One Night in Yerevan Recap: Ray Donovan

“One Night in Yerevan” (Ray Donovan, S3 E10 9/13/15) was a rather amusing episode, even if the credibility factor was pretty low.

Ray Donovan managed to get his father, Mickey, out of Dutch with the Armenians, (sorry, we couldn’t resist), and to get control over Mickey’s future behavior with the help of Lee Drexler. They had Mickey declared “non compos mentis” so he wouldn’t have to participate in Det. Muncie’s Big Belikov Sting anymore. He also managed to get Mrs. Minassian to stop her relatives from beating the stuffing out of Mickey with the help of Armenian pop star Hagmis. You know how Shakira’s hips don’t lie? Well, that’s nothing. Hagmis has thighs that go boom. But what she really wanted was to promote an Armenian ballad about genocide and Ray was able to blackmail Flip Brightman into bumping Nick Jonas off his TV show roster so Hagmis could do that.

The title of this episode was actually the English title of Hagmis’ song “Mek Gisher Yerevanmich”. It talked about how her great grandfather was hung from a lamp post during the 1915 Armenian genocide. Hasmig said that the USA doesn’t recognize the genocide but wikipedia says 43 U.S. states recognize it.

Hagmis showed up to the back-breaking party where guns were drawn on both sides and stopped that show, too, without so much as one thigh boom. Mrs. Minassian just could not pass up a chance to have pictures for her wall with Hagmis so she let Mickey go on condition that Ray would be the only one to deal with her in the future. Ray told Mickey that he had to leave L.A. or he would use his power of attorney to put him in the worst shithole he could find and have him pumped so full of drugs that Mickey wouldn’t even know his name. “In his duress,” Mickey was pretty much a beaten man but we won’t worry too much, he’s bound to bounce back. Or maybe not. Det. Muncie busted the Armenians for human trafficking and Davros Minassian noticed Roman, the detective he saw tailing Mickey and Ray as he was being hauled off to the pokey.

In the meantime, after Ray flushed all his cocaine down the toilet, Daryll took Mickey’s car and Michelle and set out to listen to the universe whisper. He learned that from Oprah.

Ed Cochran was just a regular riot. He happily set about trying to figure out how Ray Donovan got a 3% stake in the Finney NFL team. Iris Kim, his supervisor, warned him that if he didn’t get a bead Varick Strauss and his whereabouts, she would put a red flag in his file. Iris took Cochran to the Finney house to interview Paige Finney and her father, Andrew. That is when Ray came face to face with him again. Ray tried to raise the alarm to Finney, who was sulking in his bathroom. He wants the murder weapon back and he wants Ray to tell him where Varick is buried. Ray refused to cooperate on both scores. Cochran made the only reference to Paige’s braces in the entire season: “Boy. What a freak show that was. Has that chick ever heard of Invisalign?” Then he filled Ray in on his current situation: His wife left him for a landscape architect. Now Iris (“that little bitch”) bosses him around for 9 hours a day until he goes home to his apartment to stare at his “cottage cheese ceiling while listening to 12-step tapes.”

Finney had Winslow get the goods on Ed Cochran and he watched the “prurient” Swinging Scrabble Night sex tape, barely able to keep a straight face. He called Iris Kim and Cochran back but refused to discuss his sex life in her presence. Mano a mano, Cochran managed to steer the conversation to Ray. He also knew by this time that Avi had been using Varick’s passport. Finney refused to answer any more questions without his attorney. Cochran gave him a card and said whatever the involvement with Ray, he was on Finney’s side. Finney sarcastically remarked on how reassuring that was since he knew all about the scandal that cost Cochran his FBI gig.

Avi busted into Cochran’s computer and even left a picture of his private parts on there in case the need arose to send it to Cochran’s co-workers. Lena complimented his shapely apparatus, even though it didn’t quite look like she had imagined. Cochran had a trick up his sleeve too. He posed as Avi and paid the storage facility clerk extra to give him a key to Avi’s unit without any ID. Later, Cochran studied all the pics he took in there and noticed a fireplace poker. It struck a chord because he noticed the very same item missing from the set at the Finney house. Just the thing to help him find a way to get even with Ray Donovan. He took a trip over to Finney’s and knocked on the window with the item in hand.

Imagine that! Andrew Finney has a mansion that makes you feel like you’re in Rome. (What a “bathroom” that guy has). But people can stroll right up to the side of his home, day and night. The day he got murdered, Varick Strauss did the same thing. At least with Varick, we assumed he still had keys or knew the codes to get in since he had been family for 20 years.

Bridget got an “another A” and “nice work” praise from her teacher, Greg Donellen. Her classmate, Janet, implied that Bridget’s grade arrived via hanky panky with the teacher and not studying. Bridget punched her in the face and fractured her nose. A meeting with the Dean ensued. Abby sensed something inappropriate between her daughter and Donellen. Distraught, she went home and rummaged through Bridget’s room, confronting her with a bottle of the teacher’s medication. Bridget claimed she stole it and that she loves Donellen who has never done anything to her but does have deep feelings for her. Abby was beside herself and ready to call the police as Terry listened on the stairs.

Abby took herself and her “mf” vocabulary to Donellen’s house. (Can this woman utter a sentence without an “f” bomb?). He managed to convince her that Bridget was the aggressor. She became obsessed with him after learning of their common misfortune: he lost his wife, she lost her boyfriend, Marvin Gaye Washington. Abby decided to believe him rather than cause more trouble since her daughter was only suspended for a week. Terry offered to take care of Donellen but she told him she already handled it. That storyline can’t be over with plus they are trying pretty hard to tease us into believing the relationship between Terry and Abby will cross a line it shouldn’t.

Terry is playing video games with Conor and pretty much doing the main thing that Ray never does — be there when Abby needs him. Well, there are only two more episodes left in this season and we’ll venture that most of it will have to with how Ray handles the Ed Cochran Vendetta. And we’ll probably also have a look at what became of Bunchy and Teresa and that $1.4 million.