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Abby's gone somewhat clinical by the time we rejoin the family at their hotel hideaway, snapping at Bridget and hiding her head in the sheets. But once Mickey -- tossed out of the apartment by a radically improving Bunchy -- shows up looking for comfort, she shifts into high gear and puts all the blame on Mickey. That part's not exactly true either, but it sends him packing off to rejoin Team Sully and hopefully get out of the country... Or so it appears.
The Donovan boys themselves are also still reeling from last week's various revelations and murders. Terry and Frances discuss the death of Father Danny, and she reactivates his Parkinson's like whoa by intimating she'll probably be going to the cops. Bunchy, meanwhile, has a brand-new haircut, big-boy shirts and a whole new attitude about attempting to be an adult. But the priest's late death will hang over them all.
After chasing Creepy Old Eddie into traffic and retrieving those stolen Fite Nite funds, Ray spends the episode trying to track down a quickly devolving Sully. By threatening Tiny -- who is sick of Sully's shit, especially after Sully beats him with a shoe that still has blood on it from this hobo he stabs to death -- and then calling in a tip to the FBI and the news, he's able to funnel Sully to FBI Frank's boat. At this point Sully double-crosses Ray, shoots Avi and prepares to make off with all the funds.
However, after a stiff talking-to from Abby and an even more bathetic showdown with Ray -- in which it's revealed that his entire beef with Mickey stems from his tacitly allowing the boys' sexual abuse in the first place, and that Ray has planned to murder his father since he was ten -- Mickey truly has turned a new leaf. He bows and scrapes for Sully just long enough to get ahold of Frank's gun, then shoots the FBI's Most Wanted through the head. Tiny runs off into the night, Mickey tries once again to get Ray's approval, and eventually he has to go live on Terry's cot.
Heading away from her Mickey confrontation in the opposite direction, Abby realizes that Ray is right about everything and that she's been pretty insensitive to the shit that he has been dealing with. Not that he didn't raw-dog some Disney chicks and kill a priest or two, but on balance, she has probably given him more shit about the things she shouldn't than she's refrained from discussing the stuff he needs her counsel on, if you see what I'm saying. (Bridget gets a similar breakdown from her new heroine Lena, who is painfully underwritten and masterfully played as ever.) Anyway, she leaves him a lovely message summoning him to the hotel, and we end the season on two ultimately very similar tableaux:
Mickey sits in the Fite Club with a pocketful of Sully's cash, surrounded by almost all of his sons, drinking whiskey and watching boxing and being generally unfit for anyone's company but each other... And the Family Donovan, stretched out on beach chairs at a luxury resort -- Ray's tux covered in blood, Conor's tummy aching from too much breakfast, Bridget reading the fucking Bell Jar and Abby finally resting in his arms -- on a lonely, lovely shore that looks almost exactly like the end of the world.
A quietly noir and darkly humorous ending in which all the loose threads eventually get tied off, with a heaping helping of undergirded emotion and some pretty dynamite characters. Sure, there are mysteries to be solved and consequences to be evaded, but Frank's Newspaper Hero stance in front of Sully's ambulance tells me those could probably all be swept aside by season. And the sexy, mute, titular man-golem at the middle of it has a lot of living to look forward to, considering he went through about ten years of therapy in the last two episodes alone. It was uneven and it was several different shows over the course of its season, but in the end it was a good deal subtler and wiser than it began. I'm just glad I was as wrong about Mickey as the rest of them were.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Mickey shot Van Miller but forgot to tell anybody, so FBI Frank was left on autopilot to stop an investigation that is no longer happening. Then, Frank found Van's body and assumed stupidly that Ray got nervous and killed him. Mickey shot a priest but it was wrong priest but then Bunchy shot the right priest and then Ray shot him for good. Hmm, who else did Mickey shoot? Everybody… everybody is dead. He and Sully killed Sean Walker, which is the last loose end anyway, but also leaves Mickey with nothing fun to do.
Sully's man Eddie made off with a lot of money, screwing both Ray and Sully over. I'm not sure anybody knows that yet but either way Ray now has two major problems (in addition to his two imaginary problems, the other one being that Mickey is not actually so bad). On the home front, Ray told Abby about his childhood sexual abuse and then everybody went to stay in a hotel so Sully doesn't kill them.
