In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Bridget's birthday means a yearly toast among the brothers, a Shakespeare reading, a little of the old ultraviolence and the requisite insensitive interruption by Mickey... But also leads to a contemplative hour, and I would say the best of the series to date.
It was early in the episode that I remember thinking to myself that I probably still didn't love this show as a show, but I have definitely become very attached to a lot of the characters. Bridget's honesty and pragmatism, Mickey's inconsiderate and destructive affections, Ezra's capacity for love, absolutely everything about Terry and Bunchy, and even the hyped-up power-mess that is Abby Donovan.
What immediately became the central theme, though, is the affection the show itself has for each of them. It's an intensely compassionate story, painfully so perhaps, and while you could have extrapolated that from the subject matter and motifs in play, it was nice to spend an hour just sort of hugging everybody and feeling feelings. Nobody leaves the episode without opening a vein, and it's gorgeous.
Frances shows up at the Fite Club with a black eye, so the boys interrupt their birthday/memorial to go beat up her husband, but it's beautiful. Terry beats the guy until he stops fighting and then very sweetly, in his Terry way, apologizes to the man for sleeping with his wife, and orders him to stop hitting ladies. Then he breaks up with her a few times and drags Bunchy to a church, so he can give confession (adultery, as he sees it, being an easier thing to do penance for than the unimaginable hubris of actually being happy). The well-meaning priest's pretty basic (and correct) advice -- self-love, self-condemnation, loneliness, the wonderful beast that is Terry -- is exactly what he doesn't want to hear, and he ends primed to join Bunchy on the Self-Punishment Express.
Avi blows up Bunchy's house and kidnaps the realtor/slumlord that sold it to him, and Ray tortures him into giving back all of Bunchy's money, in cash. This then goes to Boston with Avi, for purposes of buying off Sully, who will make the trip back week. Sully and Avi on a road trip across America sounds great! Sadly, Sully's gal won't be joining us, regardless of her blowjob skills, but at least Avi will get some scenes. The trick is, when Bunchy gives Ray shit about not returning his money, he admits to the aforementioned arson and torture where Mickey can hear him, so that should work out well.
Mickey meets an ex-trophy wife (Rosanna Arquette) of a movie producer, who finds his story fascinating and decides to accompany him to his new rathole apartment. But in a sequence of events that is somehow (the "how" being that this episode was written by the show's female showrunner) catastrophically funny, he plays gamely into what he thinks is a sexy scenario, but is abashed to find out is actually just him almost accidentally raping her. It's embarrassing for him, hugely traumatic for her, and it does not end well, but it's nice to see some expression on his generally impassive/creepy face other than "lizardy."
In the wake of Marvin's boundary-crossing last week, a therapist has suggested that Bridget get a body mod, but without telling Abby she gets a belly ring on her own. This causes major static with Ray, and once she's grounded she disappears for the day. Abby freaks and freaks and freaks, finally brings her home and -- after a rip-roaring, hideous fight -- gets drunk enough to be nasty and oracular by the time Ray comes home. It's exceedingly unsatisfying, in a very calculated way, to bring the two of them so close to the same level of buzz and actually start throwing words around like "emotional honesty," only to have Ray puss out at the last second and stumble off into the house.
Marvin, we learn, was made to suck a gun by Ray, then dropped off at his dead mother's house in Compton with orders never to return to Calabasas or contact Bridget. Bridget, of course, spends the day on the bus to Compton, but when she offers Marvin her virginity he calls Abby himself. The sadness of him recording a song and video about his mother's death in the actual crime scene is undercut by the essential buoyance of these preceding scenes, and the level-headed and mature way he and Bridget deal with each other.
In advance of Van Miller's investigation, Lena is destroying all evidence of federal crimes in the office when Avi adorably counsels her to discuss her feelings with her current girlfriend (married to a man), which she does in the form of punching the chick in the nose. Because it is Lena, this is somehow winsome.
And because it is this show, Lena is arrested at the end of the episode during a Cat Stevens montage that moves from Ray and Bridget's gorgeous reconciliation scene, the various emotional tortures of poor stunted Terry and Bunchy, to Mickey, weeping over his daughter's portrait. Great hour. Wonderful stuff.
No Van this week, but for once I was able to think about people other than Van, so that was good. There was a fucking fascinating moment where the Irish melancholia and recitation of memories you expect from the second the whiskey gets opened takes a sharp left -- Ray remembers certain events from childhood VERY differently than his brothers do, managing to blame Mickey for all kinds of things he might not have done. As always, it's left hanging, but Terry's gravitas in correcting Ray's more dubious memories pulls us even further from trusting Ray's narrative about his father. That's the thing to keep an eye on, I think, moving into the season's third act.
