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Abby's pretty stressed out by Mickey's continued presence, but as a passive-aggressive way of getting back at Ray for spending too many nights in LA, it has its advantages. Irritated by Ray's busy schedule, Abby decides to take Mickey and the kids to Malibu, then to the Donovan Fite Club -- a whole day for the entire family (minus Ray) to get closer and closer. Over the course of the afternoon, Mickey gets to dole out excellent sexual advice to young Conor, form a strong funny bond with Bridget, and work his way right into Abby's heart.
And, frankly, show a nuanced portrait of a man who is very interested in rebuilding some kind of life after twenty years along, but then that's the rub: What Ray believes – and what nobody else will -- is that this is all somehow a massive conspiracy to fuck with him. Not that he's wrong, just that there might be more to it: When Sean Walker (Johnathon Schaech), an actor tied to the original murder that sent Mickey away, gets a midnight visit from poor Other Brother Darryl.
Elliott Gould's Ezra Goodman gets to show more charming sides to himself this week in a spell of lucidity, but we're still left wondering what it is, exactly, between him and Ray in the first place: They don't seem to speak the same language, regardless of this rich history they keep talking about. Anyway, in response to these offenses, Ray lets Avi talk him down from shooting the bastard himself to merely sending back a message literally stapled to Darryl's chest.
It's not all bummers this week, however: Action Tommy's in rehab when he receives a blackmail video of himself going down on the charismatically ratchet Chloe, for whom his feelings are a bit stronger than he first let on. Eventually Ray must intervene in the scheme, so he tapes the girl's confession and roughs her up at home... and then, in his Ray Donovan fashion, uses the sex tape to extort enough money out of that horrible Stu Feldman to pay for Chloe's sexual reassignment, without Tommy (or Lee Drexler) being any wiser. And that's nothing compared to the joy that spreads across Ray's face when he confirms the identity of the priest Mickey murdered.
Did you like it? I think I liked it a little more. You could barely see Austin Nichols's face last week, so it was hard to get a line on what was going on with him, but this well-meaning, occasionally cocksucking schlemiel we saw this week seems pretty LA-realistic. Abby's pinched mean affect got to spread out and be beautiful for a lot of the episode, now that she is talking about other things besides real estate and prep school. Things between the brothers are going from "complicated" to "overwhelming," as Mickey supplants Ray's authority role... and best of all, Lena got to leave the office and interact with other actors, which -- considering Katherine Moennig is pretty much entirely famous for generating nuclear chemistry with everyone she comes into contact with -- seems like probably a good idea.
Week: Mickey works his magic on Bunchy and Terry, and I guess retaliates for the attack on Darryl, and maybe strikes a deal with the FBI. Ray involves himself in the urban music demographic of Calabasas, which should go off great. Ezra holds a fundraiser for his dead wife, but seems like he's still pretty obsessed with his whole moronic full-disclosure idea.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Mickey Donovan got out of jail early, screwing up several of Ray's plans, and killed a priest. Tommy Wheeler went into rehab as a PR move to deflect from his sexuality he's still working out. Ex-Disney star Ashley Rucker has a penchant for old guys and doing yoga on her deck, both of which hobbies have vastly complicated Ray's relationships with his wife. Mickey has a fourth son, Daryll, who everybody but Ray knew about. And worst of all, Abby has been in contact with her father-in-law for some time now, meaning that when he comes knocking, she'll let him in -- just at the time when Ray's spending his nights at his other apartment with no way of knowing about this.
AM
Ray wakes up at his other apartment after a long night of drinking and weird Marilyn Monroe hallucinations, still with blood on his beautifully tailored shirt from beating (to death?) Ashley's green-painted masturbating stalker.
Abby is also waking up, back home. Everybody is even grimmer and bleaker than usual. Downstairs, Mickey has lost no time making a mess of things. One wonders if he'll ever get over feeling his post-jail oats and calm down: It's entirely possible that this is just how Mickey rolls. Abby wonders briefly if maybe Ray was telling the truth about the total trainwreck his father represents.
Ray gets Lena to check out the Boston scene, to see if maybe Mickey was right and the Da Vinci Code is actually after him for murdering a priest. She doesn't ask questions, which is just one of the many things he likes about her.
