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Ray's father Mickey (Jon Voight, in a role that will not surprise you) has five kids total: A dead junkie chick, a leprechaun, a black guy, Ray, and Dash Mihok, who was molested as a kid* and is also (or, as the show seems to believe, therefore) an addict. Mickey's been in jail for twenty years, framed by Ray, and has just gotten out, five years early. The first thing he did was vow revenge on Ray, forming a secret connection with Ray's wife Abby, and then killed a priest, and then he did a bunch of drugs with hookers, and then he leered at a lady breastfeeding on a plane, and now he is in LA. He is the worst. Of all the dads you would never want to have, "Mickey Donovan" is top of the list, right above "Jon Voight."
The most imperiled brother's name is "Bunchy," and if you have a heart and eyeballs you love him the most, because it's Dash Mihok. He is a mess, but a loveable mess. The most interesting brother is Terry, who is a leprechaun with Parkinson's disease who mostly seems amazed that he is related to these other people. (I don't know how many of them were molested by priests, but it seems like most of them were based on how weird everybody is about everything all of the time.) They are the main ones, we don't really get to know the dead sister or the black brother right away, but at least the former seems to have a lot to do with Ray's mental problems.
Ray has all these mental problems, but they're noir and hard-boiled and very grown up, so I guess that's fine. "Noir and hard-boiled and very grown up" is a good way to describe the show itself, or at least how the show thinks it's doing. At one point, drunk, he hallucinates a framed portrait of Marilyn Monroe imploring him to both "save me" and "fuck me," a white knight/broken-doll motif that's already been explained even more explicitly (not to say laboriously) by several other characters. That kind of thing.
The main events, beyond Dad showing back up and fucking with everybody's whole life, are as follows: Ray is awakened by a call from a sports hero who fell asleep with a girl who was still doing blow, and when he woke up she was dead. At the same time he gets a call from his manager-esque lawyer Lee Drexler, who is a pretty big cunt, about how one of his action-star clients -- a Vin/Rock analogue played by, of all people, John from Cincinnati -- keeps getting caught with trans sex workers. So Ray switches the two narratives around, puts his assistant Katherine Moennig on it as JFC's handler, and voila: Instant heterosexuality for JFC and plausible deniability for the guy who actually fell asleep to this girl who died.
Then it's over to visit an extravagantly repellent Paramount executive, who has hired Ray to keep an eye on his barely legal girlfriend, an epileptic ex-Disney starlet whom Ray knows from a prior case. While spying on her, Ray notices a stalker -- he warns the girl, which activates all of her own stalker tendencies, daddy issues, and blowjobbing habits -- and dyes the guy Ferrigno green before, on a repeat offense, beating the shit out of him (maybe to death?). Did I mention that Ray is basically a cartoon antihero whose most complex feature is his total lack of complexity? It's kind of hot.
Then it's time for a quick sunny poolside memorial for Elliott Gould's wife. He's Ray's long-time mentor, where the gross Paramount executive gets his revenge on Ray by telling Abby about an affair he imagines to be taking place between Ray and the Disney girl. While he mostly talks his way out of that, when the girl turns up at Abby's yoga class -- and eventually in their living room -- it's a lot harder to explain. Mostly, I was looking forward to seeing Elliot Gould be charming and quick, but I suppose watching him slowly succumb to dementia could be super fun too. If they think of a totally hilarious way to do it, I mean.
But they won't. The show is so convinced of its profundity that half of the wittier lines -- and the show is smart -- don't even really land until they're long gone, because you get so used to the self-indulgent speechifying and bad-assery and lovingly detailed performances that you barely register what anybody's talking about. It's not even really a bad thing, although its easy reliance on tropes across the premium-cable spectrum comes off a little desperate at times. I try not to judge pilots too harshly, and there was enough -- between the actors and the hint of actual joy that slips out every now and then -- to bring me back week.
I guess if you're one of those delusional rich people that likes to talk about how shitty rich people are without realizing how oblivious you sound, this is probably a good show for you. Or if you like a show about poor Irish people acting like trashy douchebags in front of rich LA people and never actually getting how bad they look. All in all it's pretty negative and pretty toxic and doesn't have much to say about the way people actually are, but that's what makes everybody love Breaking Bad so goddamn much, so who am I to judge.
Week: Abby continues working against Ray's plan to keep Mickey out of their lives, another actor gets a stalker, and our action hero turns up on a sex tape. Presumably Abby will continue to bitch about real estate, prep schools, and Ray's emotional availability, since those seem to be literally the only topics she has any thoughts on, while Ray will most likely continue to see sexual abuse lurking around every corner, waiting for his kids, because that seems to be his main hobby. And Jon Voight thinks of something to do that is so gross you never even thought of it, probably.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Mickey Donovan went to jail for twenty years for murder. But it wasn't a murder he actually himself did, and it wasn't actually for twenty years: Turns out it only lasted fifteen, which is going to be a surprise for his son Ray Donovan, who I think engineered the framing of things in the first place. Mickey has done a lot more than just this one crime, and he is big trouble, but he's not all bad. (He might secretly be all bad.)
