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Stacy Keach steadfastly continues to refuse to train Patrick for the Reynolds rematch, so in desperation, Patrick goes to Ed Romeo, who was once Reynolds's trainer and mentor and is JUST A LITTLE intense. Ed moves in Chez Leary, which everyone in that house is just fine with, but when he starts exerting influence over Patrick with respect to his boxing (He has him eat healthier! He trains him at night! He loosens him up!), you know, like a TRAINER might do, Johnny and Margaret freak out and go running to Stacy Keach to try to get him to change his mind before it's too late. Once he knows that Patrick's reactions were slow not because of age but his injured eye, Stacy Keach does recant his decision, but it's too late -- Patrick is on board the Ed Romeo train. In the end, Ed reveals the extent of the emotional damage Reynolds did to him, which fazes Patrick not at all. Oh, and Ava goes to the prom.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Stacy Keach is wheeling one of those upright shopping carts back from the store while smoking one of those cigarillos he favors when Patrick accosts him, saying he thought he left town. Stacy Keach neither speaks nor slows down in response, so Patrick tells him everything's a go for the Reynolds rematch and his ducks are all in a row as far as Johnny and Theresa go, so could they please maybe get to training? Stacy Keach, however, is not interested, and even though Patrick tells him the money from the Reynolds purse would set them for life (because that worked out so well the last time), Stacy Keach replies, "no bullshit," that if he'd fought Reynolds on the night in question instead of El Diablo, he would have gotten seriously hurt. "I don't think you're capable if fighting at this level anymore." Patrick looks stung, but points out that Stacy Keach is always skeptical of Patrick's ability to win, and then he proves him wrong. "That's our drill, Dad." Stacy Keach, however, tells him that things are different now -- for five years, Patrick's been his son instead of his fighter, and that's how he saw him in the ring. "As a father, I cannot watch you take punches anymore! I don't trust myself!" He apologizes and heads inside, and Patrick, if you haven't already you might try the tactic of informing Stacy Keach about his own financial situation.
A guy who just happens to be Eamonn Walker, whom you might know better as Kareem Said from Oz, is working on his truck in some rural location when he sees Patrick approaching and chuckles. He then calls Patrick a greeting, and seriously, has Eamonn Walker spent the last several years supporting Lucky Strike's stock price with the number of cigarettes he's smoked, or is there a production assistant off to the side with handfuls of gravel for him to swallow between takes? He sounds like Dorothy Zbornak here. Eamonn Walker tells Patrick that his presence reveals that he's about to fight Death Row Reynolds again and his father isn't training him, which suggests either he's ill, dead, or they had a falling out, and Patrick wants him as a replacement. Patrick offers that Stacy Keach is retired, but acknowledges the truth of everything else, prompting Eamonn Walker to laugh that three of Reynolds's last five opponents made this "pilgrimage," and when they "done come up here" he told them that he works with kids on behalf of the county now, so Patrick can just go home like they did. Hmm, somehow I was expecting something a bit more philosophically grandiose. Patrick, however, inquires if the kids in question might want to meet a former heavyweight champion...
...and we cut to a boxing ring in which Patrick is holding pads for a kid who's punching away as Eamonn Walker coaches him. When the bell rings, Patrick hops out, and Eamonn Walker tells him that he wouldn't want to know the life the kid has had, and when working with someone like that, you need to "take him apart, find out where the damage is, and put him back together again stronger." Sounds perfectly scientific; what could go wrong? Eamonn Walker then gives Patrick some free advice, which is that he's too tense in the ring, which saps his energy for the later rounds, and whoever's going to train him needs to fix that. It's kind of hilarious that Eamonn Walker, who always seems like his brain might explode from stress at any moment, is telling Patrick he needs to chill out, but whether he takes this as an opening or just is desperate, Patrick lays it out, telling "Ed" (thank God for the short name) he needs someone to start training him that very day, and he wants it to be him. "Ten weeks, and you're back here on your farm a million dollars richer." He points out that he could help the kids quite a bit with that kind of cash, and when Ed still seems reticent, asks if he doesn't want to train anyone against Reynolds because he's still his boy. However, Ed's face goes dark as he opines that Reynolds is an "ungrateful bitch," (Such language! Won't someone think of the children?) and he certainly isn't making any decisions out of loyalty to him. After another pause, Ed agrees to take a look at Patrick, but cautions him that he might not like what he has to say, and that he doesn't half-ass his approach. "I'm either in or I'm out." Generally a good philosophy, I've found. (What?)