Out on the Donovan deck, Mickey is teaching Conor profane doggerel about smashing birds to death, which Conor thinks is just great. Abby is unable to deal with anything, and just sort of mutely watches Mickey run the shit: Making scrambled eggs, saying weird poems, bugging her about Ray's whereabouts, and the constant chatter. She battles her hangover and attempts in vain to be magnanimous about Mickey overtaking their home. Conor nearly starts crying when she tells him they can't take off school to run around being weird with Grandpa, but she's just too exhausted to deal.
FITE CLUB
Nurse Frances, the absolutely tip-top lovely lady played by our beloved Brooke Smith, does home visits to tend to Terry's Parkinson's. She has a deft hand and a friendly way about her, but Terry is so used to being down on himself that he doesn't even notice she's into him. Shirtless, Terry the boxing trainer seems much less like the quiet sweet underdog one, and more like he carries all that Donovan violence inside his strength like a bomb. His body is beautiful and poised, like a ball of rubber bands ready to explode; Ray can't even get him to answer Frances's banter. He is ashamed of the wrong things: Ray thinks he's adorable, they both do. He is.
DONOVAN HOUSE
Abby can't even process Ray's call -- "I wasn't with that girl, Abs" -- because to speak out loud would activate the obnoxiousness of Mickey, who won't stop asking about Ray. They agree to talk later, but she just keeps saying she has to take the kids to school.
It's a little bit sad because part of the clock ticking over Ray's head is about solving the Mickey problem before it touches their home, his wife, their kids. And the whole time he's right there, grinning with his eggs, and Abby knows that would set Ray off, for good reason or not, so he is just there, on the phone, looking foolish as he tries to pretend he really does want to heal things with Abby right now, today, rather than just checking her off the list of problems to fix.
Once she's rid of her husband, Abby tries to get Mickey a cab back to the club, but everything is moving both too fast and too slow for ol' Abby today. Every time Mickey says Bridget's name, ghosts appear in the room and vanish again.
Finally, too paranoid about Ray finding out about Mickey and getting distracted from their marriage problems to wait for the cab, Abby puts Mickey in the car too. She carries a lot on her back that you can't see, and one of the things about starting so in the middle of things is that you don't at first get a real sense of how strange these last couple days have been: He doesn't spend every night with Marilyn, they don't wake up every morning with sad hangovers. There's a whole level to Abby's harried life today that you can only appreciate in hindsight.
FITE CLUB
Terry: "...Because she's out of my league, that's why."
Ray: "I know the things women are saying when they aren't saying them, so trust me, but also she literally said you had 'great guns,' like, why would she talk about your..."
Terry: "Is it not totally part of her job description to make me feel like my body is a wonderland? Don't be naïve."
Ray: "What's naïve is thinking that anybody is that nice without wanting something. In this case, she wants something nice. But either way, people don't go out of their way. Selfishness is a plus, when you just assume it, because it makes everything mean more."
Outside, Bunchy is all fucked up. He's been fucked up since the settlement; he'll continue to be fucked up long after the check is cut and cleared and spent.
Ray: "The minute he's back, you start up again?"
Bunchy: "You may recall I started before that. Not all of our issues are as focused on him as you've decided yours are. Give him a chance."
Ray: "You don't have a fucking clue. Terry, please just watch him today."
Lena puts Lee Drexel on, and Ray immediately hangs up on him again because he starts by screaming. It's pretty funny; we know Ray just enough to know that this tickles him to do this.
FAMILY CAR
Mickey: "I have often wanted to see the Pacific Ocean. I dreamed about it in prison! Describe it to me."
Bridget: "Not blue like the Caribbean, but perfect nonetheless."
Conor: "How about I don't tell Dad you're harboring his father, if we take off school today."
Abby: "You're just straight-up blackmailing people now? Very Donovan of you."
Bridget: "Meaning, of course, that you're just like our father who blackmails people as his job."
Abby: "Bridget! Don't say true things!"
Mickey: "Everybody be nice to everybody else. This is parenting. This is living."
DREXEL
Lee: "So you broke Stu Feldman's hand? At my house?"
Ray: "Yeah. It was awesome."
Lee: "He's a huge client. Please go give him a blowjob. All I talk about is blowjobs."
Ezra: "I'm here to act weird and old and crazy now."
Lee: "Go sit shiva, baby. We have blowjobs and blackmail to handle."
Ezra: "A client is in danger!"
Lee: "Uh, a secret one? Because we have actual non-imaginary crises on the table. Such as, you are losing your mind."
