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Looks like Rizzo is really dead, dead. Either that or he's particularly good at lying on the ground immobile with a bloody stomach wound. So Jack's got a big choice here: He can either go to Mia and tell her that he's the one that killed her dear old disgusting dad, or he can lie to her about it. Naturally, he lies, because being honest with your girlfriend isn't something that this show would ever recommend doing. And then he ends up also lying to his brother and creating a whole bigger tangled mess in the process. And Savino isn't really helping matters, in that everyone immediately thinks that he's the third man involved in killing Rizzo since he stood to gain the most. And because, well, he really was indirectly responsible. Still, Savino tells Jack that he'd be wise to keep his mouth shut or Mia will figure it out and stop having sex with him. Besides, it looks like the dead hooker who was at the house with Rizzo and Jack had a shady boyfriend who they can maybe pin this whole thing on. Since there are nothing but white pickup trucks in Vegas and that's the only real clue they have.
While all this investigating is going on, Mia spends most of her time moping and feeling remorseful about the fact that said nothing but shitty things to her father the last time she saw him, and then she takes Savino's offer to return to her job, but also negotiates herself a fancy promotion as head of casino operations.
And when Savino isn't being hauled in for questioning/threatening by Katherine, or telling Jack to shut up, or giving Mia her job back, he's dealing with the Chicago problem. Which is that they want double the skim they have been taking, but if Savino and company comply and make Chicago some extra cash, they won't send another jerk like Rizzo out to oversee things. Also, Savino has the annoyance of Tommy (played by Dollhouse alum Enver Gjokaj), who is a talent manager at the Hacienda who keeps stealing his musicians. Turns out it was just a ploy to get Savino's attention and a job, but it almost gets him killed in the process. But now he's working for Savino, who either seems to respect him or might be keeping him close to murder him later. Hard to say so far.
In Dixon news, his flirting with women is interrupted by his old high school chum who has turned to stealing cars and racing in order to make cash to support his kid. Dixon wants to bust the big crime ring, but his buddy Pete nearly gets killed in the process. And that's when Ralph has to step in to help little brother, because Dixon can't be trusted to be entirely competent on his own. This involves Ralph flirting with a cute redhead to get information, and a potential date, and taking down the crime ring. As a bonus, he also figures out that Pete's ex-wife and her new boyfriend were the ones who tampered with his car so they could take Pete's kid away from him. But while Ralph can figure out Dixon's case, he doesn't even have a remote clue that his other brother is a murderer, involved in tampering with FBI evidence and breaking innocent watercoolers in the process.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!At the Savoy, some crooner is warbling about trouble coming or something. At the bar, some slick guy in a suit butters up Savino for getting in on the ground floor with "Dickie Fontaine," but that's just one of the smart moves he's made since taking over the joint. Savino is wary, but pleased and when the charmer introduces himself as Tommy Stone -- who works over at the Hacienda -- Savino cracks, "We all have to make a living." Stone says his friends in Hollywood tell him Fontaine's booking fees will quadruple once his record comes out, but of course Savino already knows that, right? Savino, obviously lying, pretends he does and as soon as Stone leaves, Savino -- falling for what is clearly a con -- calls Cota over to say he wants to lock Fontaine in for a year and his current price.
Elsewhere, a shaken Jack washes his hands in the bathroom of the hovel where he shot Rizzo and it turns out I was wrong when I assumed Rizzo wouldn't actually be dead -- he's getting cold on the floor, still lying where he fell. Jack -- obviously anxious and not at all thinking straight -- takes Rizzo's gun and gets the hell out of there. The only real explanation -- since this was an entirely justified kill -- is that he doesn't want Mia to know he did it. I guess he'd prefer to lie about it first and THEN have her find out?
Anyway, Dixon is hitting on some comely European tourists and ignoring the radio report of a stolen black Thunderbirds running from cops along Fremont (the only street in Vegas) when the car goes running past. He manages to calm his boner long enough to leave the women and gives chase in his own car, cutting the guy off and pulling his gun on him, only to find out he knows the guy, who is named Pete. (Just one name, like Cher.)
