Mark Clark reviews the tenth episode of Ray Donovan season 4…
It may seem like there’s a lot going on in episode 10, and I suppose there is, but for all the to-ing and fro-ing it never seems to get anywhere. Even Ray meanders through with a single expression and a mien that suggests he’s just joining some dots and waiting for the next chapter to kick in. Seeing as there are only two more episodes in the season you have to hope that this one is just a necessary blip before the tourniquet it tightened in the finale.
It all starts off promisingly with Ray, Lena and Daryl pulling a heist on Waller and a couple of Dmitri’s goons at the gallery, and making off with all the nice expensive art, which theoretically should just make it a straight swap for Avi, but what did Sonia tell Ray again? Don’t deal with Dmitri, just leave.
Back at the Donovan’s they find Abby sitting on the stairs gun in hand. She thinks Ray should have killed Sonia Kovitzky, but he reckons it wouldn’t have made a difference. Upstairs he finds Bridg in her room, laying under the painting of ‘Girl With Guitar’ from episode 3. It’s suddenly a grim portrait of everything that’s happened.
Terry has struck lucky and has woken up in the cop’s bed. He confesses about Season 3’s robbery and prison time, then pretty quickly thinks he misspoke. And the cop? She actually seemed kind of charmed.
At Fite Club the hallway is still fire scarred. Hector is on the phone with Marisol, struggling with her, his boxing, his family life. I’m struggling with Hector’s entire storyline. Terry seems to be the only one determined to do anything with it – more power to him.
Bridg, now downstairs at the homestead hears Abby declining something on the phone with her doctors. Abby’s obviously still in denial to some but there’s no time for reflection as there’s a man in a car outside staking out the house…
Meanwhile Ray tries to get Terry to close down the club and lay low but Terry finally has things going on and even Russian gangsters aren’t gonna see him off. Bunch is at the club too with Theresa and Ray finds the Primm job cash stash. Bunch tells him the story – Ray tells them to get to his place. Last but not least he passes Mickey on the stairs, and Mickey tries to explain why he did it, and even tries to give Ray his cut. He didn’t mean to get anyone hurt. That cuts no ice with son number one, ‘But they always do, don’t they Mick’.
At the stolen art warehouse hideout Ray photographs the paintings. Lena calls to confirm the watcher at the house, plus the pilots who flew Sonia said that she jumped straight on another flight the moment they landed in Grenada – to who knows where.
Bouncing back to Fite Club (again) and Hector’s wife is chewing him out while their daughter listens. She’s leaving him, heading to Montreal. Needless to say Hector is all over the place and Terry tries to get him to concentrate on training but Hector leaves. Just for an hour.
Ray gets a call from Waller while he’s with the art; the meet with Dmitri is also, in an hour. Lena tells him she hacked Sonia’s ‘cloud’ and has all the skinny on gallery receipts and bills of sale. Which I’m guessing is not to prove they’re great at accounting.
Later at the Russian Mafia Mansion Ray finally meets Dmitri and it’s not really a meeting of minds. Dmitri enjoying an entire lobster (or two), Ketel One vodka and schlocky looking action film ‘The Kremlin Bleeds’. It’s London Has Fallen, in the Kremlin, which probably was Gerard’s sequel before this episode aired. The film stars one of Ray’s clients, Butch Kramer, and Dmitri has an odd interest in him, even down to wanting him at his party that night. Ray wants Avi, he wants to meet Butch. Seems an expensive palate and a love of bad movies go hand in hand.
Outside Ray confronts Waller with his knowledge, and evidence, of the forgery scam. A scam Dmitri doesn’t know about. Ray says dealing with Butch, swapping Avi for the art has to be it. Finito. Waller says being reasonable is not in Dmitri’s nature.
Still under surveillance, Mickey and Abby talk. She loves Mick – loves him because she loves his son. Tells him when she and Ray first slept together, listening to the song ‘Layla’, Ray said ‘Kill me when this song ends. Slice my throat and let me bleed out, because it’ll never get any better than this.’ Which is something the showrunners will hopefully not take too literally. Still, whatever happens I’ll be at least a little bit happy just watching another Voight acting masterclass. The man even out-acts his co-star when he’s just listening.
Ray catches up with Kramer at a movie studio as he’s being interviewed – he’s a humorous version of a Hollywood action lunk, inspiration unknown. He’s doing a sequel called the Taj Mahal Bleeds, and they’re filming in India. You know, because that’s where the Taj Mahal is. Spotting Ray he cuts the interview and Ray feeds him a line to get him to show up at Dmitri’s; his sex tape blackmailer from last year wants to show up as a ‘favour’. Lunk indeed.
Hector’s a no-show back at Fite Club so Terry goes to find him. Hector’s been at Marisol’s, and she’s not exactly been sympathetic to his faily woes. She just wants them so she runs a bath and starts to strip Hector. He seems compliant, surrendering, fight all gone. Then the fight is back, and murderous; holding Marisol under the water and drowning her. Then Terry turns up as Hector is splitting, spilling a story about Marisol killing herself, and Terry is straight on the phone to brother Ray.
At the Donovan’s Theresa persuades Bunch to leave once Ray’s back and Abby and the kids are safe. Man, every time someone says the word safe on this show I get a bad feeling.
Ray turns up at Hector’s and knows exactly what happened. He tells Terry to get out of there as Hector feels sorry for himself, but Ray’s not exactly feeling sympathetic himself, and leaves him flat.
Dmitri’s party that night and we learn that the Butch Kramer visit is a set up; a chance to give Butch a beat down for insulting Russia in his latest flick, and an example to Ray, to Dmitri himself, that he doesn’t care about anything except his own code. Anyone else’s fame or power is irrelevant – he’ll do, and get, what he wants. Dmitri takes Ray inside and to a worrying blood trail on the floor, but it’s Waller bashed up in a bathroom, not Avi. Dmitri knows all and Waller gets a bullet in the head for his troubles.
As for Ray, he apparently owes Dmitri more than he’ll ever have. So where does that leave Ray? Well, he’ll work it out. Exchanging one Russian troublemaker for one a whole lot more dangerous.
Ray heads back to Hector’s, gloves on. Seems he’s going to help with the situation but with a twist in the tale as he makes sure of getting a photo of Hector in front of dead Marisol. He tells Hector and act like nothing happened, then he takes Marisol’s body to a dam, sets the scene for her ‘self-destruction’, drops her body over the side and walks away. On the phone he tells someone he’s going to pay them back everything and more, but who’s that someone… Dmitri, Cochran? At least it seems something might get clearer in episode 11, and maybe we can get back to that saving Avi thing.
Mark Clark
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