Ray Donovan Recap: Faith. Hope. Love. Luck. (Season 7 Premiere)

At last, Ray Donovan’s Season 7 has arrived. It’s just my favorite series! After a montage of clips to remind you what happened last season, we dug right in with Ray in a session with Dr. Amiot. So Ray did follow up on his call to the good doctor and is now his patient. When Amiot wants to know about his parents, Ray says it’s a long story, but he sums it up neatly by saying that Mickey is a piece of you-know-what.

You run, they come after Bunch ~ Ray Donovan

A flashback is shown of Mickey trying to sneak quietly out of Aunt Sandy’s house while his sons sleep in the living room. Ray woke up and Mickey swore he was only going for donuts and coffee. Ray said, “Let’s go” and headed to the car. Before getting in the car, Mickey picked up a four-leaf clover, a symbol of luck. Such a strange thing to do on your way to jail but the Irish are very superstitious. Then Ray drove to the FBI building where Mickey turned himself in. This is, we presume, not only for the murder of FBI agent Frank Barnes, but also for escaping from the hospital jail with Bunchy’s help, but Ray probably left out inconvenient details while relating it to Dr. Amiot. Amiot asked Ray what it felt like to turn his own father in to the authorities. Ray said it wasn’t the first time and the doctor asked him to consider hypothetically what would happen if he put all his anger toward Mickey aside and just forgave him.

I mean, you weren’t exactly a great father ~ Ray Donovan

To that end, Ray went to the jail to see Mickey, breathing deeply on the waiting line. It was just so hard for him to get out the words “I forgive you” but he did it. Mickey could not believe his ears and snorted “You forgive me?” He reminded Ray that he did 20 years in Walpole thanks to him. And now he was going to die in prison because Ray set him up to take the rap for Frank Barnes’ murder. (Not mentioned, but we all know that Daryll killed Frank Barnes when Barnes was going to kill Mickey.) Mickey concluded by saying that Ray should get down on his knees and beg him for forgiveness. Ray concluded by saying eff you and walking out. Classic scene! lol. And how about that time Ray hired Sully Sullivan to kill Mickey? What would Dr. Amiot say if he knew about that?

Mick’s gonna take the rap. ~ Ray Donovan

Meantime, trouble was brewing elsewhere. Out on the waters, two fishermen pulled a bowling ball bag out of the deep. In it was the head of “Big Al” Clancy. He is the one that Mickey shot in “Baby” (S6 E10) when Big Al was about to shoot Ray. Detective Perry gets permission to dredge the area in spite of her commanding officer’s skepticism that whoever killed the three cops (Big Al, Rad Radulovich and Danny Bianchi) would be stupid enough to dump them in the same place. (As you saw in the opening montage, Mickey and Daryll were stupid enough to do just that). Detective Perry interviewed Ray about his calls with Mac MacGrath on the night that MacGrath killed himself and the three cops went missing but Ray was as cool as a cucumber. Then he set about getting Mickey’s gun from Aunt Sandy and going upstate to get Mickey’s fingerprints so he could put it on the gun. But Ray got to the prison before Mickey, who was on a prison transport bus. Ray decided to wait.

Mickey was seated in the back of the bus and at a gas stop, the guards had to jerry-rig the back door when a bolt failed. Mickey eyed up that situation when the door was open and we thought he would escape right then. But it was much more dramatic than that. An Ex-Go tanker truck with a big green four-leaf clover on it pulled up alongside the bus. Mickey looked at his new four-leaf clover prison tattoo and was sure that was a sign. The driver gave Mickey the finger and took off ahead of the bus. While the tanker went up a hill, the driver had a heart attack and the tanker slid back and smashed right into the prison bus! It was one big fiery explosion but they weren’t showing those 4-leaf clovers because God was calling Mickey to heaven. They know I won’t watch Ray Donovan anymore if they killed off Mickey so I’m sure the back door fell off and he got out.

I’m not paying you five figures to deliver messages

Like Tony Soprano, we’re sure Ray isn’t going to tell Dr. Amiot much about his line of work. Ray was at a ballet rehearsal. We were wondering why when a young guy came in the theatre. That’s when Stu Feldman turned around and gave Ray a nod and Ray got up and chased this guy down the corridor. He fell down a flight of stairs in front of a bunch of people who began taking videos on their phone. They taped Ray dragging the guy outside. He must be a stalker because Ray warned him to stay away from Britney Muller, the dancer, and punched him in the face when the guy got mouthy. Then Ray took a deep breath. He went back and apologized to the guy and told him to get some help. Stu was livid because he wanted Ray to take the bat to the stalker.

Ray also was working for corrupt Mayor Ed Feratti. Ray had Lena set up a sex tape on a man who was going to renege on a business deal with Feratti. Lena busted in on the guy in flagrante delicto. She had “a little person” with her to make it look like a child was watching what was going on. Even Feratti thought it was a kid when he saw the video.

What were the rest of the Donovans up to?

Bridget confided in her father that she no longer wanted to be married. She loves Smitty but she’s apparently not in love with him plus she met someone else. Smitty is blissfully unaware of that so far but he got very upset when he learned about the discovery of the head and whined that he was going to go to jail for life. (Smitty killed Danny Bianchi) Bridget assured him that “Dad” will take care of it and Ray kind of cringed when Smitty said “Thanks, Dad.”

Terry is having hallucinations as one of the side effects of his Parkinson’s Disease medication. He can’t use that thing he had before that stopped him from shaking and he is shaking badly. At the drugstore, he was befriended by a woman named Liberty who claimed that all he needed to get the toxins out of his body was milk thistle. She invited him to a tea ritual where he got physically sick from the concoction they gave him. Liberty claimed it was the demons leaving.

Bunchy is stocking shelves at a supermarket and the only sighting of Daryll was when he called up to make sure Ray had everything under control after he heard about the head.

Supporting Cast of “Faith. Hope. Love. Luck.