Ray: "Come on, Ezra. Let's go deal with this secret client, who is not imaginary."
The situation is that somebody has "breached the security" of a film star we work for, Sean Walker (Johnathon Schaech, who never met a role too weird for him to at least attempt), which has caused Sean to lose it impressively. Lee figures out almost instantly that that's where they're going -- and they hang up on his screeching again -- but what he doesn't know is why it's important specifically to Ezra and Ray, which is that it is all connected to the Mickey stuff. He was involved in whatever the plot was that framed Mickey and put him away, so now they're on high alert because no lie lives forever.
To his eternal credit, Ray calls Abby just in case this is going to take too much time -- and, I think, off a reference to Ezra's own dead wife -- but once again she can't actually say more than a couple words because Mickey's right there. Of course, because they had these nominal plans about vaguely discussing their marriage, and Ray has respectfully warned her that might happen, Abby once again goes full-on revolutionary and decides they are taking an entire day off work and school to have a family Malibu vacation.
It kind of goes back to the whole "everybody is everybody else's doll" idea because she doesn't even really see Mickey or what Mickey represents: She's using him to sneak intimacy away from Ray, and punish Ray, but has no concept of what is really going on inside the gross old fucker. All she knows is that Ray maybe is sleeping around, and she's been keeping this old man in her pocket for whenever she feels like punishing him in his absence.
Out the window, a huge billboard of Conor's secret new best friend, Action Tommy. His smile is full of admiration, but also full of greed. As much as Abby's head is turned by the LA money she thinks signifies class, that's how Conor is the only one who really buys into the industry. Later on with Bridget we'll see her negotiate that world in her own way, but it still won't be this gleeful consumption, this insider covetousness, that is turning Tommy Wheeler into the main thing Conor likes to think about.
SPEAKING OF
Tommy's at Voyages, telling a long lying story about finding the girl dead in his bed that morning. He embellishes -- "It's called the bardo state, I read about it in The Tibetan Book of the Undead, it's a great fucking book" -- and the story ends with a "beautiful" moment where he lets her spirit out of the balcony door.
That's when he gets an email message of him blowing Chloe. The joy on his face, on the video, is very grim contrasted against the sadness as he watches it, processing the fact that he is being blackmailed and that the problem is not solved, and that someone he cares for about as deeply as he personally can care for a person is determined to break his heart. But then you look down at the video, and he's smiling up like he's looking at God. (Even Ray, later, smiles to himself like, "Dude can suck a dick. I'll give 'im that.")
SEAN WALKER
Ray: "Sean. Open the fucking door."
Sean: "You promised me this wouldn't come back! You said you'd take care of this!"
What the burglar left behind is a picture of Sean, with his arm around Mickey, and across the top of the photo it says, "GOOD TIMES!" Sean gets specific for us: "I shot your fucking girlfriend in the head, high on your father's coke, and then we sent him to prison for twenty years! Good times?" He shouts about the "breach" some more, which irritates Ezra, but the joke kind of falls flat because he doesn't actually say it too many times, and then Ezra has to hug Sean into chilling out and tell him how pretty he is, while Ray takes the call from Tommy.
Tommy: "I got a video, I think, of me doing something I shouldn't have been doing."
Ray: "Specifically?"
Tommy: "Fellatio. Champion-level fellatio."
Ray: "Oh my God, Tommy."
Tommy: "I'm learning a lot about my addictions right now!"
Ray: "Send it to me, delete it, and do not talk about it."
They finally usher Tommy back into the rehab center, and he bitches and moans in a charmingly entitled, movie-star way. Tommy's pretty great. I mean, I hope that Ray is wrong and he doesn't fuck Ray's child, but until that happens I'm gonna say I'm pretty pro-Tommy. You don't cast Austin Nichols unless you want somebody at least as sympathetic as he is creepy. Obviously he's beautiful, but mostly it's because he is always very sensitive-seeming, if usually also creepy: He never plays cerebral people, but he always comes off as very smart, which creates an overall creepiness.