In that fifteen years, though, Ray has married a sort of harpy, had two kids, and gotten himself a mentor, an LA lawyer named Ezra Goodman who's recently ceded management largely to his partner, Lee Drexler. Ezra is played by Elliott Gould, so you know you are supposed to adore him; Lee Drexler is played by Taub from House and is therefore the worst human being the world has to offer. Either one of them considered alone would come off pretty crude -- counting their shekels and circumcising everybody all the time -- but if you put them together, they're not so offensive. Elliott Gould Effect.
Ray is a Hollywood fixer, with two fulltime direct-reports (Avi the Muscle, Lena the Lesbian) and an office where he barely ever goes. He moved his wife here from Southie to Calabasas -- as if California has any real concept of class anyway -- because they are both grossed out by where they came from, but surprise! They brought it with them.
They're still way more socially palatable than Ray's brothers, quiet Terry and hot junkie Bunchy, who own a boxing gym call the Fite Club, and are a Carson McCullers-type pair of interlocking physical and emotional problems. (They have another brother but Ray doesn't know that yet.) Bunchy is played by Benvolio, and Terry is played by I think an actual hobgoblin, like from Hogwarts. They are both adorable; it is a very good-looking family. Especially to have come out of Jon Voight's balls. (A man who already looks like a scrotum would, one assumes, have a scrotum that looks like two resentful scrotums, having a fight.)
Ray is having an affair with the white President of the United States, Fitzgerald Grant. Just kidding, no he isn't. But he does have a history of affair-having. He also has an apartment in town for when he needs to sleep off some of his extra testosterone/antiheroism, though, and it's decorated in Marilyn Monroe crap, because he's simultaneously unique and not very unique at all. He's got a thing for doomed dames, see; he's got a noir boner for broken dolls. (We know this because people actually say it in the dialogue, over and over, because Showtime shows are never quite as smart as they think they are.)
WALPOLE MASS
Mickey gets out of jail, is driven to a priest's cell, shoots the priest in the head. "How's it feel, you cocksucker? You like it?" One wonders if perhaps there is a story there.
CALABASAS
"Hooray for Hollywood" by Doris Day fades into any old rap music, which rouses Ray's wife Abby faster than it does Ray himself. Soon enough, he receives a call: Sports hero Deonte has awakened in bed with a dead girl, dry nosebleed like she just discovered dubstep.
Deonte: "I'm at the Caveat and I got a strange female in the bed with me..."
Ray: "Did you kill her?"
Deonte: "I didn't even fuck her! She was doing blow all night."
This is why I don't do anything or ever have any fun. The stakes are simply too high. Ray walks a terrified and squeamish Deonte through confirming that she isn't breathing, and right away you get a sense of both his patience with his clients and the roiling disgust he feels at all times about pretty much everything. Deonte says words like "dawg," a lot, because that's the kind of show this is.
Deonte: "I don't even know her, man! I met her last night. I don't do drugs! I'm an athlete!"
Ray: "Listen to me. Don't touch anything. Don't call anyone."
Deonte: "I just signed an $80M endorsement! TMZ was following me last night..."
He finally gets off the phone and calls Avi -- "Get over there and hold his hand and see what's what" -- and Lena, who is played by Katherine Moennig, who is like if sex were a person.
Ray: "Lena honey, get over to the office now. Deonte Brown's at the Caveat with a dead girl."
Lena: "Hate it when that happens."
DOWNSTAIRS
Bridget is wearing normal teen girl clothes, but Abby thinks it is too much. Abby wants her to go to Marlborough or Harvard-Westlake, so dressing like a Calabasas girl is not acceptable: You dress for the prep school you want, not the public school where you go.
Abby: "And in other news, she needs to assemble a family tree and interview everybody, including Bunchy and Terry."
Bridget: "Why didn't they have kids?"
Abby: "Well, Terry's got Parkinson's..."
Conor: "-- Does that mean we'll get it?"
Abby: "He may have gotten it from boxing, so no boxing."
Bridget: "And then Bunchy got raped, so."
Conor: "Wait, what?"
Bridget: "Touched up by a priest. It's why Dad's so obsessed with protecting our privates."
Ray: "I haven't even had my coffee yet?"
Bridget: "And why we don't go to church."
And perhaps why Mickey shot a priest in the face? If you're maybe guiltily drawing the lines between Southie, Irish, Catholics and molestation, have no fear: You are not overthinking this show.
Abby: "I noticed on your iPad you're doing a job for Stu Feldman*? He's on the board at Marlborough. It is basically all I'm going to talk about for the first two episodes of this show, so if you know what's good for you you'll make an effort."
They dance awkwardly to the neighbor's still-thumping rap music, in a way that less signifies how comfortable and affectionate they really are as a couple and how cute they are as a family, and is more like being hit over the head with a handmade posterboard sign that says "THIS IS THE PART WHERE THEY ARE CUTE AND THE KIDS ARE CUTE AND AREN'T THEY CUTE." The show is not subtle. Luckily, they got some great actors, everybody is wonderful to watch, so you don't really have to worry about if the show is good or not. The actors are good and the story gets good later, so the pilot-y nature of the pilot is less off-putting than it should be.