AIRPORT
Avi and Ray chase Eddie all over the airport with their bag of money, so he doesn't get away and make Sully even angrier/crazier than he already is. It is a pretty fun sequence to watch, but not so much on paper. In the end, they chase him into the path of a car, and he goes to the hospital without his giant bag of money. On the downside, he has no idea where Sully is, but at least he can tell them that the third man on the team, a big man named Tiny, is very into Chinese buffets. Exactly the kind of shitty C-story Lena generally finds herself.
THE FBI
Frank: "Why are you lurking in my office? It's so scary when you do that."
Ray: "I have too many problems to also be worried about getting arrested."
Frank: "Then why did you shoot Van Miller? He was the best thing on this show!"
Ray: "Think about it. I didn't kill him."
Frank: "On reflection, that makes sense."
Ray: "I am still going to blackmail you though, just in case."
FITE CLUB
Bunchy: "As I said last week but will be reiterating, I feel pretty okay with my rapist dying."
Terry: "It's perfectly understandable."
Bunchy: "I am going to get a grownup haircut, and tuck my shirts in, and also go live back at my apartment. I am going to try being a person now."
Terry: "A little whiplash-y, this turnaround, but I get it."
THE HOTEL
Is gorgeous! A real California paradise. Conor is dealing with the uproar and nonsense by eating everything on the room service breakfast menu, which -- now that her storyline has been over for a while -- gives Bridget the opportunity to bitch nonstop at him, just like Mommy.
Bridget: "Plus you're not even hungry, you're sad. Because Mom is sad and because they're probably getting a divorce and we're even missing school."
Conor: "Bullshit. Like our Dad, I don't have feelings. Plus I don't even like school. If I was in Israel I'd be in the Army right now, turning into Avi."
Off this random segue, Bridget tries to wake Abby up, but Abby has no time for her crap and basically screams at her until she leaves, so she can bury her head under a pillow. I must admit, I don't really understand how this is the breaking point. She seems mostly upset that: Ray almost killed his dad, but then didn't kill his dad, and then the Mossad tried to be her bodyguard, and Ray got molested. Those are like the least bad things to happen to her personally on this entire show, plus the fact that she seems like she wants to divorce him about it. It's weird, but that's Abby.
TEAM RAY
As Lena gets ready to -- yep -- search the Chinese buffets of Los Angeles for a big fat man, Ray tries to figure out how else they can find Sully so he can go back to hating his father full-time.
Avi: "You want me to check on your family?"
Ray: "No, that would be weird because Abby would tell you my business."
Avi: "Maybe you should call her."
Ray: "What are you, my fucking marriage counselor? Go out there and do your fucking job!"
Lena: "That was harsh."
Avi: "Yes, but we love him. And we know he'll feel bad about it in a minute."
Lena: "I'm just saying, if you got shot and the last thing he said to you was bitching about how well you take care of him in every possible way, it would suck for him."
Avi: "I will probably live, though. Just come see me in the hospital because we are a family."
BUNCHY'S APT
Mickey: "Why are you boxing up the porn of butts that I have on every surface?"
Bunchy: "It is not therapeutically appropriate for me to have butt porn everywhere."
Mickey: "Then do you want to have a drink and do all these drugs?"
Bunchy: "No, I want you to move out. I have to concentrate on being awesome."
Mickey: "I am not in favor of this plan."
Bunchy: "Too bad! I am in charge of my life. Bunchy doing Bunchy."
Mickey: "I respect that. At least you're not crying about getting raped. I didn't enjoy having to constantly make fun of you about it. Is this because I shot the wrong priest?"
Bunchy: "No, it's because I told you the priest was here and you were mean to me about it, but Ray believed me and then even shot the guy for me."
Mickey: "Oh my gosh, are you guys okay?"
Bunchy: "Thanks for asking. I think Ray is okay about it, based on some last-minute surprise information, but I admit that Terry and I are not doing great right now."
Mickey: "During this conversation, for understandable reasons, I concede that maybe I am not the best roommate for you now. I will give you space before I come back around for another try at manipulating you."
Bunchy: "I appreciate that, Pop. Things really have been just awful since you came to town."
PARK BENCH
Sully: "Hello, kind sir. May I ask your age?"
Hobo: "I am 65 and crazy as hell!"