Back with Sean, Sean is still flipping out. His entire character is -- like Stu Feldman, like everybody in the The Player corners of this show where the true genius and stylization of it comes out -- an amazingly on-point collection of one-liners that never quite falls over the top because there is no top to LA. I have such a soft spot for these guys, these actor narcissist guys. They require so little effort, for how endlessly needy they are. In his high-water dojo pants and his sweet little Steven Seagal shoes! It's so cute and perfect and awful, and it never stops! Even when Ray and Ezra are trying to have a TV show in the middle of it:
"Wow, wow. You take a phone call when someone's threatening my life? Who's more important than me? Look at [my adopted daughter a housekeeper just produced out of nowhere]. She's so innocent. So pure. She's my little angel. You can't let anyone hurt my family. She needs me. You know how much money I gave after Katrina? Darfur? I'm a good person! I struggle! I hurt! I make mistakes. But I always do the right thing. I make this world a better place. And you've got to help me. I love you, man. Smell her head. Ezra, smell her head. Smell her head."
MALIBU
Before you know it, it's a regular family outing. Mickey slips into Ray's place with Abby and the kids just as easily as with Terry and Bunchy, and for the same reason: There's a hole there. He points out the "tits" on a passerby and when Conor turns to leer, Abby knocks him upside the head. He sends the gals off with some cash and shares an energy drink with Conor, spitting it out adorably. Everything is like, perfect.
FITE CLUB
Bunchy and Potato Pie watch as Terry trains Daryll in the ring, working off some of his aggression. This is how we do "family," this is how Terry understands it. Daryll doesn't know where Mickey's off to, and Bunchy can't stop asking where his daddy is. Bunchy just keeps drinking and drinking, finally sneaking off to Terry's office to poke around and break into the petty cash. Terry finds him and he just tries to laugh it off, grinning his addict grin, on the edge of tears. Terry finally locks him in there.
SHOE STORE
Mickey: "Conor. You a fag?"
Conor: "Probably not?"
Mickey: "I met some excellent fags in prison. Good guys. Tough guys. Listen, if one of your little friends wants to give you a blow job, that's fine. A mouth is a mouth. But don't let anyone fuck you in the ass. That's how you get sick."
Conor: "I have never met a person who was so wrong about things that he ended up being basically right about them. It's like you go so far past okay that you end up more normal than most people."
Mickey: "I know! It's weird how I do that."
But also, how amazing that this is Day One with Grandpa. Not like, "Don't ever buy something you can't afford," nothing like that. Just straight to "sexuality is a moving target, don't let that fuck you up." A thing most adults -- starting with Tommy Wheeler -- don't understand and should, but most children probably don't need as like their 101.
TOMMY
Lena is very much enjoying the blowjob video because it is awesome. A guy walking past the office window is also impressed, which makes her laugh. Over at Voyages, Ray finally gets Tommy to call Chloe on the phone to see what this mess is even about. He gets the most lovely smile on his face when she picks up, and immediately goes into small talk, flirty talk, until Ray is forced -- "me too, what are you wearing" -- to smack him in the head. He goes into his action hero voice because that's his context for a hostage situation like this one.
Tommy: "Sorry, sorry. Chloe, what do you want? She wants a million dollars! She feels really bad, poor thing..."
Ray: "Holy crap, just set up a meeting."
Tommy: "I would love that! But I'm in rehab."
Ray: "Not for you, you idiot."
Tommy: "Oh right, right."
Ray: "Jesus, man."
MALIBU
At lunch, Mickey makes fun of one of the plastic surgery ladies and then sends the kids off with yet more cash.
Abby: "You're spoiling them! Say thank you!"
Mickey: "So how's your marriage?"
Abby: "Uh, private. Why does he hate you so much?"
Mickey: "I was an absolutely terrible father. Selfish. I loved those kids, but... I just fucked up. My wife's dying, money problems, four kids to feed. I mean, I was a criminal as I'm sure you know. And I did too much coke... It was the '80s."
Abby: "I remember."
Mickey: "A very degenerate era. But on the other hand, I did twenty years in jail."
She reaches out to him, finally, desperate to connect, and he shores up his pride, and laughs it off, and the tears in her eyes: Are they relevant? Is she an idiot? I say no. This show is better than this. He's one of those guys where you have to believe everything he says instead of worrying all the time about it: He will do some fucked up things, but they will also be honest just like when he's not being awful. She's married to somebody, after all, who's more like this man than not.
Which makes Abby far from the dumbest person on the show: It makes her one of the strongest. Not that it'll help; not that those things are mutually exclusive. She was just such a fucking fishwife in the first episode that it's nice to see some actual intelligence and compassion instead of just the nonstop sad social-climbing and shrieking: Ray is running from brokenness, but she's running from Southie. And then this man who understands her by virtue of coming from there, and by virtue of loving her husband in a similarly complicated way, in all her loneliness. I mean, she's not being entirely mercenary or passive-aggressive by involving him in their lives; she's also making the right call, I think. Not, again, that that'll help.