*(Stunningly awful, is Stu Feldman. The first sign that this show is operating on more levels than you think.)
THE CAVEAT
Giant Avi's vacuuming DNA off the bed when Ray calls him back; Lena's got a plant at TMZ that says so far they're good. They have a little ritual where he asks her to call Lee Drexler, and when she's got him she stays on the line. It makes more and more sense the more you get to know Lee Drexler, and how Ray and Lena operate: Drexler's going to bark out meaningless insults and instructions, and Lena's going to be dealing with half of them anyway.
What's more subtle is the notably chivalrous way Ray always speaks to Lena: It would be demeaning, if she weren't the most powerful and least femme-y person on the planet, but instead it's a sign of respect, of his need, for her competence; when he calls her "Doll" she's the only woman on earth where it doesn't mean anything beyond his affection.
Lee wants to know where they are with Tommy Wheeler, an action star who quote "has a $200M heterosexual movie coming out in a month, picks up a tranny on Sunset Boulevard." Lee's the kind of person that says "tranny" or this show is the kind of show that says "tranny," but it's one or the other. Ray promises to meet him at Lee's office when he can, but comes up with a plan that he -- and the show -- are quite tickled by.
DREXLER OFC
Lee: "...You know what this asshole just told me? That he was raised to help a woman. A woman. Women don't have cocks, you moron!"
Tommy: "It was the middle of the night, she ran out of gas..."
This stuff goes on for a while. The same week DOMA was finally struck down, this goes on for a while on a heavily marketed TV show. Spoiler alert, the good news is that the "tranny" in question, Chloe, is one of the most finely turned characters the show has to offer -- along with Tommy Wheeler himself, who is played by Austin Nichols and is therefore wonderful and mesmerizing -- so it works out, but only in practice. Doesn't make it less unearned, situated as it is among the black stereotypes and overwhelmingly shysty Jews everywhere and everybody getting raped by priests as their main thing.
Ray: "Let me handle this. Tommy, look at me. Tommy, listen to me. I have a way to get you out of this."
IN THE CAR
Ray: "Lena, call TMZ and leak that Tommy Wheeler is at the Caveat with a dead girl. Then get over there and represent him. You're his publicist, or you work for the studio, or... Just try to control the story."
Tommy: "Did I kill her?"
Ray: "No, she overdosed."
Tommy: "Whew!"
CAVEAT
Deonte: "Dawg thanks dawg. I have to take my wife to breakfast at the Ivy."
Ray: "No, bring her here and then the story is always that you came with your wife."
Avi: "Take some of this nosebleed blood and rub it on your dick."
Tommy: "That seems reasonable to me."
Outside Lena is amazing, working whatever Uta Hagen sense-memory backstory she has created for herself as Tommy's vague representative: "I can confirm Tommy Wheeler is in the hotel, that's all I can tell you at this point." As silly as I think the whole switcheroo is, given the John Irving Twist weight the show seems to give it, I do like this idea of "controlling the story" as a way of controlling the story. Like it doesn't really matter what happened, as long as she activates the immune reaction in the paparazzi of what they will assume happened, by never saying anything at all. That's pretty hot.
DREXLER OFC
Lee: "So we put him in Voyages. Suck one cock, you're a cocksucker for life. Get caught with a dead girl? Admit to a drug problem, go to rehab, no problem. Isn't straight privilege a funny thing I don't really understand?"
Ray: "I don't want to deal with Stu Feldman, I want to see Ezra."
Lee: "My partner is fine, he's grieving. You can see him tomorrow at the service."
Ray: "How about please don't ever tell me what to do?"
Lee looks away, because Ray is huge and menacing and that's subtly about as scary as he gets, and right back to the tranny talk. It's interesting though the way that you can already tell that Ray really, really wants to be with Ezra and Lee really, really enjoys being in the middle of it. He leverages everything, Lee Drexler, to make himself feel good about himself. Which is a losing proposition because he sucks, so that will never work out; but also that maybe Lee just doesn't have the capacity to understand how much Ray loves Ezra, both because he doesn't understand love (vide Tommy Wheeler) but also because the how and why of Ray loving Ezra is a complicated thing, with both upsides and downsides, and because his real dad Mickey's a disappointment and a bitter enemy.
STU FELDMAN
Is jittery like a motherfucker, maybe not even on illegal regular drugs but on strange B-cocktail injections and smoothies with ingredients that the FDA has never heard of. He has a hand-sanitizer dispenser to his front door; he wears his polos too small and keeps crossing and uncrossing his legs and nodding at nothing.
Paramount exec. I don't know if I even needed to say that. Like, look at this:
Stu: "I've been seeing this chick! I want you to follow her, see if she's fucking around on me. I'm married, Lee told you that, right? You think I'm a scumbag, right? Married, but I'm fucking around with this chick? Lee said you're the best in town. I love my wife but this chick has her claws in me. My wife doesn't want to have sex with me anymore, I don't feel good about myself. You ever do growth hormone? [Nailed it.] This bracelet is not Kabbalah, it's there to remind me it's the hand of taking, you know? It should be the hand of giving, you know? I want to give more. I don't want her to know that I'm having her followed, she has trust issues. She was one of those Disney kids, parents stole all her money. Now she's a singer. Like Britney. All right, good good good! You don't talk a lot. I like that. I'm gonna start doing that. Makes you very mysterious. I think I give away my power too much."