Ava is discussing her after-prom plans with Theresa; Theresa is not pleased that they involve a club in the city at which Patrick picked her up drunk three months earlier, but Daniella, advocating for Ava for some reason, points out that Ava has been a model citizen since then. Theresa still isn't convinced, though, but Ava doesn't care, saying she's going to the city whether she likes it or not. Great! I wish all scenes were that easy.
Johnny calls Patrick and asks where the hell he's been, and the answer is "Warsaw, New York, with Ed Romeo." What follows is a massively expository conversation that's infuriating in ways I haven't felt since the pilot, but the relevant information? Ed is a boxing savant and once trained Reynolds, but Reynolds dumped him after his first big win, after which he "cracked up." By the way, Patrick is conducting this conversation from the shoulder of the highway (with the car facing the wrong way given which side of the road he's on), and when Ed gets back in the car, we learn they stopped because he had a flare-up of some chronic headache, which is always, always a good sign. They get going again...
...but it's night by the time they arrive at the gym. Unfortunately, as soon as they enter, Johnny and Barry accost them, and when Ed sees the latter he gets a look on his face the likes of which I haven't seen since Adebisi was making it his mission to get under Kareem Said's skin. Patrick asks what the hell Johnny was thinking before chasing after Ed, who looks like he's getting another stress headache as he spits that Barry has debased the game, and he's not going to be a clown in his circus. Patrick assures him that this was just Johnny being an idiot, and that it won't happen again...
...and then they're back in the car, presumably on their way to Patrick's house and not back to Warsaw. Ed tells Patrick he remembers seeing Johnny box, and he had great natural ability but was never going all the way. Patrick explains that he had a torn retina (SHOW! WHAT did I say about eye injuries? Quit it!), but Ed opines that many fighters come back from that, and Johnny's problem was with his heart. "He was looking for a way out." Patrick sighs that his family wouldn't like that version, although with Stacy Keach in such a truth-talking, anti-Johnny place lately he might be worth a shot. They arrive Chez Leary, and Patrick brings Ed to Theresa, but it turns out they'd met once before at one of Patrick's fights. After the two of them exchange pleasantries (or whatever the equivalent is when saying nice words on the subject of boxing), Patrick offers to show Ed to his room with the enthusiasm a kid would exhibit on having a sleepover...
...and then, presumably after Ed's settled in, Patrick returns to his bedroom to find Theresa on her laptop in bed, and never have we resembled each other more. He tells Theresa that he's excited for the opportunity to learn from someone other than Stacy Keach, and then hops into bed hoping for a little action, but Theresa brings up Ava and the prom and tells him they need to be on the same page when it comes to her. Patrick contritely says he thought they were, but points out that Ava's going to London in a month, and that they're going to have to trust her. Theresa, however, says that Ava reminds her of her father, or Johnny, "always looking for a short cut," and she doesn't want her just to marry some rich dude and have a meaningless life. I really don't get the sense this family discussion is going anywhere in particular, so it's probably not particularly relevant that we leave the scene without anything really being resolved.
In the morning, a freshly-showered Ava comes downstairs to find a large, hulking man of color looking for something in her kitchen, and she smartly sneaks back up the stairs to alert her parents and call the police - oh, wait, no, she actually picks up a kitchen knife and tells him to get out of her house, like, the guy's twice your size, honey. Your Bayonne blood isn't going to make up for over a hundred pounds disadvantage. Patrick comes "whoa, whoa, whoa"-ing down the stairs and tells her Ed's going to be staying with them for a couple days, to which she predictably, snottily, and justifiably thanks him for the notice. She hustles back upstairs, ignoring Theresa on her way, and then Daniella appears for an introduction, with Patrick adding that Katie's away on a Girl Scout retreat. Ed babbles about having been an Eagle Scout before asking Patrick when he first went in the ring, and as Patrick recalls, he was about seven, and they had a thing where he would box his father every Friday night, and the first time he knocked him down, he got to sign up for the Golden Gloves. "My dad did it with his dad too." Great, a history of the Leary men beating each other senseless. No wonder this family's so shitty with money - they've gotten hit in the head too many times to do simple math. Anyway, Patrick finally took Stacy Keach down when he was twelve, and he deems that one of the happiest moments of his life, which even he seems to realize is a little sad. Ed tells Patrick he's going to need to speak to his father that morning...
...so Patrick pulls up to Stacy Keach's place, whereupon Ed hops out and says he'll meet him at the gym, and Patrick gets a look on his face like you might if you were introducing your new wife to your old one. At least you don't have to witness the awkward, guy. Inside, Ed asks Stacy Keach why he's not training Patrick anymore, so Stacy Keach shows him tape of Patrick's fight with El Diablo, and from the brief glimpse of footage we see it definitely looks like he's focusing on the part where Patrick was getting his ass kicked...