Back at the station, Dixon wants to know what happened to the straight-A star ballplayer he knew from high school, but apparently has disappeared. Turns out he didn't so much disappear as knocked up his girlfriend and so got a job and settle down. Dixon must be a really good friend if he didn't know that. Pete says he's stealing cars now because he needs the money; things aren't going well with his wife and he tells Dixon he can't do time because of everything he's got going on, which is, apparently, a job and a family? Dixon presumes Pete's not doing this on his own, since there have been a rash of auto thefts lately and Pete admits he boosted the Thunderbird for a guy who is part of a ring of mechanics who strip the cars for parts for sale in L.A. He'll be at a drag race tomorrow night and Dixon's very interested in that.
Meanwhile, Jack's knocking on the door of Mia's new house and when he comes in to break the news, he shuffles his feet and stares at the floor so it's clear to her something's wrong. He eventually mumbles that he has bad news about her father: "He's gone." Mia is first stunned, then angry: "What happened? Who did it?" Jack hesitates, and then finally says he doesn't know, he just heard the news on the police scanner and came right here (bold lie, unless he DID hear it on the police radio, I guess. We didn't). She collapses to the floor.
And then Jack is angrily confronting Savino for setting him up -- lying about Mia being a rat so Jack would do Savino's dirty work for him. Savino's not long in figuring out that Jack's here instead of at the station because he hasn't told his brother what happened, because he doesn't want Mia to find out.
The police -- including Ralph and Catherine -- are all over the crime scene, with Ralph doing a pretty good job in piecing together the sequence of events and figuring out there's a third person unaccounted for. And that's when Jack shows up, to do a terrible job of acting nonchalant about the whole thing, explaining that he came right over when he heard about it over the radio. Ralph tells him there's a third man on the run, likely the person who shot Rizzo. Jack stands there swallowing and practically wiping the sweat from his brow. Ralph suggests he look for clues outside.
Over at the casino, Savino's putting together the skim and hoping to reassure Chicago that they'll still be producing just as much even without Rizzo there. Red's impressed that Savino's plan worked, because he would have bet on Rizzo. Well, you didn't factor in Rizzo's slow trigger finger and the ninja junkie!
Ralph has found the cattle prod, so they think Rizzo was torturing whoever was tied up. Catherine figures it was Savino and thought maybe Rizzo found out about the informant, but Ralph's skeptical. The dead woman was a junkie, so maybe Rizzo was into something there. The gangster? NAH. So they decide to ask Mia if she knew what her dad was up to, at which point Jack is all, "Mia's got nothing to do with this!" all conspicuous. Jack, just to be sure you might want to keep telling them how you totally didn't kill Rizzo or anything. Ralph points out that of course they have to talk to Mia about her dad's murder, and Jack insists on being there.
Ralph smartly says that's not a good idea, adding it might be best if Jack breaks the news to Mia. Because Jack is the most terrible liar in the world, he says he already did that so Ralph is all, I thought you came right over when you heard it on the radio. Jack, again CLEARLY LYING, is all, "Yeah, AFTER I talked to Mia, obviously, because I'd hate for her to hear on the news that her father is dead, and keep in mind I totally didn't kill him or anything."
So Catherine and Ralph talk to Mia at the sheriff's office. She doesn't recognize the dead woman, Myrna Callum, and in response to Catherine's questions, isn't aware of her father being involved in narcotics or prostitution, managing to be quite disdainful at the suggestions, because Rizzo's such a saint and everything. Catherine lastly asks if she was aware of any sort of beef between Savino and her father, and Mia asks if she has any evidence that Vincent was involved. Mia's not put off by Catherine going all "not at liberty to disclose that" and leaves, Jack escorting her.
She asks Jack what they've got on Vincent and Jack says he doesn't know, because it's not weird at all that he wouldn't know what evidence they've got, and he also kinda suspiciously presses Mia to find out what Catherine said.
morning, Dixon is already at work with coffee and donut waiting for his dad as Ralph pulls up, and Ralph accepts the breakfast but sees it as a bribe to get him to drop the charges against Pete. What Dixon REALLY wants is for another chance to go undercover to bust up the ring of shady mechanics, which is a great plan except for, again, Dixon being such a prominent deputy and the fact he apparently can't tell a brake pad from a sparkplug.
