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Savino's Tumbleweed plans are continuing apace, working with the Mormon banker who's less than a stickler for the moral character of his business partner. But the Mormons do want to see that Vincent is a good family man, which means Mrs. Savino is on her way. They have what appears to be an arm's-length marriage, in the sense that Laura doesn't want to know anything about the dirty business he does. He tries to sell her on the legitimacy of his new project and of the opportunities that abound in the desert. She mostly falls for it, too, at least until she notices the bullet holes in the upholstery of her husband's car. Still, she dutifully plays the good wife for Savino at the country club, sealing the deal; given what a focus that was of the episode, I found it more than strange that we didn't actually get to see that scene, but I imagine Chiklis and Quaid in a producer's war every week, ensuring they each get equal amounts of screentime.
Much like Skyler White on Breaking Bad, she demands he keep no more secrets from her, a promise I'm not sure he's actually willing to keep. He's dealing with the Milwaukee fallout of whacking Davey Cornaro. The Happy Days mob sends an enforcer named Jones to come look for him, a bespectacled, formally mannered and affected thug that seems like a lite (in more ways than one) version of The Wire's Brother Mouzone. Savino orders his crew to make it appear that Cornaro skipped town so as not to touch off a gang war between Chicago and Laverne and Shirley. They plant Cornaro's car at the airport (after having the poor honest chop-shop owner put it back together), successfully fooling him and putting the police off the trail of Cornaro's disappearance too. Well, except for Ralph, of course. The discovery of corn in the car's axle or fuel tank or spark plug or whatever makes him decide Cornaro is buried in a cornfield, which is great, because there has to be a couple Savino-Lamb glare-offs in every episode.
But the centre of the episode is the kidnapping of the son of a member of the gaming commission. It's handled a little melodramatically -- the slow motion revolution of the boy's hula hoop, dropped by his mother when she sees a rogue pool-cleaner make off with her -- but is mostly compelling, apart from the problem that you're never convinced Ralph and his men aren't going to rescue the kid. There's a shootout at a motel, and then Ralph poses as the boy's uncle -- who turns out to have orchestrated the kidnapping for cash to convince his brother-in-law to grant a gaming license to a casino that can't get it honestly -- to exchange the money for the boy. That would have gone south -- the kidnappers intended to kill both the uncle and the boy -- if not for Jack's sharpshooting. Not along for the gunplay: Dixon. Despite his growing aptitude for police work -- and in Vegas, that can put you in the path of the mob -- Ralph is more and more reluctant to let him out in the field. “I'm his father, you're his uncle. It's different,” Ralph tells Jack when Jack sticks up for Dixon.
The kidnapped boy's father -- played by serial-drama stalwart and fan favorite Greg Grunberg -- is naturally effusive in his gratitude, perhaps convincing Ralph that this town does, in fact, need him, as the mayor tells him at the outset. Hizzoner wants Ralph to put his name up to take over the job permanent-like (not to mention lend his support to the mayor) but Ralph's not committing just yet, fearing that the thing the mayor says makes him a good sheriff -- the way crimes eat at him, keeping him up at night -- will change him into a different person. Vegas, writ small.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. His general rule is that if you save his life by shooting someone in the back, you get to accompany him everywhere. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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Savino's meeting with Leo Farwood again, and things seem to be going well investment-wise for his Tumbleweed club plans. There's a little dancing around the unsavory nature of Savino's line of work, but Farwood says Mormons are all about relationships. I guess that means as long as you look a man in the eye when you shake his hand and don't murder him, that's good enough for him.
Now, choosing an unsuitable wife? That's another matter. Farwood says the type of wife a man chooses says a lot about him. I don't know that anyone should be taking character advice from this guy, but it turns out that Savino's wife Laura will be here in time for the dinner at the country club tomorrow. Then Savino presents Farwood with a huge Tumbleweed cake, carried by two showgirls, and pretends to be surprised when Farwood doesn't start having sex with the showgirls right there in the restaurant.