Sully: "That works. Have you noticed we look alike? Can I steal your identity?"
Hobo: "I will give you it for $300."
They go to a public restroom and make the exchange, but of course you cannot trust a mean crazy old hobo for anything. And now there are two -- identical! -- ones of them in that bathroom! It will come down shortly to which one is crazier and meaner. One of them has a hobo knife, but the other one is the FBI's Most Wanted. I hope this ends well.
Hobo: "Just kidding, I am going to stab you and take your shoes!"
Sully: "That is a terrible plan on your part because I am an insane psycho murderer."
Hobo: "I don't completely believe you!"
Sully: "Then I am going to have to stab you one thousand times."
Back to the motel where they are in hiding and waiting for Eddie to bring them the money, with no idea that he was run over by a car at an airport.
Tiny: "Okay so while you were stabbing hobos, literally, I let Eddie leave with an entire bag of our money."
Sully: "See this tennis shoe I have? Covered in hobo blood? I am going to beat you up with it!"
Tiny: "I don't feel like we have a mutual respect when you do that."
Sully: "You're right, I'm sorry, baby. It won't happen again, baby. Just go buy me some new shoes."
Tiny: "And then I can come with you to the Maldives?"
Sully: "Of course! We found love in a hopeless place, Tiny."
HOTEL
Mickey: "Conor, where's your dad?"
Conor: "Same place as always. Unknown places doing sketchy things."
Mickey: "Can I talk to your mom?"
Conor: "It's your funeral... Actually no, she's still ostriching in bed. I think we broke her."
Mickey: "All I want is to be helpful, a good paterfamilias. Or at the very least, to be a parasite and come stay with you at that hotel. I'm on my way. With all of my butt porn, because I am homeless."
FITE CLUB
Terry: "I keep lying to Frances, which is so fucked up because she's the one with a secret family. And yet I'm constantly the bad guy, due to killing priests and tossing them in holes and whatever."
Ray: "Just break up with her already. You have been whining about this chick this entire show."
Terry: "I cannot condone murder!"
Ray: "Segue much? Fine, get over it."
Terry: "I wish that you had told us you got raped. It would have taken the wind out of Bunchy's sails considerably. Maybe even helped him find another narrative to live by."
Ray: "Well, I wish you had told us what happened to you."
Terry: "I thought breaking the guy's fingers was enough to put him off raping kids. I didn't have a full understanding of the mental state of someone with a sad problem like that."
Ray: "Then I guess it's both of our faults."
Terry: "Just the way we like everything to be."
Ray: "We're so totally Irish!"
LENA
Lena: "On the more interesting show starring me that nobody ever gets to see, I have found Tiny. His name is ironic!"
Ray: "I will take Avi and be there when the doors open. Will you go check on my family at that hotel?"
Lena: "Sure, whatever limits my screen time as much as possible."
HOTEL
Abby: "Shit! Why is there a gross old man in my bed?!"
Mickey: "Sorry, I fell asleep to you. I can see now that that was weird. But you have no idea the kind of night I had."
Abby: "I am still skeeved out, I can't chat right now!"
She hops into a chair and pulls a sweater over her nethers, the better to really dig in and find something to bitch about.
Mickey: "Can I stay on the hotel couch, please? I am a billion years old and homeless."
Abby: "No, because I don't like you anymore and because Ray is not here for me to take my feelings out on."
Mickey: "Fine, but get out of bed and act like a parent. This depression shit is for fags."
Abby: "Fair enough."
BUFFET
Tiny and the Chinese man do a little comedy routine about waiting until it is exactly lunch time, and the guy knows that Tiny is just going to wreck his buffet like he does every day. So, they have a standoff and a mutual distrust and all in all, it's pretty great. He loads up one hundred plates of food, like how fat people are always doing, and then sits down, and Ray appears out of nowhere and shoves the table so Tiny is stuck in the booth, arms and legs waggling, sweat flying everywhere.
Tiny: "Can I eat least all of my food before you start in on me?"
Ray: "Sorry. Where is Sully?"
Tiny: "I don't know. Fuck you!"
Ray: "No, not fuck me. Did you know I have Eddie? He got hit by a car and we also got that money back."