THE MEET
On the way to meet Chloe, Ray gets Avi on the surveillance footage from Sean Walker's house, before he gets the download on Chloe: Steven Hunter, from Peoria, six prostitution arrests. She's got her shit fairly together when Ray comes into the restaurant. Obviously the hulking guy nearby is her backup, and she's not LA-pristine in her style, but she's pretty pulled together. Smart girl, taking in every detail about him she can see.
She really wants to explain herself to Ray, these rehearsed speeches and dead affect, like when you want to tell a cop your whole life story even though you only ran a red light; it takes the entire conversation for her to understand that he literally doesn't care. He's impressed enough by her dignity and self-possession that he just wants it over with.
Chloe: "Probably wondering what a nice girl like me would be doing this for... Tommy's a nice guy, I feel bad. I've gotta look after myself, though. This could be my only chance I ever have to change my life. You ever want to change your life?"
Ray: "What do you want, Chloe?"
Chloe: "Thank you for calling me my name. The cops always call me Steven..."
Ray: "What do you want, though?"
Chloe: "One million dollars. Not a lot of money compared to this weekend's opening, I'm betting."
Ray: "Tell the guy over there to get lost."
Chloe: "He's just my boyfriend, but fine. I'm getting a sex change. That's what the money is about."
Ray: "You don't have to tell me that."
Chloe: "I want to. Tell you things."
Avi listens, outside; Ray pays for lunch and asks how she knows Tommy. It's not an interesting or detailed story.
Chloe: "So I just get a million dollars now? What if I'd asked for more? I'm not a bad person, Ray."
Ray: "This is your survival. This is the solution. Your body."
Chloe: "I like you, you say what you mean. Haven't you ever wanted to change your life?"
Ray: "We'll be in touch. Which obviously means beating your ass and scaring the shit out of you."
Chloe: "I'm still too focused on flirting my way out of a dangerous situation to notice that."
Compared to Tommy Wheeler, Chloe is winning at life. Lena calls with news about the dead priest, but only confirmation: There are no other facts. He calls Abby, who is getting subtly harassed by (a maybe legitimately confused-about-2013-life) Mickey and not answering anyway. She likes the idea of guiding a kindly old man through the brave new world. He knows just the story to tell her, about her life.
It's only a few seconds once Conor picks up before Mickey -- grinning meanly -- makes sure Ray knows he's been there the whole time with them. Abby is exasperated, but still has no idea how real everything is: Ray hangs up and gets his gun, causing Avi to grab him in a bear-hug -- and then into some full-on, pretty scary violence -- to stop him from driving to Malibu and killing his father instantly: "You gonna go shoot him in front of your kids? In front of Abby? We'll handle it. We always do."
He's never looked so young.
CHLOE'S HOUSE
He throws her around for a while before putting her up against the wall; Avi scrubs the whole house of technology -- twinks dancing on cams in back rooms, on drugs; too fucked up to even register what's happening; too gay to function -- and Ray chokes her nearly out, to make the point.
When the house is done and they've got all the computers and phones, Ray goes back to her bedroom, where she's crying, terrified. She swears there aren't any other copies, wheezing with her back to him. From where he's standing she's just another lost doll.
"You understand the path you're walking down? You need to stop giving blowjobs in the street. Stop doing drugs. Is this what you want for yourself? If you keep this up, you're dead. That's how it ends."
She swears he doesn't know shit about her, but they both know he does. All day long they've been telling him he's the exact same thing as she is: Walking down a path toward doom, giving blowjobs in the street and on the Paramount lot. What are you wearing? Is this what you want for yourself? Haven't you ever wanted to change your life?
Once he says it, all that strength and poise goes out of her, out the window, choked out, and for a second his vision goes bifocal: She's a beautiful broken doll, he's a drugged-up faggot in a fuzzy sweater. There's the tackiest stuff everywhere, Peoria stuff, grandma stuff. Second-hand '70s sculptures on the wall. He can't look at her, and he can't look away either.
"...You'll be all right."
It's a promise, in that everything he says is a promise. Just like it's a threat.
Avi: "Do you believe him?"
Ray: "Believe who? ...I mean, yes."
Avi: "Are you okay?"