Later, Laura shows up -- she's somewhere south of "enthused" to be here -- and gets the royal treatment from Vincent as well as the staff, and meets Mia, who she knows largely through her father, it seems. When Laura asks how he is, Mia gives a cheery-but-noncommittal "Same as always," -- which I guess means "still prone to violent outbursts" -- and to show Laura around town tomorrow. Laura accepts, giving the sense she feels like she's being pawned off by Vincent.
Ralph comes into the office to find ADA O'Connell draped all over his desk, because she and Dixon are trying to locate Davey Cornaro (with some utterly unnecessary background given to Ralph, clearly shoehorned in for viewers) and wonder if Cornaro might have been bribing Sheriff Clyde as well; if so, his arrest records might show it. O'Connell praises Dixon's police work, and Jack comes in so everyone can chortle about brains or whatever skipping generations, and then the mayor comes in and Ralph boots everyone else out.
The mayor's there to get Ralph to put his name up for election, as Clyde's term is about to run out and Jack would be unopposed. That might be a little presumptuous, but Ralph's non-committal, claiming to want to keep his options open. At the very least, the mayor wants Ralph to stand beside him at an Elks Lodge fundraiser, and it turns out Ralph can be bought: by the promise of chili omelettes. Might as well open all the windows in the sheriff office now, damn.
And then we get to the case of the week: An adorable nine-year-old tyke named Tim Larson arrives at his '60s-trendy home with his mom, where his dad and Uncle Andy are going over documents with some other suit, something having to do with highway lanes, establishing that the dad is not willing to scrimp by cutting a lane here or there to save some money. This is going to be by the book, dammit! That would be Uncle Andy looking to save money.
The kid goes out back to practice his hula-hooping while his mom makes a snack for him in the kitchen and notices the pool guy going by. Moments later, the kid is gone, leaving behind his hula hoop, much to his mother's consternation. She picks it up, then drops it and it whirls around in hokey slow-motion when she sees the pool guy absconding with their son, stuffing him in a car parked out front that peels off, leaving the mother screaming and collapsing in the middle of the street.
Jack and Ralph arrive and Dixon fills them in, letting them know that the car was spotted but then lost somewhere in the subdivision. Jack and Ralph peel out and find it. You couldn't have missed it, really. It's a brown Ford Galaxy -- probably anachronistic in detail, as pretty much all cars on this show are I'm told, if that's your thing -- and it's also on fire in someone's driveway. Car fires were not really in fashion in the early '60s. Jack has to restrain Ralph from hopping in to the inferno that is the car to see if Tim's there.
We're in Milwaukee now, in some sort of dingy basement office/storage area. "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" is playing, and some glasses-wearing dude in a brown shop apron answers it as "Jones," and gets brief instructions to get out to Vegas. He says he'll be on the plane and then goes back to what he was apparently doing before the phone rang: Unspeakable things to whoever this is sitting in a chair, back to the camera. Jones tells him he's got to go to Vegas, so the good news is they're done here. The bad news is the lake is cold this time of year. But the bright spot there is that this guy won't be feeling it for much longer. So we're doing the bookish-looking nerdy guy is actually a cold, vicious psychopath, is that it?
Back to Vegas (an on-screen graphic unnecessarily tells us Ralph and Jack didn't decide to go investigate a burned-out Ford Galaxy in some other city for some reason), we determine that there was no one in the car when it burned. But there are three pairs of boots in the trunk, leading Ralph to conclude it was crew and not a random grab. The house is a bust -- just used to switch vehicles -- and the neighbors didn't see anything.
Tim's father, Jack tells us, is Milton Larson, highway contractor but -- probably more important in terms of enemy-making possibilities -- the newest member of the gaming commission, meaning casinos need his vote to get a license. Ralph tells Jack that when they talk to the parents, use Tim's name and not to speak of him in the past tense lest they freak out and become useless, investigation-wise.