Isn't that horrible? What a beautiful monologue of how horrible he is. And of course Ray just staring at him -- not judging, mind unblown -- gives us more about Ray than a whole hour of him dancing around the kitchen with his wife like a couple of queers, because I don't know about you but I couldn't make it through five minutes with Stu Feldman. It's partially the acting but also just the portrait of this dude is so specific and on-target and scary that you end up hoping he is actually some kind of evil mastermind just so you can pretend guys like this don't outnumber us all.
SNAP
Is a real thing, a support group for men who were assaulted by priests? Is that funny? No it is not. This show has a different idea about that. Anyway, Bunchy has had a slip and as a result has gone to a meeting, so their other brother Terry has called Ray to deal with it. After a few tiny monologues of these men's experiences, Bunchy gets a call from Ray and we learn why he had the slip: He just won a $1.4M settlement in his case, and it turns out this has not solved his problems. Ray offers to come get him, but Bunchy is going to be drinking for a while yet.
ASHLEY'S HOUSE
Avi waits on the street in front while Ray assesses the situation at Ashley's house. She's the Disney kid that is dating Stu Feldman, and she's doing yoga on the back patio of her beautiful beach house, and the first thing that happens is Ray catches a man masturbating to this. He gets away, but Avi takes down his plates for later; Ray can't leave it alone, he can't just do his job this time, so he goes to the front door. Turns out Ashley knows Ray Donovan from before. (Another thing with this show is that everybody knows him, so a lot of scenarios that are at first stressful become slightly less stressful once they recognize him.)
Ray: "Do you always open the door without asking who it is like that?"
Ashley: "Sure, when it's you."
She invites him in and they reminisce about how he helped her with her parental stuff back when she was sixteen. She is very beautiful and obviously a very huge mess.
Ashley: "I ever thank you?"
Ray: "You certainly tried. Listen, you have a stalker..."
She doesn't buy it at first, but as he goes from room to room checking windows and doors, she starts getting anxious. It's only a few minutes before she realizes he's there on a job, working for Stu Feldman.
Ashley: "It's Stu, isn't it? He hired you to spy on me? That fucking asshole! He's married, did you know that? What does he want from me?"
Ray: "[No answer necessary.]"
Ashley: "Please, I've had guys jerking off to me since I was fifteen. Not you, though."
Ray: "I'm only telling you think because I don't want you to get hurt. Now about this stalker, there are things we can do to mitigate it..."
Ashley: "Ugh, 'mitigate' it? I don't want another dog, my last dog died of cancer! I can't handle this right now!"
Bunchy gets into a bar fight, because that is obviously what is going to happen. Ray's violence comes with the job, Terry's violence goes into his business. Bunchy's violence just lives inside him, all the time.
Ashley: "How come we never had a thing? And don't say I'm not your type. Of course I'm your type. Both because I'm everybody's type and because it's written all over your face."
"You fall in love easily. All the little lost dolls..."
In short order things have gotten steamy. Ray carries her halfway to the bedroom and then, her legs around his waist, kisses her against the wall. Her moans turn to groans and suddenly she has lost consciousness. It is a scary moment.
A few minutes later she comes around, blushing on the couch.
Ashley: "Oh my God! I'm so embarrassed. I have epilepsy and I'm not supposed to drink, the sugar fucks me up..."
Ray: (Doesn't speak, doesn't judge.)
Ashley: "What the fuck am I doing? Why am I seeing Stu? He's a terrible person. God, I'm so fucked up..."
This last said almost with eyes looking through her hands, to see if it's working. The magic spell that makes you irresistible to a certain kind of person.
Ray: "Look, you're gonna be fine. Stop opening the door to strangers. Get a dog, not a gun, because they will use the gun on you and not the other way around. Get a security system. Get your shit together."
Ashley: "I really need yoga right now."
Ray: "My wife does yoga."
Ashley, intensely: "Where does she go!?"
It seems like an LA moment, like that you would snap her out of this by suggesting a secret yoga studio that is better or more exclusive or more real than all others; there's a tinge of madness though to everything that Ashley does where you hope he doesn't tell her, for some reason. But he does.
Ashley: "Can I see you again?"
Ray: "Just let me do my job and take care of you. Deal with this stalker guy."
Ashley: "Okay, I love you!"
Ray: "Um. Anyway, keep your doors locked, and no more yoga on the deck."
Ashley: "Yes, Daddy!"
She is like alternating current, back and forth between a person and a flailing, flaming collection of id and banal neuroses. It's mesmerizing, and she knows it; she doesn't really know it.
Ray: "Don't worry. You're in the solution now."
Ashley: "I remember that. I love it! ...What does it mean?"