...and then Ed enters the gym holding a rubber ball and tells Patrick to get up against the wall. In my elementary school, that would mean it was time for a charming playground game called "Asses Up," which really requires no explanation, but this is just so Ed can wing the ball at Patrick a few times, forcing him to duck, while explaining that Stacy Keach thinks Patrick took too many punches in the El Diablo fight, which must mean his reflexes are shot. Ed, however, has divined the truth, as he asks Patrick if there was something wrong with his eye in the fight beyond the cut we saw. Patrick admits it but says it healed, while Johnny watches all "Wait, people come back from eye injuries? How come no one told me?"
Up on the roof, Patrick shadowboxes as Ed opines that Patrick's ring focus has always been split between trying to win and trying to please Stacy Keach, and then goes all Boxing Whisperer as he corrects Patrick's stance and reach and then works him into a punching tizzy. Damn, I hope Ed doesn't turn out to be nuts, because Patrick's certainly in his thrall already.
Back downstairs, Johnny comes over to ask Ed how Patrick's looking, but when Ed tells him he has to "unlearn" a few things, Johnny gets his back up a little about how Stacy Keach took him to the title and whatever. Also, I've talked about his height before, but when KAREEM SAID is being dwarfed in this two-shot, you know Pablo Schreiber is a monster. Johnny steps in front of Ed and tells him that they got off to a bad start, but they're going to have to find a way to work together, as there's a lot of promotional stuff still to come. Ed, however, informs Johnny that while he appreciates that he's got a job to do, things will work best if they never see each other, and accordingly, he's going to start training Patrick at night. Johnny smiles sardonically and informs Ed that "we" are still going to need some access, but Patrick comes over and takes off with Ed before Johnny can push the matter further. Well, Johnny, you can always have Stacy Keach coach you for your comeback! (I wonder what part of that is the less likely.)
At the diner, Margaret comes over with a plate she says is Patrick's favorite, and Ed tells her she's got a nice place in a voice that would sound more appropriate if he were saying "rat-infested shithole." Oblivious to such nuances, however, Margaret tells him that Patrick bought it for her -- she was a waitress for ten years, and this was her dream. She adds that she's got the best big brother in the world, but when Ed growls that he bets that's true, Margaret this time picks up a tone and withdraws. Ed then speculates that she's never been married, and nothing ever really worked out for her and he felt bad. Patrick replies, "She's good people, Ed," which translated means he was right on every count, and Ed muses that Patrick also bought the gym for his father before stopping him from taking another bite of "that poison." He calls Margaret over for the check, and she offers to wrap the steak up for Patrick...
...but then, as she surreptitiously observes, once they get across the street, Ed has Patrick toss the food in the trash. She calls Johnny and is like, "We need to talk," and I'm guessing it's going to be about what a wonderful new coach Patrick has imported into the heart of Bayonne, right?
Back at the Leary residence, Ed, as he cooks, is explaining the basics of athletic nutrition to Patrick and Daniella, and between Patrick being a professional athlete, his wife being a medical doctor, and Daniella being a know-it-all who's unafraid to advance an unsolicited opinion, I find it hard to believe he didn't know this before, but anyway, he tells Ed that it smells good, but Ed tells him that's the cookies he's got in the oven. To Daniella, he adds, "He ain't allowed none of those." Heh. Patrick hears a car pulling in and goes to greet whoever it is, leaving Daniella free to ask Ed to take care of her dad, which, I have to say, is a big improvement on "He could DIEEEEEEEE!" Ava and Theresa then enter, and Theresa is all proud of Ava because she took her to the hospital to see all the kids that have gotten in drunken accidents, and there was one girl with a shattered pelvis who wouldn't talk to anyone, but Ava had her laughing. Ava's uncharacteristically embarrassed by all the attention and heads up to her room...
...and later, after they've had dinner, Ed compliments Theresa on how she handled Ava, adding that up on the farm, he doesn't lecture his kids either, just shows them a better way. He then informs Patrick and Theresa that most trainers wouldn't agree, but he thinks it'd be great for them to keep doing the posturepedic polka, and Patrick's like, right now? Ed, however, suggests he drink his tea first as Theresa giggles like a schoolgirl. I hate to break the mood, as it were, but what kind of residency program is Theresa in that her family ever sees her, much less this often? Everything I've ever heard or even seen depicted on TV suggests it's positively grueling, and yet with the amount of free time she seems to have, she could throw in a law career here.
