‘Ray Donovan’ Breakdown: “Irish Spring”

No lie lives forever…but SPOILERS do…

Season Two, Episode Five: “Irish Spring”

Written by Ron Nyswaner; Directed by Dan Attias

All you need to know: Ray is back, and he’s paying in spades.

Quick Breakdown

Linda is back. This time more literally. It seems some dogs have dug up part of her body at the oil fields and some kids pretending to be Matt Hoffman rolled up on it. She’s been somewhat of a demon for Mickey during this season, but it’s about to get much worse (more on that later).

Oh, yeah. Mickey. Where the hell is he? Well, that’s what Ray wants to know, too. After Ronald informs him of Mickey’s “abduction,” Ray makes a beeline for the man he hopes can answer that question: Frank. And when I say “beeline,” what I really mean is beat-the-shit-out-of-him-until-he-gets-some-information-he-can-use. Alas, after much “persuading,” he offers Ray some water cooler gossip, telling him about mumblings around the office that Cochran is getting it on with his ASAC’s wife. Yes, Frank, we already know. But Ray doesn’t.

It seems Frank is rather popular this week — after his unscheduled meeting with Ray, he gets another drop-in from Kate. This girl just won’t quit. She’s, like, the Boston Lois Lane or something. Anyway, Frank doesn’t want to talk. (I mean, in his defense, his face is kind of banged up from the conversation he had earlier.) Instead, he tells her to back. “You’re going to get yourself killed,” Frank tells her. Not particularly fazed by this, she decides to chase him out to the dock in hopes of continuing the conversation when Avi shows up. Frank disappears. Kate jumps on a boat and is carried away into the horizon.

As it turns out, the horizon isn’t too far and not quite as beautiful as a sunset might make it appear. Actually, it’s in a rundown neighborhood that looks a lot more like Mickey’s shitty apartment. Oh, that’s because it is. (Remember: Last week, Mickey called her willing to give her the story she’s been looking for before his door was kicked in and he was dragged away.) She arrives to find the door ajar but with no Mickey inside. His neighbor greets her, and before he’s run off by Ray’s sudden appearance, he discreetly drops a note into her purse that Mickey left for her.

Ray can’t be happy having to constantly chase this woman around Los Angeles. Surprisingly, he’s rather calm, telling Kate she needs to go back to Boston. “You’re causing a lot of headaches for some very dangerous people,” Ray says. “I’m trying to protect you.” Death threats are nothing new to Kate, though, and she still needs the ending to her book. The best part of this specific exchange comes with the words Kate leaves Ray with: “It really bothers you, doesn’t it? Not being in control?”

Oh, no, she didn’t! She totally did. What she also did was unknowingly completely flip the script. Up until now, Ray really hasn’t been in control and, yes, it really has been bothering him. He’s spent the past few episodes acting as a glorified baby sitter, chasing Kate around or as crisis management for Mickey and Cochran. But not anymore — Ronald has found Mickey.

Cochran is holding Mickey in an interrogation room where he has been detained — but not arrested. And Cochran is high as a kite on a power-trip from hell. He wants Mickey to sign a statement pinning the murder of FBI agent Van Miller from last season on Ray. Of course, we all know Mickey did it, not Ray. In a rather upstanding move, Mickey declines. Here’s where Linda makes her triumphant return: A ballistics report on her body matched Sully’s gun, and Cochran knows that Mickey and Linda were together at a spa the week before she died. The real tug at Mickey’s conscious comes in picture form: Cochran has scene photos of Linda’s body, which isn’t something Mickey handles too well. See, the issue here is simple: Cochran thinks he can control Mickey; but Ray, not so much.

Meanwhile, Ray is proving why Cochran can’t get a handle on him. Ray does, in fact, have all the control. And after a little bit of arm-twisting of a superior court judge, Ray has Mickey, too. LAPD shows up at the FBI building and “arrests” Mickey, remanding him into the judge’s custody as a material witness in a case. With his father free, Ray makes an unprecedented move, proving why he is the man with all the power.

Ray has Kate meet him somewhere so she can talk to Mickey under his supervision. Much to her (and viewers’) surprise, Cochran is a part of this little pow-wow as well. “You were right. I’ve been lying to you and I’ve been trying to keep you from talking to my father,” Ray says, breaking the silence. “But not for the reasons you think.” Mickey, Ray and Cochran commence to telling her a bloated, elaborate lie that Ray and Mickey had been working with the FBI to catch Sully. It was all coordinated: how they got him out to L.A., what happened at the docks, and why Sully ended up dead instead of in custody. It all goes according to plan, until Kate asks about Sully’s missing girlfriend that he strangled on the way to L.A. Before Cochran can butt in, Mickey tells Kate that she is in witness protection. (Look for that to come back and bite all three of them in the ass later.)

However, for now, Kate is out of everyone’s hair. After some uncomfortable banter about her prior work involving pedophilic Catholic priests and whether or not Ray actually loves his wife, he drops her off at LAX so she can return to Boston and finish her story.

Ray returns home with a pizza, greeting his wife with a kiss and his daughter with a smile. Conor turns off the game he was playing, and they all join one another at the table to eat dinner together. All is right with the world…for now.

Rating

A+

Wow. What a damn good episode. A lot of loose ends were taken care of this week — or, at least, it seems that they were. Ray, after a few episodes of catering to the needs of everyone else, finally asserted his authority on all the different plot points that have had his power to get things done sidelined. I’m really interested to see how Kate continues to play a role in the Sully case now that she’s out of L.A. Will she come back? All bets are safe to assume she will.

Stray Bullets…

— Ray finally took Conor to apologize for pushing that kid down the stairs at school. The thing is, Conor didn’t actually apologize. The kid’s father gets up-in-arms about Conor not actually using the words “I’m sorry,” at which point Ray decides it’s time to leave. Ray takes care of the issue later that night when he narrowly avoids running the father over with his car as he takes out his trash.

— What’s up with the Donovan women lately? Abby and Bridget both are kind of going bat shit crazy. Abby is hopelessly infatuated with some cop guy who taught her how to shoot a gun, even calling him to help her out after she gets arrested for attacking her snooty soon-to-be neighbor in Truesdale. And Bridget? Well, she still has it bad for Marvin, who has her out day drinking and smoking marijuana cigarettes.

— Favorite line from the episode: Mickey saying, “Top o’ the mornin’ to ya,” to Cochran following a snide, racist rant about how Mickey and Ray are screwing up his plans to become head of the L.A. FBI Bureau. (Seriously, I almost spit my Lucky Charms all over the living room.)