Elsewhere, Vincent and Laura -- I assume we're still in Vegas, but there was no on-screen graphic, so how can we be sure? -- are feeling each other out (not up). Vincent's got the full-court press on, selling Vegas to Laura, wining and dining her and taking her to "Sammy's second show." More '60s references, guys! More! MORE! She gets the sense that this is leading to something beyond their usual arrangement, which seems to be the occasional weekend trip home and Christmas in Miami and she's right: He wants her to move to Vegas. She's not keen -- "there are things you need to do and things I don't want to see," she tells him, and it's not like she bought the "broken champagne bottle" explanation for the bandage on his hand. She's surprised, maybe intrigued by the invitation to the country club by Vincent's "banker friend," but Vincent long ago promised her the straight life. "It's not a dream anymore. It's right in front of us," he says. She's skeptical, but he wants her to at least think about it.
Jack and Ralph go to talk to the family. Milton is played by Greg Grunberg, who I really hope will get a role someday that will make everyone stop thinking, "Hey! Eric Weiss!" And I'm speaking as an Alias fan. Anyway, Tim's mom tries to describe the nefarious pool guy, but she breaks down. Ralph assures her that Tim's alive, because they've got something the kidnappers want. Milton's business partner tells Ralph they'll send over the gaming agenda so they can see if there's anyone who might have a problem solvable by kidnapping.
Meanwhile, Dixon is going over the burned-out car with Don Simmons, who can tell just from finding a gas can and a Zippo in the torched Ford that the Zippo was used to ignite gas to burn the Ford! It's like watching Sherlock Holmes work! Perhaps more importantly, Dixon finds the vehicle identification number is still legible.
Vincent isn't so busy that he can't stand waste time gazing at the fish tank in his office, but that might be so he can turn dramatically around when Red shows Ralph in. "I'd exchange pleasantries, but that's always a one-way street," says Vincent. Heh. Ralph says he's not here to be pleasant, and he's got a hundred-percent success rate on that goal. Ralph tells him about Tim's kidnapping, and wants to know which of Vincent's mob buddies has a problem with the gaming commission. Vincent's insulted by the implication -- especially as Ralph points out Vincent's Tumbleweed plans will need commission approval -- and says he might tell Ralph if he knew anything, but he doesn't. Ralph doesn't believe him and swaggers on out of there, and then Red answers the phone, relaying the message to Vincent that "Jones from Milwaukee is here." This does not appear to be welcome news.
Vincent heads down to the casino floor and finds Jones sitting in front of a drink at the bar. They exchange warm mobster greetings about what good friends they are, Vincent fishing to find out the reason for Jones' visit. Jones says he's trying to track down Davey Cornaro, who vanished. What's worse, "the sandwich" never made it back to Milwaukee. Vincent says the ADA was bringing heat over Cornaro's union beef, so maybe Cornaro skipped town. Jones doesn't buy it, but doesn't actually say so. "It's a troubling situation. The bosses in Milwaukee want me to resolve it, so I can't go home until I do," he says. He and Vincent stare at each other for a moment -- when people on TV stare at each other like this, I always think of Larry David staring up people's nostrils to see if they're lying -- and then Jones leaves, having not touched his drink, because we've got to cram in another affectation: That he just orders drinks because he likes the smell.
Vincent tells Red that he can't have Jones sniffing around while Laura is here. "Every time he shows up, bodies start dropping," he says, and since he told Jones he thinks Cornaro skipped town, he wants Red to make it look the case.
Over at the Larson house -- it could be "Larsen," I suppose, but IMDb is currently listing the characters' names as "Ludlow" -- Jack strolls into Tim's bedroom, where Tim's mom, whose name I missed, is waiting to deliver a speech about how sad she is, and Jack can reassure her to the extent that I kinda wondered if he was going to hit on her.
Then the phone rings, and the two of them sprint to the dining room where everyone gathers around. The phone company's going to trace the call, so let's hope it's not Grandma calling from Kansas to find out if she's allowed to come for Christmas.