Week: Van wires Mickey up for a visit to see Sean Walker about that girl's death, Sully's gal might be a double agent, Ray threatens to expose FBI Frank's bigamy when he gets cold feet about Van, and there is possibly a real-life explosion having to do with good old Tommy Wheeler's inability to stop sucking dicks for even just like one day.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Bunchy bought a house with his settlement, but then freaked out and tried to burn it down. Ray visited Patrick Sully Sullivan in Boston and convinced him to kill Mickey in LA. Terry came up against his girlfriend's secret marriage. Van Miller is closing in on the Sean Walker murder investigation and hopes to bring down Ray and his bosses in the process. Marvin Gaye Washington got a little ahead of himself in the sexual experimentation department so -- since his greatest fear is that one of his children will be involved in blowjobs -- Ray grabbed the kid and drove off with him, to an unknown end.
BOSTON
Making this the third or fourth scene in which this happens, Sully decides to leave for California. His lady friend wants to come along because she hates Boston -- and has been in hiding from the FBI for who knows how long but probably the whole time, unless they met on the internet or something -- but Sully won't let her come with, not even once she blows him in a Barcalounger.
You know what's fun? Thinking about old people going down on each other.
Meanwhile, Avi blows up Bunchy's house. It seems like the kind of arson that is just straight-up arson so I am guessing this is not for insurance purposes. To be fair, it was a bit of a tear down to start with. I suppose I wish Bunchy was there to see it, not that it would bring him much peace.
HOME
Ray takes his time after a shower to look at his various tattoos and think about what they all mean. Mostly this takes the form of various angles on Liev Schreiber's insane body, but if you know that this week is all about scars and less permanent body modifications -- plus the anniversary of his dead sister's birthday, who is memorialized in one of the tattoos; his mother is the other -- you might be distracted from that.
Upstairs, Bridget investigates her belly button piercing, getting a little spot of blood on a tank top in the process and just tossing it in the laundry without trying to shout it out. At first it just seems like your average teen girl stuff, but again: This is coming in the wake of a pretty negative sexual experience, so we're talking about a reclamation of some kind.
Ray calls the gross guy that sold Bunchy the house in the first place, just to make sure he knows who burned it down, and the guy goes a little apeshit on the phone before Ray, of course, hangs up on him. Rolling calls, you know. Terry calls immediately to remind him of their sibling ceremony about Bridget, and gets ready to face the day.
Interestingly, Abby finds the t-shirt in the laundry and immediately figures out based on the blood spot that Bridget has gotten a bellybutton piercing. Either she is some kind of crime scene detective, or... There it is.
Abby: "Bridget, we talked about this! I said I would pick the place and go with you if you wanted to do it. Now you have probably gotten hepatitis from that, which never leaves your system!"
Bridget: "It's possible that I have been infected, but maybe just with regular infection. The only classes I skipped, I'm getting A's. Any other questions?"
I love Bridget, I love how she doesn't even bother trying to dick around with stuff like this. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, and so on. Especially since she has more and more legit reasons for being pissed at her parents, between the possible murder of her boyfriend and the gun her dad pointed at grandpa's head. Nobody's watching the watchers.
Ray enters as Abby's investigating the wound -- which does get uglier and redder throughout the episode -- and throws a fit about the whole thing.
Abby: "In theory, I did support this. In fact, because it's pissing you off, let me assure you that I am one hundred percent okay with it."
Bridget: "The therapist said it was a healthy way to reclaim my body after you took away the option of me dealing with it in another way by abducting the person."
Abby: "Why not just beat her?"
Ray: "I'm not Mickey Donovan."
Abby: "First of all, I was clearly saying you should hit me. And second of all, not even Mickey Donovan is the Mickey Donovan you think he is. This is just a symbolic gesture!"
Ray: "Yeah, of the reason you can't be trusted to live in LA. This is some trashy shit!"
Abby: "You are her father. It's inappropriate for you to be involved with this."
Which, I see her point. She's not unsupervised, Abby's right there, and frankly it goes to too many weird places at this point -- the blowjobs, his own sexual weirdness -- for him to be not-damaging by involving himself. Of course to him it sounds like she's trying to keep him from protecting his children, but that's her point: It's not his place to protect her from this. It's his place to offer her support and respect and love, but not to take possession of a body that is already under escrow. That's just another way of turning her into a doll, which is what lies at the root of his issue in the first place.
Bridget: "While we're on the subject, did you kill Marvin Gaye Washington?"
Ray: "What? That's ridiculous!"
Bridget: "Then what did you do to him?"
Ray: "What had to be done."
Bridget: "What in the fuck does that mean?"
Seriously, honey. I'm always on Bridget's side, but especially here. Anyway, now she is grounded.