Ray: "Stop asking me that."
GOING HOME
Conor: "Is Dad going to be incredibly mad?"
Abby: "I honestly am not sure."
Bridget: "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Mickey: "Everybody! Relax! I am the dad here! He's your father and he loves you, he'll understand."
Abby: "Seriously, stop stressing. You didn't even do anything wrong, I sanctioned it."
Bridget: "Like he knows what that word means."
Conor: "I know what it means!"
Mickey, awesome: "Abby my love, what does sanction mean?"
Kids on shows like this, they're always on probation. You never know. I think one of the things this show is trying to solve is why that is, and how to fix it. Like with a lot of teen shows, you always wonder early on how much the parents are going to matter, and it's nice when they are fully rendered people -- same on very very grown-up shows like this one, with the kids. And this show does it very well, both by giving them interesting personalities and by the power of the chemistry between the actors: Half of their lines wouldn't be that interesting if it weren't for the way the kids say them, and the way Abby reacts. She creates a whole world, a history and an underpinning, for their love.
STU FELDMAN
Almost breaks into another run, the second Ray shows up, but converts that flight into fight by bitching obsessively about how Ray didn't have a drive-on pass to the lot today. Oh, and dumb old creepy Ashley is there, strumming her guitar and being weirdly oracular and feral and fascinating again.
Stu: "You broke my fucking hand, and my wife left me, so get down on your hands and knees... and apologize. Lee said you'd blow me!"
Ray: "That is all he ever talks about, come on. Now, look at this video. Coincidentally enough, it is of your main movie star actually blowing somebody."
Stu: "Dude can suck a dick. That is beautiful... Wait, is that Tommy Wheeler?"
Ray: "Yes. Give me one million dollars from that safe over there so I can make it go away. And also be back in charge of you, by way of making it seem like this isn't double-dipping and I'm solving a problem for you, rather than him."
Ashley sings "Private Eyes" quietly to them while they do this. Once he's gone, Ashley and Stu talk about how hot Ray is for a while, and then he Stus out: "Find out who his trainer is!"
FITE CLUB
Finally dropping Mickey off, Abby is very interested in getting the hell out of there so there won't be drama, but the grandkids keep wanting pictures with Mickey, and then Terry and Bunchy will want to see them -- plus, Bridget needs them for that Family Tree project -- so after a lot of hassle, they go upstairs into the stank. Mickey's so excited to show off what he brought them, the kids. Abby's happy to see Terry because he's wonderful, and then notices Daryll hanging around -- Mickey talks boxing with the kids and the boys, distracting everybody.
Abby: "Ah, the brother. Listen, could you not tell the kids that you are their uncle? Or black?"
Daryll: "It'll be our secret."
Terry and Bunchy are all over Abby and the kids, in such a sweet way, but all Abby wants to do is get the fuck out of there. Mickey's like, "Call me any time, Conor, about my jail wisdom." Yikes. You keep thinking Ray's going to show up and everything is going to go crazy, but that's not exactly how it goes down.
LATER
Mickey walks around in the dark, touching all his boys' boxing stuff like it's his. Ray finally appears, out of the shadows. The other sons converge, to watch nervously.
Ray: "You have fun with my family today, Mick?"
Mickey: "They're great."
Ray: "And now you're going to say you didn't deserve twenty hard years, some story... You deserved it, Mick. You deserve worse. And you know what? I'm going to give it to you."
Mickey: "I just want my family back!"
Ray: "No, you want my family. And that is why you will end up dead."
Brothers: "Whoa, whoa..."
Ray: "No big deal. Just saying, you won't see it coming."
Now, the Sean Walker plot proves that Mickey is looking for payback, and Ezra's selective dementia makes sure we know that Ray's secrets won't keep forever. But there's nothing that says both can't be true: That Mickey also is being honest about loving Ray and wanting Ray and everybody to be one big family. It's a very noir suspense they've already set up, where you just don't know. People, families, are like the opposite of Occam's Razor: The more factors and contradictions, the more likely it is.
There could come a day where the snake coiled up inside Mickey springs out, and the whole world comes crashing down like a gross Matrix, and everybody says, "Ray, if only we'd believed you we would still be safe. But we weren't cynical enough, and now we all have died." But it's just as likely that that day will never come -- and even more likely than both is that when it does, Ray will have brought it all together and down upon himself, just by being so closed-up and hardened that he can't admit the possibility of ambiguity here. That he will force that destiny to happen; that the paths we walk down open-eyed always lead further down than the ones we can ignore.
