Jim Ellis and Ezra Saxton are in the Duster, roaring up US 93 en route to Las Vegas. It’s just them in there – for now – and in these situations, Josh Holloway and Keith David modulate their characters to sketch the father-son-adjacent nature of their relationship. Saxton regals Jim with stories of his past exploits in Vegas – alongside Joey Ellis, who unlike his brother was a high-level asset in Sax’s organization. These are stories Jim has never heard, anecdotes that portray Joey Ellis as a guy with more connections than a telephone switchboard and the kind of confidence that flattered mob bosses and showgirls alike. The scene is a mirror on their drive to Tucson in Duster Episode 3, where Sax’s paternalistic nature also beamed through. (“I loved that boy like he was my own.”) But Saxton clams up when Jim, prompted by Agent Hayes in his brain, asks if the mysterious Xavier was ever part of these years-past Sin City adventures. And for that matter they get distracted, because it turns out they have a stowaway. Luna has been in the Duster’s trunk this whole time.

Luna, Jim’s secret daughter with Izzy, the long-haul trucker making serious trouble for Snowbird. And Luna, who takes over before Jim can even try to talk his way out of this awkward coincidence. “The ladies work just as hard as the guys,” she tells Sax. “But they also have kids to take care of. Gimme one reason why they deserve less.” (Luna!) And you can see her line of protest, inspired by her mom’s public advocacy, working on Saxton. 

And then they arrive at their destination. Duster does a bang-up job on recreating the Las Vegas strip as it existed in the 1970s – “First time?” Saxton asks a marveling Luna –  and as they roll up to the door of the Desert Inn, it turns out the series will introduce its own version of Howard Hughes, the storied hotel-casino’s most famous resident, and not just the reclusive billionaire’s Aeromobile. Jim and Sax and Luna follow the established OCD protocols, they take in the plans for the Spruce Goose framed in the penthouse suite, and then Hughes (Tom Nelis) appears. He’s wearing a tuxedo…and Kleenex boxes for shoes. “You look like him, Joey,” Hughes says – “we had a boondoggle or two.” And it’s another mindwarper for Jim. His brother was hanging with one of the world’s most wealthy and powerful, if not also one of its most nutso, people? 

Here in Episode 7, as we anticipate the season finale, Duster also gives us some resolution on what’s in the metal suitcase. It’s a reel-to-reel tape, stolen directly from the paranoid files of President Richard Nixon and sold to the Russians, who then sold it to Howard Hughes and Ezra Saxton. The recording’s got Nixon ranting about a plan to prop up Blacks, Latinos, and other people of color as a domestic menace to his bloc of white voters – sound familiar? – and with its delivery to Hughes, he will now forward it to the still-unseen Xavier. But while Luna watches Bullit on the suite’s console TV, the billionaire pulls Jim aside for another mindwarper of a revelation. It wasn’t Saxton who orchestrated the attack on Joey, but the CIA. “It was them,” Hughes says. “It’s always been them. Son, what happened to Joey was entirely their doing.”

While Jim was putting the pieces together in Las Vegas, Nina and Awan were south of Phoenix in Chandler, triangulating a pinging ham radio signal. (You gotta love Duster continuing to center popular 1970s tech.) What they hope will lead them to another link in Ezra Saxton’s operational chain instead reveals a dusty ranch home with a basement full of radio equipment, military armaments, and fatigues emblazoned with the insignia of the US Marine Corps’ 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. A basement? In Arizona? But before they can sort it out, a shifty guy arrives. He konks Awan on the skull with the butt of a pistol, makes a phone call. “A fed in the house…what?…he’s not Black, he’s Indian or Mexican or something…” 

Nina gets the drop on this guy, and shoots him when he turns to fire at her. But as she’s checking on Awan, he’s still grumbling through gurgling blood on the floor. “You fucked up,” the guy sneers at Nina. “Xavier knows about you.” And he pulls the pin on a live grenade. Ka-blamm!

And that’s not all. 

While Jim was in Vegas with Saxton, and Nina and Awan were almost getting blown to smithereens, Billy was following his suspicions about “Nina St. James,” the Russian translator. In another really well-crafted scene featuring Corbin Bernsen and Gail O’Grady, Wade Ellis and Charlotte scramble to put Sax’s chief enforcer off the lie they helped craft for Agent Hayes. Which kind of works. Until Billy’s snooping further leads him to a suddenly awoken from a coma Sergeant Groomes, who spills about Nina’s federal agent status and her surreptitious rendezvous with Jim Ellis. It’s another moment when you know Duster got the right guy to play Billy, because Evan Jones actually makes his character look physically ill at the news of a rat inside Snowbird. “All Jim does is bang birds and drive fast. Why would he do something like that?”

Billy knows how to find his answer. We were already worried for Agent Hayes’s safety, since she was returning to the motel without knowing Grant, her rogue FBI colleague, was waiting inside the room to exterminate her. But instead she is accosted right outside the door, where Billy renders her unconscious with that favorite device of so many 70s and 80s TV shows, a rag doused with chloroform.

Duster 8-Tracks for Episode 7:

Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.