MGW
Is ignoring Bridget's texts, and living back in the Compton house where his mother was murdered, which is fucking fucked up but no more fucked up than the fact that the entire Donovan family is continually living in the house where Bridget died. That stuff never leaves your system, they'd say if you asked.
DAY SPA
Mickey is having a spa day -- courtesy of Sean Walker, to work on his film treatment -- when he runs into Rosanna Arquette playing Linda, an ex-trophy wife of a producer man who has a development deal of her own. In their little terry sandals and robes, poring over their books to flute music.
I like all those Arquettes, but she's always been my favorite. Even when she was super young, she always seemed like this... sexy hermit-witch. Like, lives outside of town, has a private relationship with The Night. Imagine Desperately Seeking Susan without her and it's just a fairly creepy rom-com, like Overboard, but you add her to the mix and it becomes this strange, soul-trading dream. Like Sliding Doors, but everybody might be on heroin. You never know what's going on in there, except that it's probably pretty dark.
Linda: "So what's it about, your treatment?"
Mickey: "I licensed my life rights to Sean Walker. We're bros now."
Linda: "Hey, you dropped this. So anyway, what is your life about?"
Mickey: "I got sent away for something I did not do. For twenty years."
Linda: "How attractive! I am bored as hell with my life, and ready to get weird."
Mickey: "Yes, but I am a writer! Very important. Are you a Jew?"
Linda: "Very droll. Guess what? I'm a writer, too!"
Mickey: "No honey, you're a girl."
FITE CLUB
A little Shakespeare, some whiskey, the usual. Angela's Ashes stuff.
Bunchy: "How long has she been dead?"
Ray: "Do the math, Bunchy. I'm not gonna Google it for you."
Bunchy: "Then I guess I'll never know."
Frances walks in and -- like every other lady who hears about this -- immediately is like, "What a lovely tribute. I can wait." But Terry can't, and calls five on the memorial.
Ray: "So you just live here now?"
Bunchy: "I just live here again, yes."
Ray: "Why did you try to burn your house down?"
Bunchy: "I don't like it. Why'd you pull a gun on Pop?"
Ray: "...I don't like him."
They laugh, but Bunchy's well on his way to drunk, which leads to a short conversation about responsibility. It's tough because you and I -- and both of them -- know that if he gets the money back for the house -- which he's busily doing -- Bunchy isn't getting it back. It was only Mickey's bad influence that Bunchy got to have the money in the first place, and that trial run didn't work out so well, so now it's Ray's money again. (Or really, Sully's money, in the future.)
Terry: "Nice shiner. Did you husband hit you?"
Frances: "So you know about my husband! Are you stalking me?"
Terry: "Uh, a better question would be what did you think was going to happen when you walked in here? Were you about to tell me you have a husband and that he hits you? And then what, Frances? This scene only works from my end."
Frances: "I don't love him and I want to leave him for you and I am going to do it in a few months when our son turns 18 and leaves the house."
Terry: "Then I'll see you in a few months! Or never! You make me feel like a whore."
Frances: "Whatever it takes. I notice you've still been fucking me, from up there on your high horse."
Terry: "Well, it is no longer about plausible deniability. More importantly, that's between me and my priest."
Frances: "I'm out of here!"
But they both know he's going to take care of it, meaning beat up the husband, which leads us to the question of whether or not she spent this time seducing him just to get this done. Which Terry is more sure about than we are, but in turn I think we are more sure about it -- that she was committing adultery in good faith/really is in love with Terry -- than even she is, if you see what I'm saying. How could you not love Terry?
Anyway, back to the ceremony, and... Oh, nope. Terry's got an errand to run. The boys pile on behind him, Bunchy grabbing the bottle.
Meanwhile back home, Abby -- who is indeed sympathetic to all of this stuff, who always seems to understand how serious a person her daughter really is -- brings Bridget a grilled cheese and tomato soup, but of course she is gone: On a bus to Compton. Across her vanity mirror, in a very legible and precise hand, it says, FUCK YOU!
In the car on the way to Frances' secret house, the boys drink and joke about how they formed a mob like this as kids, to beat up the Conway brothers for stealing Bunchy's lunch money. What Bunchy didn't explain at the time, and is rollicking drunk enough to say now, is that actually "lunch" in this case is code for "the proceeds from some coke I stole from Dad." They laugh, because Bunchy is a scamp, and then Terry in turn tells a story about the time Bridget put out a cigarette in the school bathroom which later flared up in class, and her purse exploded. I like that one.
THE OFFICE
Between the Rosanna Arquette stuff and Bridget's eloquence and Terry's sweetness this was already the best episode of the season, but this scene is just great. I don't even know why, I guess it's just being able to see them as more than tools, or people always calling on the phone. A Bechdel Test for Ray's goons. Lena's shredding everything when Avi comes in: Anything federal, anything that could relate to federal charges. Avi just laughs.
