Ray Donovan: Twerk Recap

At the beginning of this episode, Ray’s been gone from his house long enough for Abby to ask him what she’s supposed to tell the kids. He’s not having any of her lip though, after seeing a picture of their daughter with Mickey in part of her family tree school project. Leaving his dirty clothes with Abby, and a stack of money, he takes some clean clothes and prepares to leave again. While telling her to buy something nice and make sure she’s at Ezra’s party, she’s raging at him and actually takes off a shoe to throw at him.

Before he actually drives away, Ray walks over to the neighbors’ home – whose music is playing loudly – and kicks in the door. I’m going to need about fifty variations of Liev Schreiber kicking in that door, come through for me, tumblr. He proceeds to rip out all of the speaker plugs from the walls and is threatened by a man with a sword, until he realizes that this is “the” Ray Donovan in his home. Like I imagine Hollywood actually is, the man immediately has a job for Ray: to emancipate “the black Justin Beiber” from his mother, so that he can become a proper star. He, surprisingly, says he’ll look into it and leaves.

Abby, still pissed at him, proceeds to take a bunch of his suits from the closet and donate them to a church. They’re recognized as expensive suits, but she insists she’s not making a mistake and leaves them. During this exchange, she also reveals she’s been thinking about going back to church again – I guarantee this is going to be a point of contention between her and Ray soon.

Mickey’s staying with Bunchy and is looking for porn in his apartment, despite Bunchy having issues with sex after being molested. He doesn’t hide his interest in the settlement that Bunchy is supposed to be getting very well. Elsewhere, Avi is doing surveillance on a man in Boston. This man was the person who drove Mickey from jail to the church where he murdered the priest and for $50,000 he’ll incriminate Mickey. Ray agrees to this plan.

Ezra is upset because Mickey keeps calling to harass him and Ray tries to soothe him, but they’re interrupted by Lee. He is excited by the prospect of Ray acquiring his neighbor, the black Justin Beiber, and says he’s got to buy the kid to ensure control over him.

After donating the suits, Abby goes off to yoga and has a mental breakdown during a breathing exercise. She begins crying and says that she’s a terrible person before bolting from the class and returning to the church for the suits. The priest happily returns them to her and she gives them the money Ray gave her earlier. In disbelief, he estimates it to be approximately two to three thousand dollars.

When Ray’s supposed to pick up Bunchy to go with him to get his settlement check, Bunchy waits inside of the boxing gym – forcing Ray to come in and get him. As soon as Mickey sees him, he gets up to encourage Daryll to beat up on Terry more, as they’re training together. Before Ray can stop the shenanigans, Daryll injures Terry’s arm and his Parkinson’s forces it to lock up. Ray calls the flirty nurse – who doesn’t take a liking to Mickey – and continues his quest to hook her up with Terry. Later, Terry asks her out on a date, though his lack of practice at asking people on dates lately is obvious. He ends up barking, “Do you like spaghetti?” at her, but she accepts anyway.

Bunchy and Ray are about to leave the gym to get Bunchy’s check when Mickey makes a joke about molestation that upsets Ray. In retaliation, he reveals to Mickey that he killed the wrong priest. The man he killed was the brother of the man who molested Bunchy as a kid, but it doesn’t make any difference to Mickey.

At the lawyer’s office, it’s revealed that Bunchy is getting $1.4 million in his settlement and Ray wants the power of attorney over his money, to help him with his addictions. But Bunchy has other ideas. He wants to take care of Mickey with the money and turns on Ray by accusing him of setting up Mickey for jail and of beating up Daryll. Ray admits to having someone else beat up Daryll, but tells him to ask Mickey why it happened.

Because of this spat, Bunchy takes Mickey to his support group for abuse victims. The discussions are heavy and Mickey tries to “lighten” the mood by making a pedophile joke. No one laughs. He makes a comment about wanting some “oral rape” after someone else recounts their story and is ultimately asked to leave. Bunchy declines his offer to leave with him and tells them all to stop by the boxing gym so he can “toughen them up” in the future. Good for Bunchy for showing that he’s not as much of a blind push-over as Ray thinks he is. After his father leaves, he admits to the group that he’s not having a very good day.

The black Justin Beiber, whose real name is Marvin Gaye – pause – Washington, catches up to Ray’s daughter, Bridget, as she walks home from school. They hang out at her house and when Abby comes home, he helps her bring in the groceries. Meanwhile, Ray is negotiating with his mother to give up her parental rights. Sadly, she’s a drug addict and he does convince her to give the boy up. The sword wielding man is his new guardian, though Ray makes him agree to a few terms before he lets him know that the kid is now under his guardianship.

Meanwhile, at a public library, Mickey is looking up twerking women. He calls Ezra and plays the music to him, taunting him. While he’s there, a federal agent approaches Mickey and explains to him that it was because he rolled on Sully that they helped him get out early. We don’t know who Sully is yet, but I’m sure the guy is a big deal in the organized crime world. The agent plans to get more information out of Mickey and gives him an envelope of cash.

Ezra throws a party to celebrate the breaking of ground for the cancer center in his wife’s honor, but during the speech he spots Mickey and gets upset. While Lee rescues Ezra from rambling on-stage, Ray goes after his father unsuccessfully. Later, Avi lets Ray know that Mickey will be going back to prison soon after the man they paid gave his statement to police. Ray makes up with his wife, returning home with her. Bridget is seen chatting online with the neighbor boy, an interesting parallel to their son chatting with Tommy in the previous episode. He ups the ante by asking for a picture of her ass, sending a shirtless picture to her. She shuts her bedroom door.

Mickey brings girls to Bunchy to “twerk” for them and in the final shot, the FBI agent that spoke with Mickey earlier is seen looking at a wall of photos. Lee, Ezra, Mickey and a lingering shot of Ray are shown on the screen – foreshadowing things to come.

What did you think of this episode? I find the pacing much better now than when we started the series, there’s a better balance of flashy Hollywood cases against the rough Boston background of the Donovans. They certainly are out of their element here in Lala land.