It means everything is a trap, even safety. It means whatever her last problem was is over and her new problem has begun. It's a horse-whispering, meaningless sentiment with just enough truth in it to keep them hoping. "You are in the solution now." It holds forth the possibility of happiness, the idea that suffering is temporary; it is a lie, and he knows it. But it's the best thing to say when they're like this.
FITE CLUB
Ray has no trouble getting Bunchy out -- he's Ray Donovan, he doesn't even need to pay bail or anything, to get the charges dropped -- and when he gets to the club Bunchy is so ashamed he can't even look him in the eye. Ray is very funny about being touched, of course, and it's an ongoing part of his physicality in almost every scene about what kind of touching is okay and what kind is not.
In this boxing gym, though -- even here, where bodies are explained away and regulated -- he has to demand several times that Bunchy walk across the room and put himself in Ray's arms before he believes it, before he does it. Their bodies explain to you that this is a big deal; that it's a show of kindness that isn't a show and only exists to give you (and Bunchy) the narrative of how much Ray loves his brothers, and how much Ray and Terry both need Bunchy to survive. I don't know how you could stop hugging Bunchy once you started.
Bunchy: "I was sober ten months, three days until this."
Ray: "I know."
Terry: "Um, there's another thing... You remember Dad's girlfriend Claudette? They had a kid, before he went to Walpole."
Ray: "How fucking long have you known this?"
Terry: "A long time. He's grown, his name's Daryll..."
Hearing his name, Daryll walks into the room and Ray flips out. He jets backwards out of the hug Daryll's bringing to the table, and both the other brothers immediately warn Daryll about trying to touch him. The backstory is that after she was in jail for bad checks, she ended up bringing Daryll with her out to California, so the boys have known about their fourth brother for about ten years: Since before Ray moved them from Boston, and Terry bought his gym. Mickey wanted them to get to know Daryll, but they all knew Ray couldn't handle that; half of this show is Ray and Mickey trying to figure out how they can both be the dad at the same time without killing each other. (They cannot!)
Ray: "The same man who threw rocks during the Boston thing, screaming Niggers go home? Is this a joke?"
Terry: "Not a funny one. The only reason we're telling you know is that Mickey got out. He made parole, five years early."
Ray's very busy -- but not atypical -- day goes from bad to worse. For somebody whose life and livelihood depend on knowing everything before everybody else, to find out the brothers he's been taking care of for fifteen years have been keeping all this from him is only slightly less awful than finding out Mickey's on his way to town.
BUT FIRST
Mickey does a lot of drugs and fucks a hooker, because say what you will but the man does have a set of priorities. He lives by certain rules. He is into the asses of black ladies, that's a pattern you'll pick up on as we continue getting to know Mickey. Black lady butts are way up there for him personally.
BOB'S HOUSE
When Ashley's stalker gets home, it's to a friendly Ray Donovan sitting in his living room with two eponymous things in his lap.
Ray: "The bag or the bat, Bob?"
Bob: "The bag?"
Cut to Bob weeping in the bathtub, several boxes of green Rit dye in the water turning every bit of him Hulk green. I don't know how comfortable or safe that is, I'm guessing the water is probably pretty cold, but I think we can say -- and Bob would agree -- that he chose correctly. Ray does not have a huge amount of sympathy for his plight, though.
Ray: "Stop crying. You're streaking the dye. Stand up. Cup your fucking genitals, I don't want to look at that shit. It's over. No restraining orders, no seeing her in court, none of that. You come near her again, I'll kill you. Do you understand me?"
Ray hands him a towel, at last, and leaves. Tommy Wheeler called his sexuality an "addiction" and there is a lot of talk in this show and this episode about addictions, but I think maybe Ray has a better handle on stalkers than might easily be assumed, because if you look at Bob as an addict then he's saying not one but two things: One, that he has covered all the exits and Bob's addiction has no options for release anymore, and Two -- which proceeds directly from number one if you think about it -- that he will eventually be killing Bob, probably by the end of this episode. Green, sobbing, soon-to-be-dead Bob. There are a million humiliations in the naked city, even for those of us who remember to cup our genitals.
BACK HOME
Abby: "[Small list of things not having to do with prep school or real estate] followed by [the lion's share of what she likes to talk about, prep school and real estate]."
Ray: "I did not mention Marlborough to Stu Feldman during our meeting, because he was making me want to vomit, and then I nearly fucked his child girlfriend. Also, Bunchy fell off the wagon and Terry sprung a brother and a father on me. And here my life was going so well."
Abby: "[Bitching, always.]"
Ray: "Please quit it."
Abby: "Calabasas is the Jersey Shore of Los Angeles!"
Ray: "And you are the Carmela of Showtime. Please, please stop shrieking."
Abby: "Why so sad? Is it because your mentor's wife is dead and he's in mourning and also, as it turns out, losing his fucking mind?"
Ray: "That is actually why I am sad, yes. Also because you are a harridan."
IN BED
Ray: "Ezra brought me out here. If it weren't for him -- and Lee, begrudgingly -- we wouldn't be here, or have all this. He's the most important person in my life right now."
Abby: "[Bitching, always; this time about that.]"
Ray, verbatim: "Shut the fuck up."