Jack tells Milton to keep them talking, and to agree to everything. No speakerphone in those days, so the receiver is just sitting on the dining room table. After a moment, a gruff voice tells them the price of Tim's return is $80,000 by tomorrow. Oh, and they gotta keep the law out of it. Milton says he can get the money and he asks to hear Tim's voice. Tim says hello, and his mom shrieks and his dad promises to get him back. "Cross us, and that's the last time you'll hear his voice," says the kidnapper, and hangs up. All things considered, I thought that went pretty well!
I guess it's the day? Because it's light out? Anyway, I would have thought that even in the early '60s an operator could have traced a call quicker than that, but at the sheriff's office, Jack finds out the best she could do is an exchange in Eastland Heights, off Route 95. And Don comes in, having cleaned up the lighter enough to find an insignia from a military unit from Georgia, which Ralph thinks makes sense, because of the military precision needed to, you know, toss a nine-year-old kid into a car. He wants them to check military-surplus stores, etc., for the gear they would have needed to pull of this job, which so far consists of a gas can and boots. Yeah, when someone buys boots, you don't forget a thing like that.
Meanwhile, Laura and Mia are sharing drinks and Laura is telling the tawdry tale of how she met Vincent, which was when her date at an underground casino started getting fresh with her, or whatever, and Vincent -- the casino manager -- grabbed the guy by the throat to give him a lecture about manners. Laura says she was surprised to find Vincent a multi-faceted man -- charming, intelligent and tactical, the best example of the last one being using Mia to sell Laura on Vegas. Mia says he didn't ask her to do that. "You're smart. He didn't have to. And he's the boss," says Laura, and Mia says he's the best she's had. Let's presume the two of them are going to get sloppy drunk and tell scary mob-relation stories!
Elsewhere, a man and woman are sweating up the sheets when in strolls Jones, which is, as you can imagine, quite the mood killer. He ignores their surprise and asks Ruth -- who turns out to be Davey Cornaro's secretary -- where Davey and "the sandwich" are. First, he's got to break Eddie's hand and crack him across the jaw, knocking him out first. The sandwich turns out, unsurprisingly, to be an envelope full of money that a frightened Ruth tells Jones is in the dresser drawer. He picks it up and says it's a little light. She promises desperately that she'll pay it back. She doesn't know where Davey is; she figured that since he left without the money, he wasn't coming back. That... is probably the opposite of what she should have figured, but never mind.
She fearfully wants to make sure they can square things, and he assures her that everything will be "peachy," and that's before she drops the sheet from her naked body to indicate how she'd like to pay. He stands there, and it doesn't take a genius to know that this is the last we'll see Ruth alive.
Back at the sheriff's office, this crack team has found the army-surplus store where the gang -- led by someone being called "Sarge" -- bought their gear, including two-hundred rounds of 30-calibre ammo. "They're prepping for a fight," says Ralph. Dixon found the garage that sold the car, and the owner overheard them talking about meeting back at "King's" which is a motel. The sheriffs saddle up, but Ralph orders Dixon to stay behind. "It's not a discussion," says Ralph, before heading outside, where Jack sticks up for Dixon -- not that Ralph is hearing any of it, and accusing Jack of meddling. Jack doesn't think it was called "meddling" when he was raising Dixon while Ralph was off being an MP. "I'm his father. You're his uncle. It's different," says Ralph, and outglowers Jack.
Out at the motel, the men find the kidnappers took the room at the end near a pay phone, but there's currently only one of them there.
So the three of them go marching across the parking lot, guns out, which seems foolish -- I'd assume the kidnapper might be keeping an eye on things outside. Then the pay phone rings, and all three of them freeze. It's almost funny. Buddy comes out to answer it, and it almost appears like he's not going to see them. But he does and he races back inside before they get do anything about it and starts firing at them.
Without knowing if Tim's inside or not, Ralph won't let them fire back, which becomes a problem when Jack decides to run around back to keep the guy from sneaking out that way. But the kidnapper's sharpshooting traps Jack behind the motel sign and Ralph is forced to shoot the guy, who's dead before he gives up Tim's whereabouts to Ralph's scowl. There's no sign of the kid anywhere. Plus, ugh, all the paperwork that comes with a dead body? I mean, forget it.