Savino visits Mia to offer his condolences -- and her old job back, whenever she's ready. If there's anything I can do, etc. etc., says Savino, who's also trying to see where her head is at. "I feel very lucky to have such a good friend in you, Vincent," she says. Well, grief hasn't affected her sarcasm, that's for sure.
Back at the Savoy, Vincent spots Dickie Fontaine at the entrance and wants to celebrate the new contract, but Fontaine is making tracks for the Hacienda, which is paying him more. And who's the entertainment director down there? Why, it's Tommy Stone! Vincent stands there stewing. Hey, tell him Rizzo's dead, so there's much less chance he'll die in a staged drug overdose!
Jack enters the sheriff's office and Catherine tells him they need his fingerprints. Jack's all, "I totally didn't kill Rizzo or anything, so why?" and Catherine explains it's to help the FBI distinguish the prints of the third man versus law enforcement on the scene. But while Jack's fingerprinting himself, Ralph says they might not need the feds; they've found Myrna's boyfriend, so he thinks the two of them tried to rob Rizzo. Catherine says it's an interesting theory, but she still wants the FBI in on it. Ralph says to Dixon, "Hey, how's your dumb plotline going? You know everything about cars since my crash course this morning?" and I guess Dixon's going undercover after all, since this is always useful. Ralph asks Jack if he wants to go after Netter, but Jack begs off citing paperwork.
So Dixon in a leather jacket and white T-shirt -- you know, the Brando! -- arrives at the race and meets Pete. Maybe if Dixon wants to keep going undercover, he should stay in character instead of telling Pete he wishes he weren't working (because of all the women there he wants to have sex with it seems). He's surprised to find out Pete still plans to race, but Pete says it would look suspicious if he didn't, so Dixon allows it. And Pete thanks Dixon for taking a chance on him. By this point Dixon might as well have just worn his damn uniform to the race.
So Pete gets his car and drags some guy in a souped-up jalopy -- at least until his steering wheel starts rattling and he loses control, crashing his car into a parked car that goes up in a ridiculous fireball. Must be Douse Your Car in Gasoline Night!
After the commercial break, Mike Netter is in police custody and Catherine notes he's got priors for robbery, assault and drug violations, which -- when they question him -- she says will help her convince a jury he had something to do with this. A worried Netter says Rizzo was paying Myrna to lure somebody to the house. He didn't see anyone there at first, but when he came back a few hours later, he found the bodies. He only remembers passing a white pickup truck on the way back -- we get a helpful flashback that suggests it wasn't a good look at Jack or anything.
Outside the interview room, Jack is basically, "So this guy totally did it, huh?" but Ralph and Catherine are skeptical because there's no way Netter could have gotten the drop on Rizzo. Catherine still likes Savino for it.
Dixon comes up to tell them Pete's going to be OK, despite being in car crash that incinerated two vehicles and everything, and he's going to go down to the garage where he works. Dixon thinks it's a little too suspicious that as soon as Pete started talking to the law that he got in an accident. But you do such a good job undercover, Dixon! Ralph wants to come with and he tells Jack to find the guy in the white pickup truck. Netter, meanwhile, is staring out the window at Jack.
Over at the garage, Ralph hits on a cute redhead while Dixon is all of a sudden against trying to get laid whilst on the job, so he goes to talk to Pete's boss Eddie, who's working on Pete's car. Eddie says someone bored holes into bolts on the steering column, so once the car got up to 7,000-8,000 RPM, they sheared right off, causing Eddie to lose control.
Ralph has come back over by this point and he cuts off a surprised Dixon just as he's about to ask about the car theft ring, and says their goodbyes.
As he explains to Dixon, "Pete told you that the car thieves are all mechanics, right? Well talk a look around. This is the stolen car ring." From the redhead, he found out that the mechanics disappear for hours at a time, but he got the number she's supposed to call when the garage gets busy. Oh, he and also got her number, but that's strictly for Ralph to have. Dixon is disgusted... and a hypocrite.
