hesitation.
Sadly, The Major throws his mother a “longevity” party to celebrate her life just a few days before The Captain and Bon kill him. The party is a formal event that sees the collection of many supporting characters, including Sandra Oh’s Sofia Mori, who The Captain has been having a romantic affair with and just recently asked to become his date and official girlfriend. The General’s daughter also sings and performs at the function, which demonstrates that she ended up liking the United States just fine after they were forced to flee from Vietnam. The Captain’s old classroom rival Sonny is also there as well as a new Robert Downey Jr. character, “Napalm” Ned Godwin, who makes a powerful speech about America, freedom, and the alliance between the U.S. and the efforts of Southern Vietnam to thwart the spread of communism.
“Napalm” Ned is introduced in The Sympathizer episode 3 as a strong-willed yet racist United States war veteran who became a celebrated Congressman in Southern California. “Napalm” Ned gets on stage and makes a somewhat irrelevant speech about America, freedom, and the shared scars that The General’s army has with the American soldiers who fought in Vietnam. Ned inadvertently starts up a chant as many of the Southern Vietnamese army members stand up and salute, which The Captain takes note of but hesitates to participate in. “Napalm” Ned steals the show at The Major’s mother’s party and accidentally offends her by gifting her a military combat knife, which is apparently a sign of bad luck in Vietnamese culture. “Napalm” Ned meets The Captain at the party after his speech and doesn’t seem very pleased to learn that The Captain is both Vietnamese and French, implying some racist undertones of his character.
After coming up with a strategy with Bon and second-guessing it a few times, The Captain finally gets around to killing The Major. He waits until the planned fireworks display goes off in Los Angeles before he makes his move, arriving with a large fruit as a gift that would soon turn into a weapon. The Captain nervously takes out a small handgun out of a paper bag from that local burger joint, realizing that it’s too late to go back on it now. He fights with The Major for a moment, who doesn’t understand why he is being targeted, since he’s not actually the mole. Eventually, Bon comes out to help The Captain finish the job, who almost becomes too afraid to go through with it. Tragically, The Captain places the smiley face paper bag over The Major’s face so he doesn’t have to look at what he’s done after shooting him several times, killing him instantly.
The Sympathizer often uses flashbacks and time jumps to help move its story along, and the one in episode 3 reveals the origin of the hard-boiled egg theme that has been hinted at in the previous two episodes. A year and a half before the events of The Sympathizer episode 3, The Captain was brought into a CIA safe house with Claude in Vietnam to take a look at one of their new prisoners. The prisoner had been psychologically tortured by Claude, who played the same country song over and over on repeat for an extended period of time. For some reason, the prisoner, nicknamed the Seeman, actually enjoyed the music. The Captain walks into the interrogation room and arranges to have the Seeman be served three hard-boiled eggs, the third of which he chokes on and tries to take his own life with. The scene shows a glimpse of how The Captain was trying to assist the Seeman from revealing any confidential information that would expose the Viet Cong.
After The Major was killed, a funeral was held in his honor, during which the General makes a formal speech but truly believes that the mole he was looking for has been taken care of. Later, Claude shows The Captain a coded message that he intercepted, believing that its evidence that The Major was the spy even though it was really the coded message that the Captain has sent to Man. This proves that Man never got the message asking whether The Captain should kill The Major, which is why Man never answered his question. Claude says that the Major was on to the Captain, thinking that the message was meant to ask for authorization for The Major to kill The Captain. Although Claude has it backward, The Captain averts being exposed.
The final scene of The Sympathizer episode 3 sees the long-awaited union of all four of Robert Downey Jr.’s characters in the same scene. RDJ’s fourth character, a legendary filmmaker named Nikos, meets with Claude and The Captain at a steakhouse to discuss the details of a Vietnam War movie he has in the works. It’s been speculated that the Nikos character in The Sympathizer is based on Frances Ford Coppola, the renowned director of Apocalypse Now, which is arguably the best Vietnam War movie ever made. The Captain and Nikos rub each other the wrong way when they first meet each other, but the group ends up indulging in alcohol and other pleasures in a private room, creating one of the most interesting scenes of the series thus far. Professor Hammer and “Napalm” Ned Godwin are at the dinner as well, setting the stage for more RDJ character crossovers in future episodes of The Sympathizer.