So Ralph has to explain what happened to Tim's parents. Milton's furious because now the kidnappers are going to know the law's involved. Seems to me that three smart military men would know that would happen anyway, but Milton orders Ralph to get his men the hell off the case. Before they go, they do learn that Milton's wife knows the dead man: Wade Ulm, who worked for her dad.
As the Lambs leave, they see Milton's business partner, Turley, bringing in a briefcase presumably stuffed with the ransom. Ralph starts talking about making sure the phone tap stays up and Jack almost comically points out they just got kicked off the case. Ralph has to explain to his dingbat brother that sheriffs traditionally don't take orders from highway contractors, plus there's no way the kidnappers are letting the kid -- a potential witness against them -- go. The only way this turns out right, says Ralph, is if they track down the kidnappers and take Tim back.
Meanwhile, Ruth's dead, as is Eddie. The crime scene is being attended not by the sheriffs, but by Vincent and Red and a couple of their thugs, impressed that Jones at least made it look like a murder suicide so he didn't have to dig any holes. See, mobsters can learn from each other! Vincent's more concerned that the trail's going to lead to their front door. His guys' plan to leave Cornaro's car at the airport has hit a snag, though, because they paid a guy to get rid of it, and now they can't find it. "You three clowns are running a circus act!" yells Vincent, although I'm not sure what other kind of act a clown is qualified to run. He wants this taken care of before the time he sees them, and stomps out. Not shown: the thugs calling their wives, letting them know that "old man Savino" is really busting their hump to get this job done, so they'll be late for supper.
Speaking of supper, Laura and Vincent wait outside the casino for their car to be brought around so they can get to the country club. Vincent's nervous, but Laura seems to be coming around. She warmly tells Vincent to make the banker believe in him, like she does. But it takes no more time than for Vincent to put Laura in the passenger seat and then walk around to the driver's side for her to turn cool again: She spots bullet holes in the upholstery, and then looks at his bandaged hand again.
So she suddenly decides she's not feeling well and suggests Vincent go without her, but he's crushed. "This isn't for me, this is for us. Please -- I need you," he tells her, and it looks like she's torn.
Red's men visit the chop shop where "Little Mike" brought Cornaro's Cadillac and find -- not surprisingly -- it's been chopped. So they order him to put it back together. He says that's not something he does, and quickly learns that it's what he does if he wants to keep breathing.
Over at the sheriff's office, the mayor arrives to find Ralph doing some overtime brooding over the Larson case. The mayor says this is why he asked him to be sheriff: "It eats at you when somebody's doing somebody wrong. Not all of us are built like that." And whether Ralph signs the nomination papers or not, this won't be last boy that trouble finds. Well, that should make Ralph feel better! Ralph says coming in to this office is what changes a man, and the men he brings with him -- this is the root of his fear over having his son here, clearly. "This city needs you," says the mayor, and strolls on out of there.
Out where actual police work is going on, the criminally underused ADA Va Va Voom comes in with a little of Wade Ulm's history and Dixon's heard from Ulm's bank, where he recently cashed a cheque from one Gus Wilson. Wilson's brought in for interrogation by O'Connell and Lamb, with the chief question being whether Wilson's slots parlor has a gaming license. It does not, but Wilson says the money was supposed to be for a bribe for Milton's right-hand man -- not Turley, but brother-in-law Uncle Andy. It didn't work though, and Wilson wanted his money, saying he'd expose Andy unless he got it back. It seems unlikely that Wilson would do that, but nevertheless, the money was supposed to be paid back in cash, tomorrow. Wow, tomorrow's going to be busy! The ransom's due, Wilson is supposed to get his money ba-- ohhhhh.