Tiny: "Sully will be relieved to hear that. But listen, I am fucking freaked out. I didn't come here to LA just to murder Sean Walker. Did you know I adore Sean Walker? He was my favorite. I have been crying since we killed him. It is a problem."
Ray: "Here's the deal. You keep have the money and I will send you to Rosarito with a new identity. Sully can go wherever he wants after that, I just want this situation over with. I can make this happen."
Tiny: "He says I can go with him, but I'm starting to think he's not entirely trustworthy."
Ray: "Yeah? Because he's a fucking psycho murderer, so."
Tiny: "Can I come work for you? I am all alone. All alone, in a world without even Sean Walker."
Ray: "Have you seen Avi and Lena? Not after an entire season of The Biggest Loser are you hot enough to work for me. Just take the offer back to Sully and hope for the best, or else you are dead meat anyway."
HOTEL POOL
Bridget: "Grandpa! I'm happy to see you too."
Mickey: "What is up with Conor?"
Bridget: "He is paying the price for being horrible, of course."
Abby: "Hey kids. Let's keep it down so Mommy's headache doesn't fuck up everybody's day with screeching."
Bridget: "Conor's feeling sick, too. Ginger ale for everybody!"
Abby: "You're such a sweet kid, I'm sorry I was abusive earlier. Now let me talk to Mickey for a second."
Mickey: "That sounds great! I don't see the red flags of an incoming bitch fest because I am too old and desperate and sad and lonely and affectionate and damned."
Abby: "I have no sympathy for that. You're not the only person in this family who is stuck at the wrong age. We all are, except for prototypical middle-child Terry -- who shakes uncontrollably instead -- and Ray, by virtue of the fact that he happens to be just barely pulling off his tween fantasy of being James Bond, but is in fact just as fucked up as everybody else."
Mickey: "I love that we finally made it to the beach, just you and me and the kids."
Abby: "Your inability to understand what is ever going on is like, vertiginous."
Mickey: "Wait, am I in trouble? I was just worried about you. And homeless."
Abby: "Did you know that same priest got to Ray?"
Mickey: "You know, I kind of did but I blew it off. Things were different back then. Kids say the craziest shit like I saw a dinosaur in the street or This one priest is fucking each of your children and you need to do something about it, I mean, what do you believe?"
Abby: "Are you calling my husband a liar?"
Mickey: "No, I'm just saying who cares? I got molested, we all got molested. It's part of being Catholic, getting molested and staying quiet about it. I didn't get coddled, why should my sons? This whole world is just going to shit, with your iPads and your smoking bans."
Abby: "So it occurs to me that you are evil? And Ray was right all along."
Mickey: "Don't be ridiculous, I'm delightful."
Abby: "Yeah, but you're both. I mean, you are the worm in the apple and Ray kept telling us that but I loved you so much that I just thought he was being crazy."
Mickey: "Look, I'm sorry I let my kids get raped. Okay? But I was working..."
Abby: "Selling coke? Are you kidding me? Robbing banks? Having other families?"
Mickey, hilariously verbatim: "What the fuck is going on today?"
She doesn't care that he's confused by everybody turning on him, just threatens him to get the hell out of there.
Mickey: "Do you not understand that you kept me alive in jail? Your letters and our relationship and pictures of the kids..."
Abby: "I know you love me and you love my kids. Why don't you seem to love your own kids?"
It's blowing my mind that she's right about everything and that's without even mentioning how he's a criminal and a murderer and a whatever. Like, if you just chopped off the underworld part of this story and it was about a normal family with normal family problems and the hated father comes back and the wife tries to play them off each other and then realizes it's not worth it. That would still be -- still is -- a fairly awesome story.
Do you know what I mean? "Sorry you're old and homeless, but you fucked up my husband in a way I can legitimately blame all my problems on." And the whole time, Mickey's just mystified by all of this. It's touching and sad but also, she's so great. The horrible thing about her is also the greatest thing about her: Now that it's time for her to stop messing around with sympathy and trying to heal this scarred awful relationship, she can turn her bitching up to Ten for righteous reasons and just stare at him until he gets spooked and runs off to his option.
MOTEL
Tiny: "Seriously though, you need to pack your shit. Here are your shoes but we gotta go."
Sully: "Ray telling us to leave the country makes me want to stay in the country! I am just that nuts! I will get plastic surgery on my crazy face!"
