Florida Man follows Mike Valentine, whose trip back home to Florida to bring his boss’ girlfriend back turns into a treasure hunt. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Mike Valentine, an ex-gambling addict, is recovering and paying off all of his debts by working for Moss Yankov, the gangster he owes. He does whatever job he is assigned and often keeps an eye on his girlfriend, Delly, whenever he is instructed to.
When Moss gifts Delly a stolen necklace, she abandons him and goes off on her own. As always, Moss directs Mike to make sure she reaches home safe and sound.
Mike and Delly come close at a bar like they always have. They have been sleeping together behind Moss’ back for a while now. Delly pitches Mike to join her and run away to Florida, a place Mike will never go back to as there is a lot of past there.
Leaving everything behind, Delly goes to Florida, and Moss orders Mike to bring her back. Since Mike is still paying his debt, he is left with no option but to do so.
Florida wastes no time in introducing itself as a city. Mike quickly gets into an accident the moment he reaches the place. He is received by his sister, Patsy, and soon he reunites with her family and his father, Sonny Valentine, too.
Mike tracks the car Delly stole from Moss and eventually finds her dead after hearing a gunshot near the place she is staying. All Mike knows is that she was with a man.
The next day, he sees the same man, who is an EMT officer, in a news story about a stolen ambulance. After connecting with a news channel host, Mike receives footage of the incident and discovers that the ambulance was empty. Furthermore, his father, who is in touch with a cop, reveals that someone cleared up the crime scene.
Back at his motel room, Mike finds Delly alive and well, holding a gun on him. It turns out that she faked her own death because she saw Mike days ago and didn’t want to be found or taken back to Moss.
Delly heard a man named Gil talking about a truck in Florida that is full of gold when Moss was interrogating him. Gil was going to pay Moss back with that gold.
Gil is now dead, and Delly aims to turn her life around with that gold. If that’s not enough, she really wants Mike to come along with her. Mike gives this a thought. He had already informed Moss that Delly is dead.
Mike calls him and lies to him again. He says he is going to hunt the person responsible for killing Delly down. The deal is that once that part is done, his dues are considered paid. Moss agrees to it.
Mike locates the place where Gil’s truck can be. It’s at a construction site in a sinkhole that will be filled with cement soon. They need to retrieve that gold before that can happen.
Delly brings Mike’s father, Sonny, in on this mission, as she has heard from Mike that he is good at finding things.
At first, Mike thinks his father joined in because he read about Delly’s obituary and the funeral conducted by Moss. He is left disappointed to learn that Delly invited him.
The team still comes together for its first attempt to retrieve the gold. They fail because the crane operator Mike hired hears about the gold. One of Sonny’s friends, Buzz, who is helping them out, shoots the crane operator when he comes to confront him.
With Mike not responding to his calls, Moss sends Dutch, one of his father’s men, to Florida. Mike’s friends are forced to kill him, as Dutch saw Mike leaving his sister’s house. However, Dutch ends up dying in a weird accident.
Mike had tasked his sister, Patsy, to see if the EMT officer who helped Delly earlier dies in the hospital or not. This way, he can pin Delly’s murder on him and escape the clutches of Moss.
Unfortunately, Moss comes looking for Mike in Florida and holds Delly hostage in their room. Apart from him, Mike’s ex-wife, Iris, also arrives in Florida to investigate the death of Gil.
Things get complicated for Mike as Iris not only meets Delly but also plants a microphone in her purse. She makes Mike overhear the conversation Delly is having with Moss.
During the same conversation, Moss also mentions that he sent his man to kill Gil. Iris can’t use this recorded confession, as she is out of town and has bugged a citizen; it’s not admissible in court. Mike promises to get her a confession from Moss on an audio clip.
Mike and his father, Sonny, plan to send Delly and Moss to Gil’s boat, where Sonny’s men, Ray-Ray and Buzz, will take care of them. Then they will go to the place where the gold is really at.
Florida Man ending explained in detail:
Why do Mike and Sonny get arrested?
After a devastating dinner at Patsy’s, everyone heads out for a visit to Gil’s boat. Sonny likes to think that Mike should let Ray-Ray and Buzz handle this. Mike looks forward to keeping his promise to Iris about getting the confession from Moss.
On their way to Gil’s boat, Mike throws away the tracker on his car to prevent Iris from following him. However, he ends up getting arrested by the cops because his face is being circulated all over the TV for running a drug scheme in the ambulance used to fake Delly’s death.
Following Mike, Sonny is arrested too due to his involvement in the death of Dutch. Having Mike arrested was part of the plan, but not Sonny. Mike thinks Sonny did this to keep the gold for himself.
Is there gold in the truck?
Moss doesn’t go to Gil’s boat, knowing that he is walking into a trap. Iris, on the other hand, does after being informed by Randy about Ray-Ray and Buzz’s presence at the marina. She ends up fighting Ray-Ray and Buzz and also gets shot.
Moss and Delly bail Mike out and force him to take them to the real location of the gold. Mike, all alone, pulls the truck out of the sinkhole with all the equipment required, only to find the truck empty.
Moss intends to kill Mike. They both get into a struggle, and it’s Delly who kills Moss with Mike’s gun. Deputy Sheriff Ketcher, from whom Mike stole this gun, comes looking for his gun. All he cares about is that gun, not what Mike and Delly have done. Ketcher helps them get rid of Moss’ body as well as the truck.
Delly is done waiting around for what people like Mike want from her. She is not ready to go with him to Iris and asks him to choose between running away with her and Iris. Mike chooses Iris. The two then part ways.
What happened to the gold?
As expected, the sinkhole is filled with cement the next day. Three weeks later, Iris joins the FBI. Moss’ sister saw her skills while she was undercover during Delly’s funeral and decided to hire her.
Patsy has parted ways with her husband. Mike is running his father’s bar. Sonny is in jail because he was supplying drugs at the marina.
One fine day, Mike sees the news of the death of a hunter who had alligator boots on TV. Buzz had dreams of buying alligator boots after retrieving the gold.
Mike visits Sonny in jail and learns that there was gold in the truck. Sonny had it moved on the very day they got rid of Butch. Sonny also admits that he was never going to tell him about the gold because his son would have left.
Mike and Sonny had just started to mend their relationship, but this lie made Mike abandon his father again.
Does Mike reunite with Delly?
Mike is back to square one. He has no job, Iris is not by his side, and neither is Delly. Though Mike claims that Delly has disappeared, Patsy assures him that no one disappears nowadays; they are all blinking blue dots on someone’s screens.
Mike notices that his father’s boat is missing. He tracks it down and finds it in the middle of nowhere. He explores the boat and discovers some stuff belonging to his father, a picture of Delly, and also the gold they were looking for.
Delly surprises him from behind, questioning if he came for her or the gold. The show doesn’t reveal how Delly found the gold, but Mike and Delly do get a happy ending.
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