Andy, now in Ralph's office, hotly denies the allegations, but Milton remembers voting against Wilson's license since he didn't have enough funds in escrow to cover payouts -- while Andy kept urging him to vote in favor. Sure enough, the kidnapping was to make enough money to pay back the bribe -- which Andy has already spent -- as well as Ulm's crew, but they double-crossed Andy, he pleads, and now want all the money to themselves and have promised to kill Tim unless Andy does the drop. It's hard to believe that people who'll kidnap a nine-year-old would go back on their word like this, but there you have it. Andy gets a beatdown from Ralph and Andy, which seems reasonable. Ralph wants to know who Ulm's men are, but Andy says he's never met them, and Ralph says that's the first useful thing he has said.
That's right: it means that Ralph is heading to the drop pretending to be Andy. He pulls up to a shack far from town, the two remaining kidnappers waiting for him and wanting to make sure he didn't do anything stupid like bring the law with him. Ralph points out they'd have seen anyone coming into the canyon, like they did him. Which is immediately disproven by the fact that we now see Jack sneaking around, having ridden a horse and he's not all that far away. Ralph wants Tim back, but after the kidnappers get their money from the car, it appears that the terms of the deal have changed. "He'll live longer than you, but not by much," says one of them, raising his rifle. Ralph takes off his hat and puts it in front of his face, the signal for Jack to start shooting.
Jack takes out one of them and Ralph starts wrestling with the other, who winds up shot, writhing on the ground. Ralph wants to know where Tim is and gives the guy a choice, putting his foot on the guy's leg: "I'm giving you a choice: A limp or a wheelchair, which is it?" Buddy doesn't take long to reach a decision; Tim's in the shed behind them.
So Ralph goes in and pulls Tim from underground space under a trapdoor. The sappy music swells and Tim is reunited with his parents at the sheriff's office, where an ecstatic June and Milton hug their kid. Then June looks sad as her brother is led past in handcuffs and Milton shakes Ralph's hand and apologizes for having ever doubted him. You are forgiven. THIS TIME. But doubt Sheriff Ralph Lamb in the future at your peril!
At the airport -- huge old-timey jet-liner painted in the background -- Jones finds Cornaro's car and a copy of a ticket to Los Angeles not at all suspiciously planted inside, and Red reports to Savino that Jones was on a plane to L.A. himself an hour later. Vincent's got some good news of his own: the dinner went great and he's getting the Tumbleweed. Utter bullshit that this dinner was such a big deal and we don't even get to see it! Laura comes in, and everything's coming up Vincent, because she's agreed to come to Vegas. She's got one condition, though: From now on, Vincent tells her everything. "No more secrets," he says. It's easy to agree to something if you don't actually plan to honor the agreement.
Back at the sheriff's office, Dixon reports to O'Connell and his dad about Cornaro's car being found in the parking lot, but with the odd detail that there was corn chaff found in the undercarriage. O'Connell says if Savino killed Cornaro, it might have been done in a cornfield. Maybe check to see if Cornaro ACTUALLY GOT ON A PLANE? Come on, guys.
O'Connell leaves so Dixon and his dad can have a discussion about how uncool it is for Ralph to bring his son in and then handcuff him to a desk. "I understand you got your reasons for wearing a star, but I found my own," says Dixon, who says being a cop suits him and he's good at it. The fact that Dixon saved his dad's life isn't swaying him: "The point is you shouldn't have been there. I don't want you in the line of fire and I want you to stay out of this Savino business, too," says Ralph. Dixon nods, not in agreement, but as in, "I see how it's going to be."
A dusty road by a cornfield. Savino pulls up to find Ralph waiting for him, all melodramatically draped over the hood of his pickup truck. Savino sarcastically asks for an apology since the kidnapper turned out to be a family member, but Ralph ain't in an apologizin' mood. He surveys the cornfield and says he thought they might take a look, since you never know what you might find. Savio's all, "Got any proof I'm not a law-abiding citizen?" and Ralph says the time will come: "Secrets don't stay buried. Neither do bodies."
Savino snorts and heads back to his car, pointing out everyone winds up in the ground someday. "Yeah, but how we get there counts for something," says Ralph. Savino agrees to "chew on that" like Ralph advises, but just between you and me, I don't think he's going to chew on it very much.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. He just got invited to come to Vegas, a trip he sadly had to decline, for fear of getting lassoed. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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