They both laugh. She does not reflect well on him. And it's a bummer because I loved her so much on Caprica and then you come to just dread whenever she shows up here. But spoiler again: She gets her moment in a couple episodes, and you realize the whole thing -- her social climbing, her Southie self-hatred, her distrust and grudging affection for Ray, even her desire to connect with Mickey -- is totally worthwhile, way bigger than this cartoon bitch in the pilot and actually pretty compelling, and then she's a lot easier to take. Her internal life is more interesting than almost anybody else's, except maybe Terry or Ray, and again: Focus on the acting, because it's by far the thing this show has going for it. The show could be five times as dumb as it is and that would still make it worth watching.
THE FUNERAL
Lee: "Welcome to the funeral for the wife of a person we are constantly in competition for. Allow me to quickly make fun of your living in Calabasas, home to people like Sinbad and Howie Mandel. Maybe this pilot was written six years ago and that's why it's like this."
We finally get to meet Ezra Goodman, who in addition to his surname is also played by Elliott Gould, which is kind of all you need to know. I mean, not to say that Elliott Gould isn't a fine actor, give me a break of course he is, but you don't fuck around casting Elliott Gould. He's like the old-man version of Jennifer Lawrence: Not liking him means you only have to meet one other criterion before being diagnosed with a personality disorder. Sometimes it's okay to be a joiner, you don't have to be special all the time.
To Abby: "I love you, Ruthie loved you."
To Ray: "We've done bad things, Ray. I've asked you to fix things that should never have been fixed. Terrible things. I'm going to come clean on all of the things we've done. Ruth would want that."
This is the part where Ray figures out that Ezra Goodman is losing his shit. There are two clichés that I hate when they're true, and they are always true: The first is that when a man has a son, his father's warranty runs out. And the second is that by this age, when your father's wife dies he loses his grip and becomes an old person instantly. Goes dotty. You've seen this a million times, we all have. It is bullshit, but it is a fact.
Before Ray can plum the damage and deal with this new problem of his life coming apart, though, Ezra's mistress shows up played by Tasha Yar from Star Trek. He screams and yells and it's ugly, but not hugely wrong of him. In fact it is a shanda that she would show up at the wife's funeral, he's not wrong. But it also is one that he loses his composure at this time. Abby snags her and drags her off.
Out in front, the cameras are all over a guy named Shawn on a motorcycle, when another man approaches Ray to bitch about how Mickey made parole, and that he better not be coming to LA. Cut to Mickey on a plane to LA, horribly winking at a breastfeeding mother to the point where she nearly dies of the horror.
The mistress explains to Ray that Ezra invited her, then threw her out, then called her to come back because he's lonely. And not only that addled behavior, but apparently the Yiddish is something new too. They laugh, but they both know what's coming. Ezra interrupts them with more Yiddish, tells her not to move the furniture around, and then bitches about Lee, who left but promised to come back and sit shiva tomorrow.
"You know what he sent out last year for Christmas? Fake hand grenades with a note that said We go to war for you."
Ray: "...My father's coming."
Ezra: "Fuck. Why?"
Ray: "Don't know."
Ezra: "No lie lives forever Raymond. It's time to pay the piper."
Ray: "Again with the disclosure argument."
Ezra, thoughtfully: "Oh! Why don't we kill him?"
BACK HOME
Abby left the funeral to go to yoga, where she made a brand-new friend. Guess who?
Ray: "She can't drink, she's epileptic! Put that shit down!"
Abby: "Uh, how do you know each other?"
Ashley: "He worked on a case for my ex-boyfriend. Stu Feldman."
Abby: "Did he happen to mention Marlborough?"
Ray offers to drive Ashley home, since Abby's got a drink in her hand, and after a stern talking-to about "stop stalking me" and "please don't infiltrate my marriage," she gives him road head. It is very classy, everybody's behavior is very healthy today.
THAT NIGHT
Ray goes to his LA apartment, because Abby has put two and two together and come up with five, but also she's right: This somehow was a trespass. He didn't ever get around to fucking her, and nothing had happened at the time Abby got pissed, but somehow between then and now he got a blowjob, so she's right by being wrong. A theme for old Abby, who's got a handle on Occam's Razor that puts the lie to a lot of Ray's plausible deniability stuff.
Which again starts out making her very annoying -- because he's the star of the show and we see how hard he is trying all the time -- but ends up making her a safe place for you, the viewer, because (as per Ezra) no lie lives forever: Having one character just constantly calling bullshit makes this bullshit-filled world a much safer place to explore. I think also for him; I think having one other Southie there that owes him nothing but her honesty makes LA a livable universe.
Ray: "Avi, please make sure somebody claims that girl's body from the hotel this morning. I don't want her just sitting there, alone."
Ashley: "I can't stop thinking about you..."
Ray: "Try."
It's interesting because her whole deal is that she has been an object for so long she doesn't understand how much power there is in it: She thinks she's just a doll, so that's what she is. Which is a shame but nothing new. And now this thing, this stalker-reversal where she's coming after his life, is really just the same as any old stalker that ever jerked off to her: A place to put her loneliness and her dad and her missing childhood and the fact that we are never, ever safe, but there's a man who promises you that you are safe and that you are in the solution. Not one of these things, I think, outweighed by any other.