In Stacy Keach's kitchen, Margaret opens a couple beers as she wonders if maybe Stacy Keach is right and Patrick's rushing into the Reynolds fight. Johnny wonders where this is coming from, but then Stacy Keach enters the room and asks what they're on about. They notice he's packing, and he says he's going to Atlantic City to get out of town for a bit, but Margaret wants to talk about Ed, and Johnny tells him he's trying to dismantle everything he's built with Patrick...
...while Ed and Patrick are in the latter's home office watching that segment of the Reynolds fight we've seen countless times already, and Ed pauses the recording at the point where Reynolds was on the ropes and tells Patrick he should have finished him off, like, I know you're the boxing guru, Ed, but I'm pretty sure EVERYONE ELSE in the world, including Patrick, has already arrived at that conclusion. Instead of saying that, though, Patrick makes excuses for his father, saying his eye was cut and Stacy Keach told him to protect it so they wouldn't stop the fight, but Ed points out it's ridiculous to think they would have done so in the twelfth round, and Patrick nods in resignation. Ed then asks about Patrick's first big loss (to a dude named "Curtis," whom Ed and Theresa referenced earlier), and Patrick tells him Stacy Keach was devastated, and never really believed in Patrick again after that. Ed tells him he needs believers around him, not people with bad energy, and goes on that Theresa and the girls are great, but Stacy Keach, Margaret, Johnny -- they live off him, and he's going to have to cut them out. (In Margaret's defense, there's never been an indication that she still relies on Patrick for money, and Stacy Keach also would be fine if it weren't for Johnny.) Patrick, of course, does not want to hear any of that, so Ed concedes that it's late, and they should just go to bed and discuss it in the day. He heads off, but when he's gone, Patrick resumes the recording, on which he can hear Stacy Keach telling him to protect his eye. He nods grimly...
...and then it's morning, and Theresa's startled to find Ed already awake when she enters the kitchen. Noting that he seems a bit out of sorts, she approaches and asks if he's okay, and he says yes -- it's just that he didn't think it would be this hard to train someone again. "Every step a fighter takes toward me, is a step toward his ultimate betrayal of me." Ed, if your morning philosophy is this much of a downer, you really should try getting some more sleep. Theresa asks what he means, so Ed explains that to make a fighter strong, he first has to see him at his weakest point. Then, after he wins and feels powerful, he won't want anyone around who saw that weakness -- including him. Theresa asks if that's what happened with him and Reynolds, and Ed tells her Reynolds was only ten when he found him, and had been in and out of institutions his whole life and was living on the street, "almost feral." He and his wife took him in and treated him like a son, but when he started winning, he changed. He struggles for a bit before continuing that his wife died four years ago, and Reynolds didn't even call, so the kid he took in is dead. Theresa assures Ed that Patrick isn't like that, but I don't know, I wouldn't say Patrick has been great about living with weakness either...
...but at the moment, he appears happy with what he's doing, as we see him running through the streets with a smile on his face. He then enters the gym and is surprised to see Stacy Keach, Johnny, and Margaret in the office, who call him in for what feels an awful lot like a Bayonne intervention. Johnny and Margaret make the case that they're a family, and Stacy Keach tells Patrick that he feels like they should finish what they started, and he's reassessed Patrick's ability since Johnny came clean to him about the injured eye, and since he mentions it, you'd think the idea of Patrick's vision being compromised might have occurred to him given that HE SAW HIM TAKE THAT THUMB IN THE EYE. Patrick, however, is not so easily swayed, and points out that Stacy Keach told him he didn't trust himself anymore, to which Stacy Keach replies that he trusts himself more than he trusts anyone else. Oh, Stacy Keach, you've built up this character well enough for us to know that glibness does not become you. He goes on that with a real disciplined game plan, they can get the title back, but Patrick, having been paying attention to everything that's gone on in this episode, tells Stacy Keach that he loves him, but if anything, the El Diablo fight showed him they're not in sync anymore as far as training goes, so he's going to stick with Ed. Johnny thinks this is a mistake, of course, but Patrick tells him he likes where Ed is taking him, and leaves his family to digest this most unwelcome news like so much fatty, low-grade steak.
Ava's getting ready for prom when Theresa comes in and (in a conciliatory manner, I will say) tells her she doesn't care what she does as long as she pushes herself, but Ava cuts her off and tells her she knows, and she will, but for tonight, she'd like to focus on having fun with her friends rather than think about adult things like, say, the IRS. Makes perfect sense to me, so I'm not sure why Theresa's face greets this news like Ava just told her she's in the family way, but at that moment the doorbell rings...