Avi: "Jesus Christ. Everything we've done here for the last fifteen years would bring federal charges. You want me to take over for a while?"
Lena: "No, but give me some of your sandwich."
Avi: "How's it going with that woman?"
Lena: "She won't leave her husband. I think I am a phase."
Avi: "Well, you should do yourself the favor of being transparent with her. Don't you have feelings?"
Lena: "Not really."
Avi: "Tell her you love her! Even if you don't. It's good to talk about things."
Lena: "This being your first conversation of all time, I will forgive the fact that you don't seem to understand the basics of talking. On the other hand, you've given me an idea."
FRANCES'S HOUSE
Terry wastes no time in punching the man -- who is doing some afternoon work in the garden on this fine weekday -- and then really just beating the shit out of him. A neighbor appears and wades into the fray, which is when a very drunk and punchy Bunchy decides it's a free-for-all, and eventually even Ray has to get involved. We end with both suburbanites on the ground -- Bunchy sitting on the neighbor -- and Terry picks the husband up that he just beat down and acts even more Terry than usual.
"I am sorry! I did not know she was married! But you don't hit a lady!"
It's great because when Terry apologizes the guy nods, like, so meticulous is Terry's ethical process here that even the guy understands that yes: They have both done wrong, trespassed in certain ways, but now it is over with and the beat downs have been fairly distributed.
Then he fucks it up by correcting Terry that she is not a lady but a "fucking whore," and the whole thing goes to hell again. Mostly I would take one look at Terry and go running, because he is a beast, so paradoxically it makes the guy kind of impressive that he offered himself up for round three. Also, Frances is a solid, hardy woman. I mean, don't hit women and don't hit people, but there's a reason she gets picked for these roles and it's because she could probably kick your ass. In the end, I think she just wanted something to change.
"Get in the car, you maniac," Ray rumbles at them when all is said and done, trying not to show that he is proud, or happier to be here than he has been in months. This stuff stays in your system.
DAY SPA
Linda: "So tell me about yourself, Mickey. I am interested in train wrecks."
Mickey: "I define myself by family, whatever Ray thinks, so this is my story. I have five kids. Four boys and a dead daughter. My first wife died of cancer. The youngest son, I had with my girlfriend who is now married to Allen Weisbrod."
Linda: "You mean Claudette? Holy shit. But you're such a racist!"
Mickey: "Not for big black butts I'm not. I don't think of myself as prejudiced."
Linda: "We're at a point now in American history where the oversimplified designation of 'racist' is a fairly thought-terminating concept, I'll grant you, but..."
Mickey: "-- I do not care for black men. I will say that."
Linda: "There it is."
ABBY
Calls one of Bridget's friends, driving around, and then fields a call from Ray, who's calling to check on them coming back from their violence errand, and then everybody hangs up because what would this show be without constant phone calls. When was the last time you actually talked to someone on the phone? God, how horrible.
Bunchy: "So why is Bridget home from school today?"
Ray: "Piercing."
Bunchy: "Oh right, because you're in charge of everybody's body. I forgot for one second."
Terry: "The thing about women that differentiates them from Bunchy is that you have to be gentle, you can't make decisions for them."
Ray: "No, kids need rules. Or else they turn out like our dead sister."
Avi: "The Armenian man whose property I blew up is on his way here. I repeat, we're go for the Armenian."
Ray: "Cool, thanks for calling me on the phone."
Bunchy: "Actually, kids just need love. The rest sorts itself out. Or so I hear."
Ray drops the boys off and heads to the office, promising to come back for another try at their ceremony.
COMPTON
A Tommy Wheeler ad on the side of a bus is a nice reminder that we live in this universe where Tommy Wheeler is a huge movie star -- and thus everything Ray's family does is connected to the machine -- and then Bridget sets off into the city, texting with MGW to find him where he's hiding.
LENA
Marches past her girlfriend's receptionist and into her office, then punches her in the nose. I guess they are broken up. This whole thing seems entirely set up for the end of the episode, when a lot of threads start tying together, but mostly we focus on what's important, which is that Lena is awesome and never more so than when she is calmly getting back on the elevator, chock full of swag and proud of herself.
Possibly because this is Showtime -- Gender Kindergarten For Middle-Class White People -- there is a thing here about how Lena and Terry both have girlfriends who are married, and deal with it through violence, but in different ways. That Terry was motivated to change his relationship with Frances by violence against women, but who is the violator when it's a woman hitting another woman? Interesting dinner conversation, to be sure, down at the freshman dorm mess hall.