Tiny: "I have been your outside guy this whole time, and I do not blend in. This is really my only option."
Sully: "How can you still think I care about any of that? Did you not get the memo that I... I strangled my girlfriend, do you not remember that?"
Tiny: "Yeah but I feel like the second I decide not to trust you, you're going to do something that makes me trust you again and you will always keep me in your orbit until the very last second."
Sully: "And yet it continues to work. Something to think about, Tiny."
GOODMAN/DREXEL
Mickey: "Ray, don't hang up. I have made up my mind to leave town because I fucked you all up so much. I am contrite and I am making amends. Just let me talk to you."
Ray: "Fine, I will see you at the Fite Club. And yes, I promise not to murder you."
Ezra: "Ray, I have asked Deb to marry me."
Ray: "Sure, that hardly matters either way."
Ezra: "No, it's great because a wife can't testify against her husband!"
Deb: "If I was into self-respect I wouldn't have been a side-piece for decades. You know what I mean?"
Ezra: "Ruth liked you! Because she didn't know who you are. The important thing is that I deserve to be happy."
Ray: "Anyway, Sully said no to our deal, so I'm going to leak an APB that he was spotted in Santa Monica..."
Ezra: "No! Because then anybody could find him, and then he could flip and take us down."
Ray: "So what's your big plan then? Your big plan is to hire me to make big plans, correct? So let me, once again, do my fucking job!"
Ezra: "You're a good son, but I sense trouble on the horizon between us."
HOTEL
Lena: "What the hell is going on here?"
Bridget: "Mom had to take Conor upstairs, he's barfing."
Lena: "You look pretty dicked up. Why are you crying? Let's take a walk."
Bridget: "So his name was Marvin. He did like one thing, and my dad almost killed him..."
Lena: "Uh, what are you leaving out?"
Bridget: "It was the minorest of sexual assaults! But they don't get that it's okay because he's black."
Lena: "You're okay with this because he's black... And they're the racists?"
Bridget: "Exactly. Anyway, my dad's awful."
Lena: "No, your dad is wonderful."
Bridget: "Can you tell me a story that is incredibly vague, yet boring?"
Lena: "[Done.]"
Bridget: "I guess that vague, boring story did the trick and I no longer hate my father."
MOTEL
As Abby is calling Ray to leave a voicemail we won't hear in its fullness until the end of the episode, Sully -- finally roused by Tiny to action -- is sort of getting his shit together while the maid cleans the room. As luck would have it, they throw up the APB on him and she sees him, and then she gets very scared and tries to get up on out of there, but right before she does, he almost kills her, but then instead her coworker knocks on the door and she gets away.
Sully is so annoyed by that! It is so Sully that he is enraged by Ray calling the cops on him and then also this woman getting away un-killed to tell the cops where he is, when it's like, maybe if you went five seconds without murdering somebody you wouldn't be so nervous all the time about getting caught for your constant murders. It's like how you need a car to get a job, but you need a job to buy a car. Only with murdering.
FITE CLUB
Mickey: "Hey buddy."
Ray: "Just tell me what you fucking want."
Mickey: "I want to make sure you're okay! And that you are going to kill Sully."
Ray: "Seriously, what do you want."
Mickey: "I have never had a serious emotional talk before in my life. Basically I thought I would try to do you like I do Claudette, like, seduce you just enough that you like me again and then it won't be weird."
Ray: "That's a good strategy but I don't know if it will work. Because I hate you so much, like, you have no idea. Even trying to get you murdered does not fully express it."
Mickey: "Did you not notice that the first thing I did was a kill that priest?"
Ray: "A priest. You killed a random priest. That's like when a cat brings you a dead bird from outside and then what, like you're going to cook it for dinner? Thanks, cat, but actually you've done nothing but fuck up my day. Try explaining that to the cat, you can't do it, the cat doesn't get it. And so it is, here today, with us."
Mickey: "Fine, I'm leaving town. Somehow. But like, why did you hire Sully to kill me? That hurts, bro. It didn't piss me off that much, I'm just honestly bummed by that."
Ray: "Are you fucking kidding me? Terry shakes all the time, Bunchy is a walking superfund site, Bridget jumped off a roof pregnant..."
Mickey: "I'll grant you Terry. I was not a good enough trainer to understand that he would suffer brain damage in that bout I forced him to box in. I thought he could fight his way out."