Jack has brought Mia lunch -- because a double-cheeseburger ought to make her forget about her shot- and stabbed-to-death dad -- but she's not hungry. She just wants news from the investigation and he's got none. He does have some dumb advice, though: Try not to think about it. She can't stop, because the last time they spoke, they had a fight. She said some horrible things, she says, even though they were things she wanted to say for a long time. "There are a lot of things we'd do differently, all of us, if we could, not that I killed your father or anything," says Jack. She tells him Vincent offered her her old job back and she wants to take it so she can figure out if Vincent killed her dad. Jack thinks it's too dangerous and wants her to promise not to take it. She doesn't say anything.
Red calls Vincent from Chicago with good news and bad. The bad is that the bosses want to double the skim, to ease their nerves on how things are going down there. The good is that as long as "the sandwich" keeps coming back, they won't replace Rizzo. Typical management! Don't fill the position and expect everyone else to take up the slack!
At the sheriff's office, Catherine wants to question Savino: "The longer we wait, the more time he has to cover his tracks," she says, but Ralph doesn't figure Savino will just give it up or anything. Unlike most suspects? Ralph says Savino talks a lot, but doesn't say anything, which is why, I suppose, we've had fewer scenes of the two of them going jaw-to-jaw lately.
Dixon comes in, having tracked the phone number to a shipping company that went belly-up, so he and Ralph leave to go check out the address. As soon as they're gone, Catherine picks up the phone and calls Savino's office.
At the shipping company, Ralph and Dixon find a bunch of stolen cars and a bunch of mechanics who scatter as soon as they see the law arriving, but they do manage to flush out Eddie, which makes sense since he's the only other person involved we've seen. Although I'd kind of like to check back in with the redhead from the garage.
Back at the hotel, Vincent's got a box of cash and jewels that belonged to Rizzo that he gives to Mia and says the rest of his things are being boxed up for her to do with what she will. As for the job, she notes that with her dad out of the way, he's got free rein at the Savoy so expansion can't be far off, plus he'll be running the Tumbleweed. So she'll run the count room, but she also wants to be head of casino operations. She knows Chicago wants twice the skim, so he can't afford any mistakes and needs someone he can trust. "Now, more than ever, you need me," she says. "Now, more than ever"? How about "At the end of the day"? Does Vincent need her "going forward"?
Eddie denies messing with Pete's car and says Pete really didn't want to have anything to do with the car theft ring, but he needed money. Eddie doesn't know what for, though.
Savino shows up at the sheriff's office, having been summoned by Catherine, and if he and Jack want to keep things quiet, maybe they should stop staring at each other so weirdly. Anyway, Savino pleasantly tells Catherine Rizzo was a friend and he'll do anything to help, which is why he's (pretending to be) offended when she tells him he's a suspect. She says even though he thwarted her earlier investigation, his "day of reckoning" is still coming." She threatens to get word back to Chicago that Laura was her informant and it disgusts Savino that cops would... well, you know, act like gangsters. "Any time you want to confess your sins, you let me know, Mr. Savino," says Catherine. Savino says she doesn't have the guts to make his kids orphans, and stomps out. Well, that was useful!
Savino's not in any better mood when he gets back to the Savoy, because there's no music -- Cota tells him the piano player quit for a job at the Hacienda. Wow, this subplot of the difficulties of booking entertainment at a casino is thrilling! Well, at least there's the possibility of someone getting shot -- no, wait, Savino is Mr. I-Want-To-Do-This-Legit gangster, so that's not going to happen. But he does want Cota to arrange a meeting with Stone (i.e. kidnap the little shit).
Dixon goes snooping around Pete's house, which is deserted. Fortunately, someone left the divorce petition between Pete and his wife Shelley (Pete Shelley? Someone's a Buzzcocks fan!) on the counter, just in case anyone happened by and needed to advance the plot. Speaking of which: There's a kids bedroom.