When every man in the world is a monster that treats you like a sex doll, except this one guy will barely even let you suck his dick, that's attractive in a lot of very real, pretty respectable ways. The fact of him defending his marriage makes him more attractive, not less, because that stability is what she wants to osmose out of him. It's not a new story, but in a story about a town where everybody spends all their time and money and effort and talent turning everybody else into dolls and trying to keep that way, it's a fresh look for it. That you could get so caught in the trap that even just being able to breathe for a second becomes sexualized.
He pours a drink and then the framed Marilyn Monroe picture on the wall starts talking to him, and it's kind of mortifying because now somebody has said this thing -- which honestly needed to be said zero times -- about a hundred times: "Fuck me, Ray. Save me, Ray!" I mean, deal with that. Marilyn Monroe and lost dolls. Ray is in the solution but it's going to take his entire life and probably never get done: Quick druggie-drunk bit of a priest doing Mass, and then a girl jumping off a roof.
There was a sister, long ago, but she's not with us anymore. She jumped. So maybe it's not so much that Bunchy got molested -- and this ruined his life and you can see it all over him and sexual assault is a stigma that never goes away and whatever other shitty implication -- and more that at least two of them did, and not all of them survived. Which makes Bunchy not just the family's donkey, but their pack mule as well.
What does it do to Ray, though? There's not a great way to connect those dots. If your childhood is defined by exploitation (c.v. also Ashley), probably Los Angeles is not a great place to go to get healed. Do you go to the dungeon to find out how to make peace with your days in the dungeon? Are you in the solution, when every part of you and now your whole family continues soaking in it? Is this whole thing an elaborate exorcism? If he solves every problem for every lost and broken doll in LA, will Bunchy finally be okay? Who fixes the fixer? Does even just wanting this make him the sickest one of all?
BACK HOME
When Ray gets home in the morning, Abby finds a way to be pissy even though she told him not to come home, and even when he answers her that he didn't ever sleep with Ashley, which is technically true. Conor's got a black eye, because he is a Donovan and violence is in his blood.
Abby: "Lee is having people over, including Stu Feldman. You can ask him about Marlborough."
Ray: "Oh my God, fine. Also, my father randomly made parole."
Abby: "Jesus, Ray. Is that why you're acting like such an asshole?"
Ray: "It's one reason. Another one is that you are a nag who says things like that. Thanks for your sympathy."
Abby: "Is she ... hung up on you? Did she try to make friends with me because of that?"
Ray: "No, it's because you're so fucking fun to be around. Oh, and I have a black brother named Daryll now. I think that's everything currently going on."
Abby: "That is insane!"
Ray: "I know."
They laugh about it, the insanity, but it's nice to see the places they connect.
DREXLER POOL PARTY
Lee: "You guys want a bellini?"
Abby: "How classy! Let's talk about it."
Lee: "Did you really tell Stu Feldman's girl he's spying on her? Do you not understand that's the opposite of your job?"
Ray: "But she had a real live stalker! It was not my call!"
Lee: "Your only moral responsibility is to do your fucking job..."
Ezra's down in his white suit, wandering in the surf. It is so very sad for Ray to watch this happen, as Lee goes down to try and get his attention, get him back up to the house. It's very sad, period. Ray notices Tommy Wheeler impressing the hell out of Conor in the pool. It's only scary because Ray is scared, about several things; there's no need to connect Tommy's problems to the molestation stuff.
Here's a handy rule of thumb: Homosexual men are into men, heterosexual men are into women, pedophiles are into neither. There are all kinds of problems in the world, but you'll find they're usually symptoms and not causes: Whichever way Tommy's toothpaste is coming out the wrong end of the tube, it's not about kids. That's just Ray being gross.
Abby: "I'm Abby Donovan!"
Stu: "Great to meet you!"
Abby: "I am going to talk to you now about Marlborough. You'll come to find it's all I ever, ever talk about."
Tommy: "Hey, Ray!"
Ray: "Tommy, go back to rehab. Conor, get the fuck out of that pool with Tommy."
Everybody: "Why?"
Ray: "Obscurely enough, because my sister committed suicide. Just do it."
Abby: "That's my daughter Bridget! She's beautiful, smart as hell, and very funny."
Stu: "She is all those things. That's why it's such a shame."
Abby: "What is a shame?"
Stu: "That I'm blacklisting her from every LA prep school."
Abby: "That is not how I saw this conversation going!"
Stu: "I am under the impression that your husband fucked my girlfriend."
Abby: "Oh. Right. Me too, I think. But go fuck yourself anyways."
There's something sprightly and menacing about his nastiness. He's just so awfully watchable. Ray sees this go down and then literally chases Stu through the house, eventually snapping his wrist in the corner pocket of a pool table. I would assume they don't stay terribly long after this moment.
BACK HOME
Bridget's still doing her family tree project; she sees him focus in on the sister.
Bridget: "So my aunt, my namesake. How did she die?"
Ray: "She was high on drugs. Jumped off a roof."