FINAL MONTAGE
So the person who broke into Sean Walker's house, sadly, is Other Brother Daryll. I mean, all he did was bring a photograph in there and breach a little security -- and Mickey was driving -- but Ray has had it, for reasons we know but also reasons we don't necessarily yet. It's all still kind of a huge mess with the original frame job.
As "Now That We've Found Love" plays, Terry looks at his body, and his tattoo for a woman named Bernadette.
At Voyages, another hot famous person finds it within her to correct Tommy: "It's called the Tibetan Book of the Dead," of course. "But there's all this zombie shit everywhere! You want to get high?" She goes back to barfing, and he goes back to what he was doing: Texting with Conor. They are both very, very happy to be friends.
Their smiles at having met another like-minded person are pretty genuine, and who wouldn't enjoy a conversation with a fan when they are feeling lonely? I mean, they are both obsessed with Tommy Wheeler because Tommy Wheeler gets to be Rambo all day and play with guns: That's what they are both excited about.
I would say they are on roughly the same level. But that itself automatically complicates a whole lot of shit -- grownups shouldn't be friends with kids regardless of how old they are on the inside -- and so now with the song putting scare quotes around it I feel like it's politically meet to hope that nothing creepy is going on here, just because you can't have the gay guy be a (possible) fetishist and also a fucker of kids. In 2013, those are three separate things on a Venn diagram that probably don't even touch, not just some mushy ideological oatmeal that reduces everybody not on message down to a single minority called "pervert."
That brings everybody down to the lowest level, and insults my actual life: Like, the reason you can't have gay Scoutmasters is because we still find it hard to imagine gay moms and dads, so we assume it's about gay dudes with mustaches walking in off the street to abduct our kids, and this would be the kind of story why that persists. So either way, it's yucky and a bad idea for both of them, but there are all kinds of ways it could play out that don't validate Ray's weird ideas about sex. They may have found love, it's a big word with a lot of room to walk around inside it -- but one hopes severely that they do nothing with it.
Meanwhile, Avi beats the ever-loving shit out of Daryll and staples the "Good Times" photograph to his chest with an actual staple gun: Message received, return to sender. Which is wonderful because it means we can have the two possibilities with Mickey going on at the same time, one in the day and one at night: He can beg Ray to be his son again, and then at night they can send each other bloody messages on the bodies of each other's closest compatriots.
Shortly thereafter, Ray assures Sean Walker -- about a million times because he is a mess -- that this is the end of the story: "I know who it is, and they're never breaking in here again." Without looking away from Ray's eyes, Sean addresses his assistant: "Got my food?" Yes, Sean. "Gluten-free?" Of course. "Script?" I have your script. We're good to go.
Not solely because this takes place in the middle of the night, but I always thought I would be good at this job. Just indulging someone who never stops needing to be indulged, and cannot even see light on the frequency where you have zero respect for them and never will. "Yes, you're very pretty." How is that not everyone's favorite activity and most wanted job? It should be like: Teacher, Fireman, Astronaut, Nurse, Hollywood Assistant.
Then giftwrapper. Like at Macy's or something. That is a fucking sweet gig. I remember one time my best friend showed up with invitations to a party that needed a lot of assembly and I got the crazy eyes and I was like, "How did you know I would do this for you?" And he goes, "Isn't folding paper and taping things together, like, your favorite thing to do?" Yeah -- shit yeah -- but nobody needs to ... know that. There's no reason for you to have like, intuited that.
TONIGHT
Ray won't talk to Abby yet. Terry will find beat-up Daryll in their metaphorical mailbox, while Mickey's doing all the drugs with Bunchy he can think of, and Ezra will pray all night. In the end, when Ray sees the picture of his father's latest murder victim, the priest, he can't help but smile.
But first, Lena drops off an envelope at Chloe's with exactly, precisely the amount of money she needs for her operation, so we end up with Chloe, just completely losing it in her laundry room because, for once, the fixer was actually able to fix something. To change a life completely; to pick a woman up bodily by the throat, and then set her gently down in her solution.
WEEK
Why's Ray smiling? You might be surprised. Mickey involves himself in the industry, Ezra throws an ill-starred fundraiser, and we finally meet the amazing FBI agent that's behind Mickey's sudden release.
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.