Ray: "That's literally all you ever gave us. The option of fighting our way out."
Mickey: "And you did."
Ray: "And it broke us."
And you know the answer: that, by virtue of only ever being you yourself, you will never know how hard life was for somebody else. But that's a question that answers itself, because if you factually cannot know that, then it's not relevant. Ray can say a million times, "I am broken," and Mickey can respond a million times, "Lots of people are broken." But that doesn't mean Ray's not broken, and it certainly doesn't make him fixed. There is no relativity to pain. At best, other people's hardships can inspire you, but that's all they are. It's not an indictment.
And if you can summon up the compassion to see that, then it's just a short hop to understanding that everybody is broken. And that that is fucking okay. Because if we're all dirty, we're all clean, and accepting that -- and it's a long goddamn walk -- means your life finally gets to be about something else.
Ray: "Leaving aside the fact that your decision to abandon Terry was made from greed, how about abandoning us? Mom dying, while you're off in the projects with Claudette?"
Mickey: "I like black chicks. I loved her. Do you know they made death threats against her and the baby? What kind of animals want to kill a baby just because it's black?"
Ray: "Your kind. The kind you chose to make your life with."
Mickey: "Then let's talk about penance. I did twenty years for you. I went down, for you and Ezra and Sean Walker. I kept my mouth shut..."
Ray: "You were on the hook for a half-million bucks from the insane Patrick Sullivan. You were safer in there than anywhere else. And while you were there, you destroyed his whole family."
Mickey: "No, it was for you."
Ray: "Then what about the money?"
Mickey: "Claudette needed it more. I knew in the end you'd take care of the boys. You're the strongest one and the smartest one and the hero of this story. Come on, duh."
It goes on for a while, but it's clear -- to us, and finally to Mickey -- that there is no shot here of Mickey actually answering for all of this. There are no answers he's going to be okay with. Which means something else is at the bottom of this, and you can already see it from here -- but Mickey can't, yet, for reasons that are no less obvious.
Mickey: "You're my favorite, Ray. You always were. We're alike, the two of us. Same exactly."
Which is the problem, and also the solution, but either way it gets them to the endpoint.
Ray: "I told you. I told you what happened to me, with O'Connor, and you called me a liar, and you beat the shit out of me. He kept coming, and coming, and finally he went after Bunchy too. Our sweet Bunchy."
Mickey: "Okay."
Ray: "And that's when I decided to kill you, Mick. You've been dead to me since then. I was ten."
Mickey: "That is the worst thing I have ever heard."
Ray: "There is no forgiveness for you. Ever."
Mickey: "Okay, that's probably worse."
But consider briefly Tommy Wheeler. Ray drove him around all day, gave him an IV, paid off that girl, smiled to himself as Tommy flirted with Lena and Abby: All because at the end of the day, he could let his boy go off with Tommy Wheeler. Give him up to that, knowing he would be safe. That Conor was safe, that the Donovans were safe. That the life he chose to make -- the animals he chooses to have around him; the story he wants his life to tell -- is so much better than we ever knew. In the end, he could love Tommy Wheeler, all the "sick shit" in his head, more than he feared for Conor's body.
They might be the same, and that's not so bad. But they are not the same exactly. Giving Conor his greatest dream: giving Marvin Gaye Washington a chance to recreate himself even after such a great offense, prove it. Not because he lets his kids' safety go: Because he's strong enough to stretch, and realize what parts of this are from his own pain. Big enough to let them live, not out of selfishness but out of love. And they'll never know.
TERRY
Frances: "So about that priest..."
Terry: "Um, he died."
Frances: "Did you kill him?"
Terry: "Not exactly. Stuff happened. Bunchy shot him and I can't tell you why but trust me, it's okay."
Frances: "I am going to keep asking until you get violent."
Terry: "That's fine because I was planning on scaring you away anyway. Ray was right, you deserve better than this."
Frances: "...Okay, you have scared the shit out of me. But what do I do with this information?"
Terry: "Whatever you want. Meaning that you won't do anything, I bet."
THE DOCKS
Ray: "I wonder if Sully will show up and take our bait finally."
Avi: "I wonder if you have talked to your wife yet."
Ray: "Oh my God, dude! Let it go!"