...and as Daniella calls that "he" is there, we cut to outside, where there's a white stretch job parked in the driveway. It's Brent from Brunswick, the dude whom Patrick almost made lose control of his bodily functions a few episodes ago, and poor guy, he was probably steeling himself for days to deal with Patrick answering the door, and instead it's Ed. Hee. Ed gravels, "Brent, from Brunswick," which is probably not helping his digestive system any, but he manages to step inside and even stick out a hand for "Mr. Leary" to shake, which he does with no broken bones involved. Ava then appears at the top of the stairs in a short, off-white dress with patterned silver lamé, I think, on top, and Patrick breathes that she looks like a movie star (she kind of does) and seems like he's ready to cry (aw). He snaps a photo of the couple, and then Ed takes the camera so Patrick can get in, along with Theresa and Daniella, for a group shot. Once he's snapped the photo, Ed's face falls, presumably in reaction to his desire for a family like the one in front of him...
...but then we cut to him telling Patrick, as the latter shadowboxes while ducking under a rope in the ring, that they're training at this time to reset his body clock, because the fight will be at night. Perfectly logical. Ed goes on that there's a minimal difference "between the victory party and the hospital," which if you think about it is kind of the point that Theresa was trying to impress upon Ava...
...and speaking of which, Theresa's waiting up with a movie and a glass of wine when she gets a text from Ava telling her she's checked into the hotel and all is well. Nice thought, but if it's only 12:45 AM, as the time stamp indicates, I find it hard to believe her evening is done...
...much as Patrick's isn't, and Ed really wasn't kidding about resetting his internal rhythms, was he? Ed gives Patrick some more advice until the camera slides backwards to reveal that someone's watching -- Reynolds, who notes that Ed is still training at night. And I'm so sure they'd leave the doors unlocked so any nutjob could wander in off the streets of Bayonne in the middle of the night, but I suppose that's not the point here, so Ed hops out of the ring and grandly notes that Reynolds not sleeping at night is still the one thing they have in common. Reynolds, however, tells Ed he gets kept up by his four-month-old baby, and Ed is obviously affected by the fact that Reynolds now has a family, but recovers to turn it around: "You just trying to be the daddy you always wanted. Ain't nothing wrong in that." It's Reynolds's turn to look stung, but he too recovers, telling Ed that he loves him, and when Ed returns the sentiment, you can hardly blame Patrick for butting in and asking Reynolds what he wants, as they're trying to work out. Reynolds asks if he can speak to Patrick for a moment, and after Patrick gives a look Ed's way, he heads outside with Reynolds, leaving Ed to look like he's knows what Reynolds is going to tell Patrick and isn't looking forward to it...
...and outside, Reynolds warns Patrick (seemingly sincerely) that Ed is nuts. "He can get you in the air, but he don't know shit about how to land." I agree that that second bit isn't to be underestimated. Reynolds goes on that Patrick doesn't want Ed messing with his head, and when Patrick responds with skepticism, Reynolds instructs him to ask him about Chicago...
...and inside, Ed is pacing with extreme prejudice when we hear the squeal of tires, and then Patrick reenters the gym. Ed asks what that was about, and Patrick tells him it's nothing to worry about, but Ed apparently reads Patrick better than anyone else on the show when he guesses that Reynolds told him about the night he fired Ed in Chicago. Patrick's face indicates something, but he doesn't clarify exactly what Reynolds told him; nevertheless, Ed decides to lay it all out and rolls up his sleeves to reveal matching vertical scars running from his wrists to his elbows, and man, I'm getting Ordinary People flashbacks here. I don't know how Ed could have survived this, really, as the rate of blood loss seems like it would have been insanely quick. Ed cuts into the thick silence by saying that he poured his soul into Reynolds and Reynolds broke his heart, and for him, the relationship he and Patrick have is life and death. "You're not down with that, you shouldn't even start." Patrick still says nothing, so Ed opines that they just won the fight, as Reynolds coming there indicates his fear. He suggests they get back to work, and when he walks away, the look on Patrick's face says that he thinks Ed, baggage and all, is just what he needs to get his title back. Whether or not that's true remains to be seen, but we'll find out together, and I gotta say, Eamonn Walker is a great addition to the cast, and the Patrick/Ed/Reynolds triangle is one of the more interesting things the show has going for it. See you week.
John Ramos is a writer and film producer living in Los Angeles. He writes about film and television on his blog "Pull Up A Chair," which he would just love for you to visit. Also, you can follow him on Twitter here, or get information about his most recent film "East Fifth Bliss," starring Michael C. Hall, Lucy Liu, and Peter Fonda, on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.