But spoiler alert, mostly it's so Lena will be arrested at just the wrong time -- the same wrong time as Mickey is overhearing that Ray burned a house down and tortured an Armenian -- so really even pretending to actually give a shit about the (not actually very) provocative questions the episode is asking is too far to go. But as is often the case with Showtime shows, it's probably best they don't bother too hard.
DAY SPA
Which, this is still the best episode and we are about to have an amazing showdown that addresses gender stuff in a brilliant way, so keep that in mind too: Linda invites Mickey out for a post-spa drink, and he raises the bet by inviting him to her house for a drink -- where apparently Bunchy is renting an apartment he doesn't live in, but Mickey does? -- and she's like, "I'm tougher than I look, I like living on the edge, I can handle getting raped and murdered in your Hollywood shithole apartment no problem."
Lady, he is 75 years old. Even when he was a sex symbol it was still touch-and-go, because he had model good looks which are the opposite of actual good looks. How dark is this gonna get?
COMPTON
Bridget: "Is that the actual bloodstain of your mother dying?"
MGW: "Yeah, it's okay."
Bridget: "I can see more clearly now what you are going through. Frankly, I can imagine myself getting drunk enough to force fellatio on somebody."
Meanwhile Ray is adorably blasé about torturing the Armenian -- "Tie him up, I'm gonna go get some coffee" -- once he's ambushed him in the midst of unsuccessfully attacking Avi, and Mickey welcomes Linda to his horrible apartment like so:
Mickey: "Welcome to the horrible apartment! We have no toilet paper!"
Linda: "This is grand. Exactly the way I want my body discovered."
Mickey: "Do you know how to twerk? Can you look it up on your phone?"
Bridget: "Your mother was very pretty, before crack."
MGW: "About manhandling you and scaring the shit out of you, I am terribly sorry."
Bridget: "Well, good. You should be. But it's worth talking about, so I'm glad you mentioned it. Hey, on a related note, what did Ray do to you?"
MGW: "Among other things, brought me back to Compton. Where I guess I belong."
Bridget: "Uh, this is an abandoned house with your mother's blood everywhere. I don't think that's hugely accurate."
MGW: "I am going to make a rap video about my mother dying right here in the crime scene."
Bridget: "That's ghoulish in a way I never imagined possible. You are going to be very famous shortly. Know why? Because people are gross."
THE OFC
Ray: "The thing is that you took advantage of my brother, who is clearly not a grownup. So I am going to taze your genitalia until you give back all of the money, in cash."
To his credit, the Armenian holds out longer than you might think. But eventually, Ray gets the money -- and he's leaving just as Lena's coming back from her own violence, back to the Fite Club.
Avi: "Did you talk to her? How'd it go?"
Lena: "In a manner of speaking. And I gotta say you were right. Satisfying."
She indicates the still-tied-up hostage they have just tortured, and confirms that this is, in fact, a federal crime. It's a hilarious button on the scene, but also contributes to the thing overall of how Mickey and Lena are on a collision course of plot even though they've never met each other, which is part of what makes this episode so marvelous.
COMPTON
When Bridget hears MGW coming back from the bathroom or whatever, she shuts the bedside drawer she was snooping: There are condoms in there, which not only introduces sex into the equation but imputes the existence of other girls, both of which add up to a plan to reclaim her body -- from everybody, from Ray -- on a whole new level, starting at the beginning: "Wanna see my bellybutton piercing?"
And he says the most wonderful thing: "Sssssst! Dang, that hurts." Like just looking at it is painful, as the infection grows. Not even really so much that he is empathetic to specifically her pain, but just that seeing it provokes that response. I just thought that was the loveliest, subtlest thing. "That hurts."
Bridget: "Yes, it's getting more toxic by the moment. But at least my parents can go fuck themselves! And hey, speaking of fucking, I have an idea."
MGW: "I'm gonna ask what your idea is, but I'm pretty sure I already know."
Bridget: "We both knew eventually I was headed here, right? You just jumped the gun and fucked it all up."
MGW: "Yeah no, that's true. But in the meantime what has happened is that your father stuck a gun in my mouth and made me suck on it and then took me out of a palace and left me in a bloodstained crackhouse. So yeah, instead of having sex with you I'm going to be doing the opposite and calling your mother immediately."
Bridget, awesomely: "I'm stayin' here tonight!"
He calls Abby and, as usual, she is perfectly pleasant with him, but Bridget is pissed as all get out. Also kind of relieved. Also working things out twice as fast as anybody else, besides MGW himself, which is why they are a pretty good couple. They are the only smart people on the show, and -- barring the occasional sexual assault -- by far the most mature and responsible.