Back at the sheriff's office, Ralph asks Jack if he's found that white pickup yet and Jack -- eyes darting all over the place -- says, "No, because this county has lots of white pickups, including mine, but I ruled that one out because I totally didn't kill Rizzo, of course." Ralph gives him a pat on the back and tells him they'll find the guy. Jack looks like he's on the verge of coming clean -- like, JESUS, Jack, it's only getting worse the longer you wait. He starts to talk -- and then Catherine interrupts because she's got the coroner's report, which shows Rizzo was killed by the same gun -- his own -- that was used to kill Myrna. So they already have the murder weapon. Jack offhandedly asks where the gun is and Catherine, instead of saying, "What a weird question," says it's already with the FBI but WHAT LUCK the fingerprint package isn't going out until later.
Dixon reports back with the news that Pete sunk all his money into buying a house and had filed for divorce and was seeking custody of his daughter. So he and Ralph head over to see Shelley, who says she's a good mother and manages to keep a straight face despite her daughter fighting for elbow space among the garbage and booze bottles all over the place. Ralph makes a crack about what a judge might say if he could see the place. Shelley says the custody hearing was yesterday and Pete didn't show, so obviously Gina isn't too important to him. I'd like to know what kind of two-bit lawyer can't get a custody hearing postponed due to one of the participants BEING IN THE HOSPITAL but whatever. Dixon suggests she had something to do with it, but she says Pete's the father of her child so she would never.
Ralph ambles outside to chat up Shelley's boyfriend, who's packing up the car because they're heading to California where he's getting work on an oil rig. Ralph says he must have been confident about the outcome of the custody hearing, and the sullen boyfriend grunts something about judges knowing kids should be with their mothers. Ralph Lamb don't brook no sexism, y'all! Ralph notes the dude's electric drill and asks to borrow his eighth-inch drillbit (the size used to drill holes in the bolts in Pete's car), a request that will elicit either confusion or hostility, so it's kind of dumb of Ralph to turn his back on Buddy, who grabs a crowbar and starts swinging. Then they wrestle around on the ground a little until Ralph gets the upper hand on the guy half his age (yay for old man strength!) and clocks him with the crowbar, just as Dixon is finally running outside to see what's going on.
Stone -- who should be a LITTLE more concerned -- is taken to the Savoy's "private entrance," i.e. an alley where Savino can use maximum glower power for Stone poaching all of his entertainment. Apparently, Stone has the utmost respect for Savino and was doing it to get his attention, because "You of all people know what this city could be. So do I." And it turns out that the contracts he's been having the entertainment sign are with him personally, not the Hacienda. Savino briefly sounds like he's going to kill Stone, because then the contracts will be null and void, but then offers him a job as entertainment director instead. Apparently it's always been Stone's dream to work for the poor man's Nicky Santoro, so he's thrilled.
So let's wrap up the boring Pete storyline, too! The boyfriend is being charged with attempted murder and Shelley is being charged as an accessory. And the charges against Pete are being dropped because he at least felt bad about what he did and now here's his daughter for hugs and kisses and everything turns out good for Pete.
Over at the sheriff's office, Jack piles bad decision on bad decision by rifling through files until he finds one with "Deceased" stamped on it, removing the fingerprint card, erasing the poor dead bastard's name and putting his own in and then setting in motion a dumb distraction that involves screwing with the office watercooler, a plan that will only work if the officer with the fingerprint file -- currently on the other side of the office -- is the first and only one to notice the water spilling out and goes to clean it up. That's what happens, of course, and Jack switches out his actual fingerprints in the file for the feds with the old ones he just doctored. This is all accompanied, of course, by furtive glances around the room to make sure no one sees him doing such suspicious things as looking through files and adding things to files.
And then it's recrimination time, as Jack stares at himself in the mirror in the bathroom but does not start shaving his head or anything, like in The Royal Tenenbaums (or, you know, attempting suicide). Then he gets into bed with Mia, who tells him she's taking her old job back. "The not knowing at all, it'll eat me up," she says. Jack says if she's under Savino's roof, he can't protect her, but she counters that she knows how to calculate risk and has made up her mind. "Don't trust anybody," he says after a moment, and of course she responds by saying he's the only man she trusts. Jack's like, "Great, how am I supposed to get to sleep with all this irony?"
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. It's almost hard to believe that a sheriff's deputy dating the criminal daughter of a mobster in Vegas isn't going very well at all. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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