Sully and Tiny arrive... Along with Mickey, who points out that he has nothing keeping him in LA and he's killed like a million people, so maybe throwing in with Sully is his only option.
Mickey: "How's your mother, Avi?"
Avi: "She's fine, thanks."
Ray: "I am so glad we can do this in a gentlemanly manner."
Sully: "Just kidding, I am a lunatic!"
Sully shoots Avi and he goes down, and then they quickly take everybody hostage. Ray is stone-faced as usual, but clearly very annoyed. He leads them, gun to his back, to Frank's boat, where everybody pulls guns on everybody else.
Frank: "This was not a great plan, Ray!"
Ray: "I know, sorry!"
So now they have all the money and all the guns and the getaway boat. Mickey takes Frank's gun... But then puts it to Sully's head, because you just never know with that guy. The power shifts and Frank's about to arrest Sully, but then Mickey -- for a lot of reasons, really -- plugs Sully through the head.
Quickly, Ray reassesses and then sends Tiny running off into the night, tells Mickey to go to hell, gives Frank the gun that shot Sully so it looks like he's a total hero, and takes off to deal with Avi. Frank is a little thrown by the quickness of these events, but recovers well, and anyway it's nice that he survived.
Avi: "I am all right. I have a punctured lung, and broken ribs. I was a medic in the Army."
Ray: "So you really are just good at every single thing? What do you need me for?"
They get Avi to the hospital, and by the end of the whole thing Frank is well on his way to becoming the FBI's most famous getter of bad guys, and Ray's in the car.
Mickey: "Hang on, is that really it? I totally saved you!"
Ray: "Yeah, thanks for that."
Mickey: "But are we not even?"
Ray: "That's so Mickey of you to say, but no. And again, it's not worth trying to explain to you. Just fuck off and live with it. In fact, here is a chunk of money for you to establish yourself somewhere far away from my family."
Mickey: "But that is all I want! I don't want to take over your family, I want to be part of it! You never got that. You're the protagonist, I'm just the grandpa. You were so sure I was moving in on your shit and trying to be dad again, but really I just want to feel safe and put my head somewhere soft at night and look at butts all the time."
Ray: "Which is fine, but you're not doing that with my family that adores you."
Mickey: "I may have time-traveled from the '90s to a world I barely understand, but I have adjusted quite well. I did poppers at a gay club, I realized I was a feminist, I have a biracial child. I am totally 2013. And meanwhile you are stuck back there. You are the one that needs to let go of the past, kid."
Ray: "Fine. Starting with you."
TONIGHT
Lena will pull up her chair to Avi's bedside, clutching at his hand; giving him all the love Ray barely can. She'll rest her hands on his shoulders for a moment, and let him go home. Ray will listen to Abby's voicemail, finally, and relief will wash over his face.
"Hi. It's me. Come home. ...Home, heh. More like a fucking hotel, right? Sweetheart, I don't know why we're here and why we can't come home... But I don't even fucking care. You're my home. I fucking need you, Ray. We all do. We don't even have to talk, just please come here. I love you so much."
Mickey will take Bunchy's cot at the Fite Club, everything he owns in a bag on his back. The boys will silently confer when he walks in, and without speaking clear a space on the couch, between Bunchy and Daryll, and they will watch wrestling, and they will drink their whiskey. They won't think about tomorrow but it will be there in the room.
And as the sun's coming up, Ray's suit will be a mess -- covered in blood, tie hanging loose -- as he stumbles across the sand toward a lounge chair, right at the water. The family will come out to him, one by one, quietly. Bridget is with her book, and Conor, with the smile of a boy whose father has come home from the war. Abby will wrap herself around her husband, as he sleeps. It will fit perfectly this time.
But first, Brendan Donovan will make one last trip to the church. The missing posters everywhere, that's just a picture of a man who got lost, and won't ever be found. A boy will stop short to adjust something on his new bike -- a Raleigh chopper with ape-hanger handlebars -- and when he speaks to him about it, the kid will get nervous. "I didn't steal it!" he'll say, and he won't even be lying. He found it. The boy that left it didn't need it anymore. And Bunchy will smile, and watch his bike ride off into the morning.
It's going to be a long walk. But it's a beautiful day to start.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Ray Donovan, The Good Wife and Homeland for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.