If you try to imagine Bridget walking into a professional environment and punching a lady in the nose, you can't, because kids don't realize they can do anything they want. And Ray's whole problem is, what if they do. And MGW's whole purpose is showing them that, like Pippi Longstocking always does. Because this whole "playground of the rich and famous" thing goes both ways: In a world populated entirely by people turning other people into dolls who in turn are turning other people into dolls, even just the memory of agency is like, the most vertiginous thing.
What would Tommy Wheeler do if he could do anything? Suck dicks. So Lee Drexel is in place to make sure he occasionally does other stuff too. What would Bridget do if she could do anything? Whatever pisses Abby off. And in turn, Abby would do whatever pisses Ray off, and so on.
Lena, the Donovan brothers, Rekon if you think about it, everybody is very excited to learn that they are grownups and can do whatever they want, birthday cake for breakfast, and it is killing them. And at the top of the heap is Mickey, who not only knows that but is old enough and wise enough to actually take advantage -- which in turn means occasionally fucking up farther than anybody else.
HOLLYWOOD
After a short whiskey-drinking and slight flirtation period, Mick gets down to business.
Mickey: "I was a real midnight cowboy back in the day."
Linda: "I'm into this enough to say you're still pretty hot."
Mickey: "To be honest, I don't know that I could fuck you. For a white girl, you are too old for me. But a blowjob would not go amiss."
Linda: "Yeah, no. I'm suddenly pretty over this."
Mickey: "Come on! It will be fun!"
Linda: "Honestly, you'd have to put a gun to my head at this point."
Now, you and I both know that she means he's too much of a piece of shit -- or at least an unreconstructed and clueless 75-year-old -- to blow. But Mickey, he's nothing if not accommodating. So he excuses himself, gleefully and politely, to grab a gun out of the other room. What happens is blackly funny, but not necessarily in print. Suffice to say that it's only when she is on her knees sobbing and praying that he realizes this is not a scene, and then he feels really bad about the whole thing: "I've been in the can for twenty years! Maybe I don't know how to be with women. I'm sorry!"
Understandably, Linda is resistant to Mickey's request for a do-over, after he calls a halt to this sexual assault, which hurts Mickey's feelings, so as she's going out he loses whatever points he get for his frankly adorable embarrassment around what just happened, but he's not entirely wrong about Linda either: "You think I could stick my dick in you with your white ass and your fake tits? Get the fuck out of here you fucking tourist! Am I authentic enough for you? Huh?"
So it's interesting, because she was already kind of at gunpoint, in her mind, just for showing up. The instincts weren't entirely wrong, so much as the syntax. The moral of the story being pretty much the same as with MGW, which is that when you are going to force somebody to blow you, you should be double positive that they are okay with it, or else that miscommunication will hugely fuck everybody up. However sure you are that raping the person is in everybody's best interest, triple that and get it in writing. That's my advice to you, as you go about having creepy sex, with creepy people, in our creepy world.
(Alternately you could consider building a respectful, honest, intimate sexual relationship with a partner of your choosing who requires no theatre, but since apparently that's a vile and sex-negative suggestion, I won't pursue it further.)
TAKE... WHAT, FOUR?
Bunchy is too drunk for this memorial, keeps putting the fun in funeral, so they get through it as fast as possible and then settle into more brutal memories that once again they all find hilarious and not deeply dysfunctional... And then something very interesting happens:
Bunchy: "Remember when we dislocated her shoulders?"
Terry: "Ha! That's right. Kept pulling her between us until that crack sound..."
Ray: "What are you talking about? That was Mickey that did that."
Bunchy: "No, we just both wanted to play with her. I remember clearly, because we both got the belt."
Ray: "No, it was Dad."
Terry: "Seriously, Ray, it wasn't. Maybe this has something to do with you hating him twice as much as the rest of us."
Ray: "Or vice versa."
It's like, the most '90s literary concept of all time, this hazy memory between siblings in a drunk abusive household, and I have no connection to that dynamic (as far as I know, LOL) so I don't know how accurate it is, but I have seen it in books and movies and stuff. It's been floated before, this idea that Ray's concept of childhood and Mickey and Bridget is further afield than any of us think, but the very serious, very Terry-gravitas, very sober way he corrects Mickey's memory gives both sides of the question some weight.
I mean, obviously it's in the middle -- we've never seen Mickey do anything that suggests Ray is all that correct about him, but he's clearly also terrible -- but with every episode I feel like we're getting closer to a climax where Mickey rips off his mask to reveal a monster and Ray was right the whole time, but now everybody is dead, if only we had listened to Cassandra, and so forth.
I mean, it's an interesting game to play -- not least because of the generational stuff we talked about before, this idea of Mickey being radioactive for Ray and for us in both directions -- but it just seems like an easy setup, like, how meta do we, in 2013, need our noir to be? I hope it's more subtle than "surprise, the protagonist that the show is named after was right all along."