Bridget: "Well, that is just awful, Daddy. I am sorry to hear it."
Ray: "I miss her, she was really funny. She could make Bunchy piss his pants..."
His voice goes quiet, and safe, enough that she lets go and starts to cry. It's for Bridget, but for Bridget too: When your teenage daughter gets around this age it's time to make sure she's not carrying everybody else's burdens. Brokenness, lies, are like a dog whistle that teenage girls are exceptional at hearing. She is in the solution but she doesn't know it.
Abby: "I'm hiring a realtor."
Ray: "Because of that girl? Whatever, I knew her when she was a kid. Does it honestly surprise you that sometimes the women I protect get confused about our relationship?"
Abby: "And yet."
Ray: "Look, she's not important. But you know what is? What I'm about to tell you, which is the central thing we have to focus on right now as a family. You cannot let Mickey Donovan near us. He is going to come through you because women are the key to him, and they know it. You must not let him. Our family, our lives, will end."
Abby: "But..."
Ray: "Whatever you think happened back then, it was ten times worse. You cannot let the wolf in the gate. Has he reached out to you?"
Abby: "You're sick, Ray. You got a hole in your heart."
Not untrue. But the truth behind that is, you spent this entire episode trying to get your husband to need something from you, or to give you something, which is the same thing. And now that he has asked in no uncertain terms for something -- while saying without saying it every reason you need to know, for why -- you are going to shit it up. You are going to say this is because you know better, or because he deserves to be happier, that we are in the solution, but that's nothing like the truth: This is a power play.
And the reason for that is, the wolf is already in the gate. She's been holding onto this little secret for years now, her friendship with Mickey Donovan. She's been like Gollum with his Precious, just loving that she got to know Ray's dad when even Ray doesn't know his dad. The devil's daughter, in collusion with dark magic older than time.
It's one of the oldest tropes, it goes back before even noir, older than America: The woman in possession of your heart shares a secret with the Devil (Marceline knew Simon before he was the Ice King, off the top of my head, but it's everywhere all the time: Where there's a high-powered, dark senex, you're going to find an anima imbalance somewhere nearby. Jonathan Harker is only as interesting as the relationship between Mina and Count Dracula. Penny's dad could only ever be Charles Widmore. Faith's power over Buffy comes partly from the fact that Buffy could never love the Mayor, much less become his daughter. If the character didn't need to stay alive for the length of the story, Skyler would have somehow ended up in collusion with Gus Fring. Etc.) and it will always be a part of the story, because men are born fearing only two things: Their fathers, and women. The two kinds of people who know the secret they're scared they're never going to figure out.
FITE CLUB
Bunchy's reading a book when Ray gets to the gym: If the Man You Love Was Abused. "You haven't been on a date in ten years," he jokes, but Bunchy is sincere and earnest and in the solution.
Bunchy: "You know they got a name for it? I'm a sexual anorexic."
The mood shifts, the temperature changes, and the employees start gathering -- the main guy, Terry's second-in-command, is named Potato Pie but I don't know if we learn that this week, he's an older black gentleman because this is a boxing gym -- and suddenly Daryll is there and Ray figures out who's on the wind.
Terry: "Just go easy on him Ray, he wants to make amends..."
Mickey makes his interest with some rape jokes at Bunchy's expense -- a motif, with old Mickey -- and Ray thinks about starting with violence.
Ray: "What are you doing here, Mick."
Mickey: "Me? Last time I saw you I was the one going to Hollywood. You set me up, motherfucker. Big shot. But now, look. It's great, all my boys are together, everyone's great..."
Ray: "Everybody? Bridget's dead, Terry's shaking like a fucking leaf, Bunchy can't stay sober more than a month. That's your legacy, Mick."
Mickey: "Okay, big shot. If Claudette won't take me back, I want you to hook me up. Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno, Diahann Carroll. And hey, I took that priest out. It's possible there will be some Da Vinci Code type motherfuckers after me."
Ray laughs at him, because it sounds nutty and deluded, but don't you kind of hope that's true? Ray offers to sell him out immediately, if necessary, and Mickey starts asking after the grandkids. That's when the violence starts, and it takes all three of his brothers to hold him back.
LATER
Ashley is surprised by a bright-green Bob, masturbating on her deck, and we cut to Ray beating him (to death?) in his apartment. Which, I thought earlier but can now confirm, is wallpapered in pictures of her, pictures everywhere of Ashley. Not just now, but going back to when she was young.
And back home, Mickey's just arrived to see his old friend Abby Donovan, and meet her and the kids for the first time. He never knew how beautiful she was, the whole time he was writing her those letters, when they were getting so close. When the wolf was at the gate.
Mickey: "I'm an old man, I need to make it right. He hates me, Abby. Why I don't know."
She sighs and lets him in. Into the solution.
WEEK
Ray cleans up Tommy's messes while he's in rehab; Mickey shows Abby and the kids -- and us -- a softer side. Everybody gets more interesting and more complicated, except for Stu and Lee who are just 100 percent garbage people from here on out.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Killing, Pretty Little Liars, Ray Donovan, Mistresses, True Blood, and Defiance for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.