Or even the other way, the "You thought Ray was the good guy but now he's done something unforgivable to a sad old man and things will never be the same." I just can't see it being acceptable if it goes either way, so it needs to go both, until there are no other options.
If Sean Walker dies that's okay, but if Tommy Wheeler is somehow imputed into the story as the 2.0 Sean Walker and murders somebody for some reason and that's the cleverness, well, that's going to piss me off too. Cleverness, with this not-very-clever show, is always going to be trumped by the emotion, which is conversely always on point. So when you start dicking with the cleverness in a way that throws off the emotion, then you're back at this just being a dumb Showtime show again. Which would be unfortunate, because check out Bridget ruling, once again:
EN ROUTE
Abby: "So didja fuck him?"
Bridget: "Pardon? You don't use that word! You're from Calabasas. You're so upper-class, you're so spiritual... Did I 'fuck' him? You and Daddy are racists! You're just a racist fucking housewife! And you live with Daddy, who by the way put a gun in Marvin's mouth! He's an animal, you're married to an animal, which makes you..."
Abby loses it, just unspools, and it's amazing, just screaming at her to shut up, because it can be unnerving when your entire inner monologue is coming out of somebody else's mouth -- somebody who shouldn't have agency, somebody who just yesterday was your little doll -- and Bridget, who already knew she won, has won. It's satisfying, not the least because Abby is the worst and deserves to have her hypocrisy shoved in her face at all times, but also because maybe Bridget, out of the whole gross universe, can actually get through to her? For a second, it seems possible.
But never underestimate Abby's ability to double down, to entrench in her own misery and outsmart the universe once again:
"If that boy got you pregnant I'm not taking you for abortion. Have the kid, ruin your fucking life."
Abby Donovan: 1.
The Universe: 0.
FITE CLUB
The boys are laughing giddily, drunkenly, as they remember another prank: This one, Bunchy was too jealous of her cuteness and, feeling supplanted as the baby, cut off her pigtails and threw them behind the radiator, creating a strange smell forevermore. That's when Mickey comes in, happy to see them happy and sad to see them sad and hoping for a second that he can be a part of it.
Mickey: "Ah, my boys are here. Why all the sad faces?"
Ray: "...It's your daughter's birthday, you prick."
Everything falls apart and Bunchy remembers his money and how he wants to spend all the money on stuff that won't hang around later making him feel weird about where it came from, like drugs and drinking mostly, and that's when Ray reminds him -- in Mickey's hearing, Mickey who is under pressure from Van Miller to come up with federal crimes, Mickey who has just about had it with Ray's snot-nosed prissy hostility -- that he "burned a building down and tortured a guy," which Ray means in a nice way of course, like, just to illustrate how much he loves his brother, but of course Mickey's more like, "Just give me a reason, dick."
The worst and saddest thing about all of this, always but especially this episode, is the way Bunchy's entire body works. The perfect body of a comfy strong husband, but all he does with it is curl up in corners, hunker down on his belly, giggle and roll, stomp his feet, flail his arms. It's so hard and confusing and awful to see: Dash Mihok and the body he lives in, always looking minutes and a sugar crash away from settling down to watch Wonderful World Of Disney.
We'll never know what another actor would have done, something similar I'm sure, but I've had a surfeit of feelings about Dash Mihok's body for literally half of my life, so I'm guessing that has something to do with it: If I had a gun I would shoot that priest too.
There is not so much in this world that is both strong and beautiful at the same time -- a rare combination -- that we can afford for you to waste it on the vanity of your sickness.
AFTERWARD
As Lena counts the Armenian's cash and Ray packs it up for Avi to take to Sully, Frances returns to follow up with Terry, acting odd and more willing to cede the high ground than is really comfortable to watch.
Frances: "First you follow me home, then you beat up my husband?"
Terry: "Yeah, which was your whole point coming here in the first place, so give me a break."
Frances: "To be completely honest, I threw the first punch."
Terry: "That's pretty awesome. Either way we're done. You're a cheater, you're cheating on him and it's not fair."
Frances: "Who cares about fair? I'm in love with you. Plenty of people make arrangements, things they can live with. This is just paperwork."
Terry: "No, it's indecent. You can't go from his bed to mine, I'm not a side piece."
Frances: "If it was so indecent then why did you keep fucking me?"
Terry: "The answer to that question is the conversation I'm having with you now."
Catholicism: That shit stays in your system forever.
BACK HOME
They are flirty once again, because he has been drinking since like lunch and she's been drinking since she got back from Compton. He lowers himself, over the first half of the conversation, over the back of the couch. It's cute, until it isn't anymore.
Abby: "You stink. Come here."
Ray: "How's Bridget?"
Abby: "She is a little bitch."
Ray: "LOL."
Abby: "She says I'm an idiot, and you're an animal."
And they both know she's right. They talk about how when they are drunk they love each other and don't need to fight, and Ray hasn't ever been so non-eloquent or so needy. It's a bad mix, but a sexy one.
Ray: "I love you Abs. I'll buy you anything you want, what do you want?
Abby: "What I want you can't give me. Emotional honesty. BOOM."
Ray: "There goes my hard-on. There go all of them. What, are you seeing a therapist too now?"
Abby: "Fuck you. I can't talk to anybody about anything. Our son clonked a boy in the head. I can't even tell you all the shit Bridget is up to. We live in a suburb because you're a mobster, you fuck me like a doll with your hand over my mouth..."
Ray: "You like it. You love how I fuck you."
Abby: "Yeah I do. Because I'm gross."
Ray: "Well, I can fix that for ya real fucking quick. Lates."
The couch is small. They're so big. They don't always feel that way, inside.
Abby: "You know who is nuts? You are."
Ray: "I guess so. Whatever. The only reason I'm still here is I can't figure out how to get off you without hurting one of us."
Abby: "Why on Earth was there a handcuff in your bathroom?"
Ray: "First you say I'm in love with that red-flag fucking crazy girl. Then I'm still in love with the girl Sean killed. Then the handcuff girl who is the girl. I mean, make up your mind."
Abby: "Well, I smelled her on your dick. So I win."
Awesomely, Ray is just drunk enough that he leaves instead of getting into it, which saps Abby of all her victory in this moment. But you can also see more than ever why she needs it, I mean, reconstruct that night from her perspective: Finally gets talked into investigating his cave by that pregnant bitch, finds blood and handcuffs and a dossier on a priest, and then he fucks her in a strange bed with Marilyn Monroe watching, and the smell of a Disney star's privates on him? That's a lot. That's a lot to carry.
THE CHURCH
Bunchy, understandably, doesn't go into the church with Terry; he sits outside, all alone, looking as usual forty and fourteen at once. Inside, Terry does the whole confessional tango you know from movies or from doing it yourself, and finally the priest is like, "Oh shit, you're just fucking a married lady? You in the past were fucking a married lady? You came all the way here in the middle of the night to tell me this? Listen, you deserve to be loved more than anyone I've ever met. There is no real sin here. Don't fuck married ladies because you deserve better."
Which is not the narrative Terry needs to give meaning to his experiences -- and I wonder if it's not also about cheating on Bernadette, whoever that is -- so he runs out of there, all kinds of pissed.
Meanwhile, a bus of kids has arrived late from some kind of trip, and Bunchy is enough of a child that his smiles toward them is without guile, but presents as an adult so that you get that weird feeling again. I don't know what I would do if it went there. I can't even really conceive of it happening, even though that's exactly what happens in real life. So but then he sees the minding priest put a hand on one boy's back in a way that could mean nothing or could mean everything, but either way it sends him dark. The boys set off together, into the night.
HOME
Ray's drunk and smiley and sweet when he knocks on Bridget's door.
Bridget: "Am I in trouble, Daddy?"
Ray: "Not with me, kid!"
Bridget: "Are you drunk? Why?"
Ray: "Because it's Bridget's birthday and this is what we do."
Bridget: "That's sad, and sweet. That's beautiful."
"Well, also it's the secret we were too sober to tell you. I'm weird about this and your mom is weird about this because it's our job, and that's not negotiable. But there's extra context here, which is that Bridget got high and jumped off that roof because she was pregnant. The question isn't whether you're in charge of your body or not. Of course you are. But your actual brain might not be as developed as you think, or how you seem, and you might not completely understand the consequences of certain things. Some things stay in your system forever, kid. Some things change you forever. I've got tattoos on the outside of me, and inside too. Terry's got scars, Bunchy's got scars. Some of them you can see, others you can't. And it's a constant negotiation to consider whether or not protecting you is protecting you, or fucking you up."
She shows him her infected belly ring, and he giggles with delight when she hisses that she will never ever take it out. They climb into the bed and she lays her head on his chest, smiling brighter than she ever has. The bed is small, they laugh. Because she's getting bigger. But there's still time.
He sings to her, and she joins in: The Harold & Maude song about how if you want to sing out, sing out. She falls asleep on his chest. Marvin Gaye begins filming his breakout video, right there in the crime scene. Bunchy and Terry wander the darkness. Mickey Donovan weeps, alone, where nobody can see him.
Holding a picture of Bridget, when she was small.
WEEK
Avi and Sully hit the road, while presumably we line things up for Act III. What a fabulous episode that was. All we need is some Van Miller, but that'll come.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Pretty Little Liars, Ray Donovan, Mistresses, and True Blood for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.